Monopoly Streets
DEVELOPER: EA Games
FORMAT: XBOX 360
AGE RESTRICTION: 3
RATING: HHHII
There’s nothing like a game of Monopoly to drive home the crushing consequences of being caught in the wrong place at the wrong time.
There you are, eyeing a tasty piece of real estate booty in a hyperactive property market. It’s a feeding frenzy, a buffet of available land and boss dreams, but you’re on the menu, too.
One false roll of the die and the haughty smirk your eyes just can’t avoid belongs to the rival sporting a bank roll the size of your savings account… and that’s because it is.
Game pretty much over. Such is life.
Naturally, this being the virtual incarnation of the world’s favourite board game, the developers saw fit to dress up the ramifications of outrageous misfortune. It’s a relatively crude illustration, with skyscrapers imploding to the whine of a defeated avatar.
But when compared to the game’s overall visual statement, it appears as if the brains trust behind Monopoly Streets had banked solely on the dynamics of the original game to work its magic. It does.
Monopoly Streets is unlikely to displace the more action-packed capers in your video game hierarchy, precisely because the pace and mood is more happy-go-lucky than high-octane. But it does make for a very enjoyable diversion with its blend of strategy and chance.
And, even though the look doesn’t scale any artistic heights, the overtly cute characters and architecture breathe life into all the wheeling and dealing with a playful charm.
For a change of scenery, EA/ Hasbro have included various themed boards, which you can unlock at the in-game store. There’s not much to look at here – with the exception of a Landmark City, none of the boards boast the architecture to back up their quirky motifs (you can play on a cheese board, for instance, but don’t expect to bid for the moon, or build a Brie skyscraper). All it really serves to confirm is that it doesn’t really matter what board you play on.
Monopoly isn’t the first board game to chase after a piece of the video game pie. Chess, for one, attempted the leap from cardboard to motherboard ages ago, and very successfully too. That, however, is not so say this is a sure thing.
That much is apparent on EA’s other title, Family Game Night Vol 3, a compendium of popular board game titles. As with Monopoly, EA and Hasbro guard the original thrust of the games like a jealous lover. There’s little visual impact, but unlike Monopoly, the gameplay also pulls its punch.
As such, the games tend to meander. Together with an AI component still languishing in the drooling stage, it makes for a frustrating solo player experience. The Game of Life fares best, though the snaking board could have done with some trimming, but classics like Cluedo and Mousetrap fail to make the conversion. Twister was an interesting choice, seeing as there was no way to replicate that human pretzel feel on an analogue controller. So they ditched it altogether, reinterpreting this 1970s classic with a dance game so archaic that it could easily have pre-dated Bust-A-Groove.
Admittedly, Family Game Night Vol 3 wasn’t intended for solo play. It’s a party game – the idea is that you gather friends around the Xbox for an evening of fun.
In this way, your copy of this game is a lot like those cardboard boxes your sets of Cluedo and the like were stored in – put away in a cupboard to be dusted off at the excited suggestion of a visiting acquaintance.
But that was before video games were factored into everyday life. If you own an Xbox, you probably use it every day. The problem is, since Family Game Night Vol 3 isn’t a blockbuster title, and there is no incentive to play it when you’re alone, you’re just as likely to forget that you have it. - Tonight