Fails To Deliver A Potential Classic (Monopoly (Wii))

Member Name: Andy.mack

Product:	Monopoly (Wii)
Date:	02/10/09 (76 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: The graphics are really well done

Disadvantages: The gameplay is awful

There are very few board games that I can honestly say I've played and even fewer that I've played more than twice. One game that does fall into that category though is Monopoly, a game I played countless times when I was younger. So when I saw it was now available to buy for the Wii I thought it couldn't go wrong. A family classic played around the world should convert quite easily onto Nintendo's flagship console. I'd managed to pick up a copy cheap in Morrison's not long after its release but until recently I'd never actually sat down to play it.

If you've never played Monopoly before I'm guessing you've been on Mars or somewhere similar but the premise of the game is fairly simple. You choose a piece from those available and using 2 dice make your way around the board buying properties and building Monopoly's of certain areas in order to get as much rent as humanly possible out of your opponents. Once you've bought all of the matching properties you can build houses and hotels and the game continues until there is only one player left and the others are all bankrupt.

The first thing that struck me when I started a new game was the graphics. There has been a lot of detail put into creating the board, the pieces and even down to the realism with the dice. In order to take your turn you shake your Wii remote as you would the dice and hit A to role, while you are shaking there is the sound of shaking dice coming from the game. These are the nice little touches on a game that make it seem more realistic than it actually is. In fact from a graphical point of view this game really does work, it's got a crystal clear board that makes full use of the graphics. You've got Mr Monopoly on hand to wander around the board and explain things to you as you go. All in all from this point of view EA have got it spot on.

When it comes to the game play there are two different game options. The first of these is the classic version of Monopoly where you can have between 1 and 4 human players and the rest of the players made up of computer controlled players. Within this version there are a number of different boards available from the classic London board and the world board along with a few others to at least keep the modes of play a little different. You start with simply the classic board and the more you play the more boards you can have as sort of a reward for sticking with the game. The real boast on the boxes is being able to play the game in just 30 minutes.

For me though while the graphics are excellent the game play is hugely lacking. There are three game settings for the computer players but regardless of which of these you choose it still seems to stitch up the human players. We've played the game about 8 or 9 times now and whether it's just coincidence or not we seem to be the only player on any of the settings being sent to jail or landing on the squares that cost us far more. The game seems to favour the computer player and from our point of view this makes the game incredibly dull. We thought this might just be a coincidence that it just happened to be us, so we set up games with all four settings of player numbers and on all 4 our human controlled characters kept ending up with trips to jail and income tax while the computer player breezed around the board building houses and hotels.

This really ruined the enjoyment of the game and the boast of 30 minute games seems to be totally wide of the mark. The average games we've played have lasted about an hour and 20 minutes and needless to say this just made it even more frustrating. While EA have got the graphics right, they've completely failed when it comes to the game play.

Of course I did mention 2 game modes and the second one is a variation of the original game called the richest mode. The idea is rather than working your way around the board you play mini games to decide who takes the first turn and who gets the first choice of how many of their pieces land on the board. The four dice are rolled and depending on the order you finish the mini games you then have to choose how many turns you get, obviously those that win get more turns therefore than everyone else as they will choose the highest numbered dice. This is a totally different way to play Monopoly, but unfortunately while the graphics on the mini games and the board are as good as the main game; the game play seems to have the same glitch. As soon as the human player gets into the lead it starts to throw obstacles in your way.

I think it's fair to say that Monopoly could have become one of the classic Wii games but while the graphics and interaction are well designed and look impressive the game play lets it down majorly. I've never in almost 18 years of playing computer games come across one as one sided as this and that puts me off playing the game and would certainly put me off recommending it to anyone. There was a lot of potential in this game that EA have failed to realise. For £14.99 I have to say that it is still massively overpriced and while there are a few redeeming features within the game it's just not worth it and this doesn't come close to the original board games.

Amazon: £14.99
Amazon Marketplace: £9.85

Summary: The classic boardgame brought to the Wii