Fun, colourful, fast-paced update, ideal for famil
[This review was collected as part of a promotion.] Immensely good fun! This game was family friendly and rollicks along much more quickly than traditional Monopoly with less need for property-buying tactics. This would make it perfect for younger players, though we played with a 14- and 12-year-old, and they were fully engaged. The playing pieces are metal, like the originals, so feel pleasantly weighty in the hand but are colourful, adding to the fun of this version of the game. The ‘phone throne’ is a fun addition - the stand works for tablets and phones - and it was great that you only need one phone to play. When a player lands on a property, that property must either be bought by that player, or opened out to the other players at auction. This means the board quickly ‘fills up’. The action cards all involve an animation or mini-game, making even going to jail quite good fun. And there’s a chance to get a free property with the high-speed rail game. Crowns upgrade your property and double the rent. There is plenty of opportunity to scan QR codes (on property cards and action cards) and to scan your bank card - whether buying property, paying rent, or trying to outbid your competitors at auction - so this game will keep any techno-fan happy. It’s super easy to scan - the camera is impressively sensitive, so even players furthest away from the enthroned phone can easily take their go. The app shows which player is in the lead at any time (a combination of properties owned and bank balance, as far as we could tell) but suspense is maintained right to the end - after the last property on the board is sold, each player gets one more turn and then the app tots up final scores, including end-game bonuses, such as for owning the most properties, passing GO the most, being in jail the longest, and so on. So it’s like the most egalitarian kids party game, where, in some way, everyone’s a winner. We’re looking forward to playing again, as we didn’t even explore the option to do deals and trade properties with other plays, and no-one went broke during the two games we’ve played so far, so there are still new things to discover. Final words from my 12-year-old: “I found this game very fun and easy to play. The online way is a lot easier to play with and a lot harder to cheat with. The whole thing seemed to be great quality and I love the metal characters (I was expecting plastic). I am definitely going to play it again and have already introduced it to a couple of people.”