Customer Reviews

Monopoly 3

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

 

 

What can you say about Monopoly? It is quite simply a classic board game. But board games don't always translate well to the PC. A monitor is not a game board, and keyboards sometimes get between a player and the game. However, Monopoly, with its reliance on strategy, translates pretty well to PC.

My first Monopoly PC game was originally written for DOS, and I played the Windows 3.1 version. I decided to buy this new version for my Windows XP machine. The multimedia effects, while better, aren't as cutting-edge as the older version was. The only people who'll be amazed are those who have been living in a cave for the past five years.

What is new are the voices. The older version had lots of sound effects - sometimes just to make noise. In this version, not only do the tokens make appropriate noises, they talk as well. What they say is appropriate. The dog, for example, when landing on a property he owns states that it "smells like home." However they only have so many phrases to repeat, and it doesn't take long for them to become annoying.

There is also a narrator doing play by play, including reading the Chance and Community Chest cards drawn. The narration is complete enough that visually impaired folks may actually find this to be an acceptable game. It certainly is better in this regard than it's previous version, but you still can't feel the board projected on the monitor, nor can you do things like count your money out loud, so not all the challenges have been overcome.

The animations in my older version consisted mostly of little clips that played during the token movements. They added nothing to the game play. While they were fascinating, and fairly advanced for the time, once you saw them each, there was no reason to not turn them off. This version is different.

In this version during game play the board is rotated, tilted, and zoomed in and out of to allow you to see what's going on. But it can be a little disorienting at first. Imagine playing the low-tech board version of Monopoly without a chair, moving around the table while you play. It's easy to loose track of which side of the board you're looking at! But it does allow you to see what's going on, and who owns what better than some of your other tools.

Speaking of tools, there is a calculator available that can do things like estimate your potential earnings, and other statistical functions. But if you're really into that sort of thing, you'll find it's a bit limiting in what it can do, and can't handle the "what-if's" the strategist may want to know.

The biggest drawback is the speed of the game during trades. You need to think fast, and you don't get much opportunity to gather more information when a trade is proposed. I would suggest not worrying about the time. Let it expire. Take your time, and then go back and propose it as a new trade.

If you like playing Monopoly, and either want to play against computer generated AI players, or on-line against opponents far away, this game is a must. If the only way you play Monopoly is with live people surrounding a table, the multimedia effects of this game won't replace that social interaction, but you might find this game to be a fun way to practice between parties.

The bottom line: There's room for improvement in future versions, but this is a pretty good PC implementation of a board game classic.

If you love Monopoly you will love this game. The graphics are very good. Players have the options of playing one of many North American cities, such as Atlanta, Boston, Dallas, New York ect.
There is only one city outside of the United States and that is Toronto. They could add Montreal or Vancouver or even Mexico City. Of course the original Atlantic city version is also available.

The properties on the board have images that show these city specific properties. But, the chance and community chest cards reflect the original Atlantic City version. So if a card says take a walk on the Boardwalk the token moves to the corrosponding property. On the New York board "Boardwalk" is "Fifth Avenue". "St. Charles Place" is "Central Park". Other properties are the Staue of Liberty, Wall Street and the Empire State Biulding. The Los Angeles Board has properties from around the Los Angeles Area.

The game has a toggle button where the player can switch from the main view to the status view. In staus view, all of the players assets are seen. This is useful for trading. Also this game has a Game Calculator where players can determine the net value of themselves and other players, tell the probability of landing on a particular property on a single roll, as well as other statistics.

The tokens have speaking voices. And yes, they can be repetitive and annoying, this feature is good for children but you can switch it off in the options menu. The "horse and rider" token does a really bad immitation of Clint Eastwood. When it lands on another players property it says; "Now don't make me mad!" The cannon is funny, it sounds like a Confederated Civil War Officer.

The computer version allows you to adjust the rules. Such as setting fines and taxes as well as adjusting the salary for passing "GO".

You cannot create your own board but that is trivial. It is still fun with the city options that are available. It would be great if they added cities such as London, Paris, or Rome. I am originally from New York State so my favorite board is the New York City Board.

All of the other people that have reviewed this game are correct. Some of the points are pretty picky, especially when this game has far greater flaws than annoying voices.

It is true that this game does allow the computer players to make deals and build on properties out of turn. Even more frustrating is when the computer interrupts you during a deal your trying to make with another player, to do a deal of it's own, and thereby cancelling your deal.

However, the most upsetting thing about the game that no one has mentioned is that the game simply cheats (it is very clear and obvious). I have played several games (winning only once) and every game has gone the same way. As you aquire properties, the roll of the dice time and time again will hardly ever roll in your favor. I have owned entire sides of the board or corners of the board, and for about 6 times around the board the other players will not land on your properties, but you will land on all of theirs. In one instance I had another player go to jail 5 times in a row around the board avoiding my properties.

Anyone who plays this game will take notice of my point. The roll of the dice seems to be calculated by the game according to the situation. This is wrong. The dice should roll by chance, and that has nothing to do with a "difficulty" setting. Although that is also true. There is no difference in the difficulty settings.

Also, this game is a drop from Monopoly 2. This version does not offer a board editor as Monopoly 2 did, and there are a few picky graphic flaws in this newer version.

Overall, the graphics are good and the gameplay is ok. Fix the cheating, the playing out of turn frustrations and it would be a lot better.

While this game is top of the line fun when playing other people, I'd have to recommend not playing against the computer. While playing the AI, my friends and I have noticed that the game cheats incessantly. The game allows the AI to build on your turn, but you cannot build on theirs, It almost never lands on my property, but I land on it's almost every go-around. the game allows the CPU to buy land (both for sale and on auction) even though it has NO cash and it offers outrageous trades. For example: I offered to trade the computer property for property giving us both monopolies. It countered by asking for ALL of my properties, save the one monopoly I was trying to get, like 8 in all and over $750 for the one property I wanted. It does this throughout the entire game making trading impossible and the game rendered impossible to beat if it allows no one to aquire a monopoly. The voices on the game get very annoying after a few minutes and the camera angles could use help. But in a multiplayer game it is much more fun, utilizing fully customizable gameplay options and different boards to play on... it's worth it if you have someone to play with. If not... look elsewhere

All in all, there is actually very little to praise in Monopoly 3. The music is dull and after a few minutes begins to grate. The voices are annoying from the very start. The game, as noted in other reviews, cheats incessantly; making it a game not worth having.

The only reason to actually own this game is to play online with others. If you won't be doing that, and will only be playing against the computer, don't bother. The game cheats to the point of absolute frustration.

The 3-D effects and music quickly become annoying. The overall layout doesn't work very well either. With the older version from Westwood, all the players and their property titles are easy to see and assess, and any trades allow you plenty of time to decide on whether you want to approve it or counter offer. When a trade is proposed by a computer player, there's barely enough time to gauge what's going on before the program moves on.
If you enjoy Monopoly for the strategic aspects and don't need all the special effects, get one of the older versions. Even the AI players aren't much different in the way they play, and if you're not going online to play, you need AI players that are less predictable and more creative.

Monopoly is a classic boardgame, and most families will have played the game and probably had plenty of fun. Monopoly 3 takes this to a new level.
The game is very easy to get to grips with: with the interface you can't really go wrong. With a large choice of different boards and many different game option, the game is customisable and therefore you can tweak the setting to exactly how you like them, which I admire.
The computer do appear to cheat with the dice rolls, but often this can't be noticed . The soundtracks can be funny and add a bit of atmosphere, but are mostly repetitive after the first couple of games.
The only real complaints I have with this game is the cheating, and the camera view: When you want to trade, for example, the camera will only zoom in on the centre of the board, so you can't actually see the prices.

Overall: If you have played Monopoly before and liked it, then this is definitely worth considering, although earlier free version could probably be given just as much thought.

My biggest grips with this game is not the cheating by playing out-of-turn - it is the fact that you cannot save the settings for another time.

Each time you start it up - even if you have a game saved - you need to go through the tedium of manually switching off the voices for the narrator, the voice for the playing pieces - and any other settings you want changed.

I like to be able to open a game / application and have it ready for me to use - Monopoly3 does NOT let you do that, you have to make all the changes to your preferences each and every time - while the narrator offers you his cordial greetings - once again.

Graphics are good, cheating is bad, no save option for settings is a right pain in the behind.

Much better than the original online version and I really like the cities board additions as well as the camera views and animations. My only problems with this game is the sickning music and voices that only say 1 or 2 differnt sayings each time. They also needed to add the starwars board and all other versions of monopoly remakes into this as well. Other than that I give it a thumbs up

What board game could be more American classic than monopoly? And MONOPOLY 3 brings it to your pc! No more playing alone as 3 different players for days and days (yes...I did this as a child, before the age of technology). There are cute graphics and animations, nice sound effects and voices (albeit a bit repetitious after hours of play), options galore that allow you to play with all sorts of different rules and with the Monopoly city versions of 10 cities (where the street names are names of places in that city etc). Basically if you loved Monopoly you will find this a good replacement to whining on your friends to play with you. But it does only seem to appeal to lovers of the game. Not to mention that there are issues with the game "cheating", and doesn't allow for different levels of difficulty. I believe the patch sorts some of these issues out, and they are eliminated completely when you play over the net. That's the real fun - playing with other Monopoly fanatics ;).
Despite a lot of bad reviews on Amazon, I find myself enjoying Monopoly immensely from time to time when I get that sudden board game urge. But if you have never thought once in the past year "oh I'd like to play monopoly", I wouldn't recommend purchasing it.