Customer Reviews

Monopoly 2008 [Old Version]

5 star:		(18)
4 star:		(12)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

You don't need the CD in the drive to play -- that makes it perfect for my intended usage, killing time on a laptop during business flights. I can go one better than simply conserving power by not accessing the CD -- I can replace the CD drive altogether and swap in a second battery on long flights. I didn't expect that perk when I put this on my wish list, but that alone makes it a great choice for travelers.

The interface is much improved -- you can see who owns what with tabs on the inside edge of the board, and they're colored if the property is mortgaged. Unlike the old Westwood versions, the animations aren't overly long and don't slow down play much at all. (You can turn off viewing computer players' turns altogether to make it even faster.) And the house rules options are plentiful and easy to adjust -- great if you like playing Monopoly "your way."

I didn't even notice this edition has no online play, but as an airplane player, that totally didn't matter to me. I was looking for a great single-player game of Monopoly and I found it!

Everything is great about this game until you start 'trading' with your computer opponents. That's when you start making offers to buy or swap properties. There are three computer skill levels, but none of them make the slightest bit of sense. Sometimes you offer a tiny amount of cash for a key property, and amazingly the computer accepts, although most of the time it is the impossibility of getting them to accept your offers that frustrates. By way of experiment, I have offered every one of my properties and all my money to computers opponents in exchange for their Get out of Jail free card, and they still refuse to accept my offer! Clever property trading is the whole key to being a skilful Monopoly player, otherwise its almost all pure luck, and the total lack of logic to the way the computer players trade ruins what would otherwise be a brilliant game.

I have a laptop without a CD drive, so when I read the reviews on this product that said the original CD was not required to run the program, I ordered it. I dragged my USB DVD drive out of the closet, hooked it up to my laptop, and installed. Apparently, the publisher has updated the copy protection, since this program won't run without the original CD in the drive.

I'm not about to drag an external DVD drive around with me just so I can play a game, so I pretty much just wasted my money on this software. Be warned: The current version of the software shipping for this item is heavily copy protected to the point that legitimate purchasers without a built-in CD drive are unable to use the program.

UPDATE: The protection used in my copy is SecuROM (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SecuROM). Be warned that even after uninstalling the game, the SecuROM software is NOT uninstalled. Before installing this game, it is probably a good idea to do a Google search for "securom uninstall". Securom is supposed to allow the software to be used without the original disk in the drive, but I was unable to make it happen.

I've been playing Monopoly since grade school, starting with the classic board game and its many editions. (The classic is still my favorite.) Then computerized editions of course came along. Including a hand held LCD Monopoly game (which I think was produced by Tiger Electronics). This worked out great for me as I always had problems getting enough players together. As any one who has played the slew of these computerized versions knows that they haven't always been good. As a matter of fact some of them are pretty bad. But I always enjoyed them until the new version came along. This one however has some issues that I find very ridiculous and I'll cover them in a minute. (Believe it or not there are some really good things too which I want to cover first.)

If it weren't for these I would have rated it one star...
- Pros -
- You can see the whole board at one time. I know this sounds simple but this is a very nice touch.
- Graphics are clean, property cards are easy to read.
- You don't have to sit through the insufferable AI player animations if you don't want to.
- Easy modification of rules to something that will probably resemble your house rules.
- The user interface is clean and doesn't really feel cluttered.
- You can easily find out information about properties by simply letting your mouse rest on them. Nice.
- Works with newer operating systems. Sweet!

- Cons -
- The AI cheats! After about a dozen or so games under my belt it's the only conclusion that I can come up with. These include but are certainly not limited to AI players always landing on unpurchased properties for the first several rounds. AI players who almost always receive positive Chance and Community Chest Cards. (On the other hand you will almost certainly NOT receive a positive card of any substantial amount.) AI players who will consistently land on your properties UNTIL you build houses or hotels. If a property is mortgaged then they will certainly land on it, that is until it's out of mortgage. (I know these are sounding like Murphys' Laws of Combat, but this is really the way the game plays.) Example I had one game where I had Free Parking to pay out $500, and double the Pass Go amount if you landed on Go. (This is very similar to the way I play with a board game. I had these options on almost always.) Wouldn't you know that I had one AI player hit each one of those every single turn, almost without fail. (Do you think I ever landed there? That's right I didn't... during my 12+ games I landed on the Free Parking space once, and landed on go about five times.) Mid-game this AI player had amassed over $5,000 wile I who own a little over a third of the board and owned one of the two only Monopolies in the game had only $300 average. I would like to point out that the other AI player who owned the other Monopoly had garnered a little over $3,000 in this same time period. Before you ask it wasn't Boardwalk and Park Place. I could go on but I think you can understand where I'm coming from here.
- The higher the difficulty setting the more the AI cheats.
- You can't save your custom rules, so expect on reimplementing them each time you play.
- No bartering. This has been present in a few past titles and it was missed here as a result.

Outside of the AI problems this is a really pleasant rendition of one of my favorite board games. I would not recommend it to someone who is new to the game but a familiar player who can overlook blatant cheating would find it fun.

I cannot believe the AI in this game. Was this programmed by somebody who got hit in the head a dozen times by a sledge hammer? I cannot believe the trades between the computer players. It ruins the game when stupid trades are made to give other 'players' monopolies that effectively end the game. The decisions behind some of the financial transactions is as bad those made by our government..no...worse.

I paid $9 for this and am pleased with my investment. Playing on the computer allows you to save a game in progress, play computer opponents as well as humans, and you don't have to worry about kids, dogs, cats, or wind messing things up.

If you're looking to play Monopoly "as is" on your computer, you will enjoy this game. Visually you'll see everything you would if you were playing on a board (except the cash). You can read the properties and cards, and the board is authentic. The presentation is very good.

The only real headache this gives me is setting dollar amounts for trades or auctions. You have to increase or decrease the amount with up/down arrows rather than being able to type the amount. This is tedious when starting from $0 and wanting to go to $425. Also I'd have preferred online capabilities. I mean this is Monopoly 2008 not 1998.

I have NO clue how no one has touched on this yet but this game does NOT allow you to play online against friends. We ALL know that the true FUN of Monopoly is the human interaction and negotiating, and all that magic is killed when playing against AI programing that is ludicrous and will NEVER be great. It's hilarious - but they can program an EXPERT Chess computer program that can beat the BEST human player in the world, but Monopoly is so odd that NO company has ever produced very good AI players. Computers just don't know how to haggle! So having an updated version of Monopoly WITHOUT online multiplayer in this day and age is ridiculous. The only way to do it on the PC is the old Westwood version and it's a pain because there are no servers working anymore.

If you have an XBOX 360, there is Monopoly Streets. but it has some FATAL flaws as well that need patching.

In great sadness and dismay, there is still NOT a goo FULL way to play Monopoly online in 2011. How can this be so?
Don't even tell me pogo... because the version on pogo is awful.

This game is as good as the board game monopoly. Can't find anyone to play the board game with you? If not, then this is the game for you. It has three levels of difficulty, so it can challenge any level of skill. Great for kids and adults! This is a great buy!

Either the folks who designed the game have no idea how to play Monopoly, or they just didn't do a good job with the AI. The thing is convinced, at any IQ setting, that it can defeat a player with hotels if it just collects enough normal rents.

In a 3 player game, when one player gets a monopoly and starts building houses, the other two players should trade ASAP to get their own, or else they will lose. But this stupid thing will NOT trade in that situation, unless IT is the only party getting a monopoly. And sometimes not even then. Even if the human player is the one that is up, the two computer players cannot figure out that they will lose if they don't trade.

Very boring/frustrating solitaire games result.

Three stars for the pretty graphics and the supposition that this can be used with all human players just fine. But don't buy it for solitaire mode.

I like the visual design of this version because it's very clean and you can see the entire board at all time. All the texts and details are organized. None of that 3D stuff so it's not demanding for older computers. Another nice feature is you can choose to skip the animation of the computer player's moves, unfortunately it still retains some animation so it still feel a bit slow for me. If you click the mouse you can skip your own moves animation as well.

One fault though is the game can't keep its graphic details as you change the screen resolution, it will stretch instead of keeping the sharpness of texts and details, the texts becomes blurry.

The biggest problem I have with the game is the cheating AI. The game create an impression of increased difficulties by controlling the dice roll of the computer players so they will often land on the nice spots, either to always land on a non-purchased estate when the game just started or skipping pass your estate that has buildings on it. While your dice rolls tend to land on useless places like Chance and Community chest too often. For example, on normal difficulty, playing against 3 other computer players, after circling Go twice I have one estate bought, while the other computer players owns almost every other estates on the board + hotel built.... then I landed on income tax. The only way for me to take advantage is abuse the "Trade" system by gathering up money and buy off the computer player's estates, but that is no fun.

Still I think hardcore players will enjoy this difficulty as a challenge.