Customer Reviews

Monopoly Here and Now World

5 star:		(46)
4 star:		(29)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

I will be upfront that Monopoly is not my favorite game, but I have several siblings & friends who love it... hence the purchase. The reason chose the world edition was because it had both electronic banking and the new twist (we have the original Monopoly.)

I love board games with the electronic banking, and this one was no exception. As a note though, the regular monopoly with electronic banking uses a different bank machine which is, for whatever reason, much quicker than the one included in this game. With that in mind if you are looking for electronic banking go with the other one. The electronic banking requires 2AA batteries (as do most standard board games, I use rechargeable).

This game is 2-6 players, ages 8+, and is played like regular monopoly. (The idea is to purchase places, try and get all (2-3) of the same color so you can add houses and hotels, create a "monopoly" and cause the others to go bankrupt, therefore becoming the winner.

One neat aspect of the game is that you don't know which 6 pieces your game will come with. The options are: (North America) Canadian Mountie, Cowboy Hat, Baseball Glove, Nascar, (South America) Inca Mask, Inca Statue, Easter Island Moai, Football, (Europe) London Cab, Pretzel, Matador, Windmill, (Africa) Safari Hat, Egyptian Head Mask, African Mask, Camel, (Asia) Chinese Dragon, Tuk-Tuk, Russian Dolls, Sumo Wrestler, (Australia) Kangaroo, Koala, Surfer, and Boomerangs.

You also get a mix of houses and hotels from each location which are really interesting. The locations, starting from "GO" are: (Brown) Gdynia, Taipei, (Light Blue) Tokyo, Barcelona, Athens, (Pink) Istanbul, Kyiv, Toronto, (Orange) Rome, Shanghai, Vancouver, (Red) Sydney, New York, London, (Yellow) Beijing, Hong Kong, Jerusalem, (Green) Paris, Belgrade, Cape Town, (Dark Blue) Riga, and Montreal.

The four what would be "railroads" in the original game are "Monopoly Rail", "Monopoly Air", "Monopoly Cruise", and "Monopoly Space."

The two that are normally the water company & electricity are "Solar Energy" and "Wind Energy."

Game Play:

The board comes with standard dice and cards (the electronic system is just for banking). The instructions recommend that if you have several people playing making one person's job the banker (and that's it). You will need it with this banking system. It has a noticeable lag in transactions and once the game gets going where every turn has bank transactions occurring it will take one full person to do this job.

Pros:
*Banking system is easier to keep up with and add up (in the end) than the paper money. Also you don't run into the problem of running out of paper money
*The 6 pieces from the 20-30 available are interesting
*The "world" theme adds an interesting twist. My little sister said on the first game "Woo! I got Boardwalk, uhh I mean Montreal" :)
*The houses from each different country are very creative

Cons:
*The bank system has a noticeable lag (especially compared to the original electronic monopoly) this can be frustrating, particularly if no one in your group wants to just do the bankers job

Overall we enjoy this game and are not disappointed with it. We especially love the creative touch the "World" aspect adds to it.

Monopoly Here and Now World Edition has fun components. Tokens are six from 20 created to commemorate each city on the board; houses and hotels are fun little sculptures based on real buildings and abodes.

The infamous Internet vote for which cities to include means world-class places like Venice, Vienna, Moscow, Munich, San Francisco, Dubai and Buenos Aires missed out, while the positioning of others on the board is very much open to debate, but that's part of the fun.

Greasy piles of banknotes being replaced by a credit card may or may not be an improvement, depending on your world view. But it's certainly novel, if you have a head for numbers, because there's no way to check your balance without inserting the card in the bank machine -- which you will soon grow tired of doing, especially if you're the nominated banker.

Monopoly is always going to be Monopoly. I don't care for the over-colourful and crowded board design, but this is still the world's best property trading game at the end of the day.

Cool images but had problems with money device; it would zero out sometimes and no on wrote their dollar amounts down so it was kinda annoying. Wish they would offer this board but with paper money. I could use the old Monopoly money I have, but translating bills from the new "million" system is not worth it when playing with kids.

My three children ages 13, 10, and 7 love playing Monopoly for some reason that baffles me. I was never a big Monopoly fan until I saw how much enjoyment my kids got out of the game. We have the classic version but I had my eye on this game because I love anything with an International theme. I was worried about how well the electronic banking machine would work and go over with the kids but my worries turned out to be unfounded.

The kids love the electronic banking machine and take turns as banker (based on another reviewer's suggestion) to keep the banking transparent. I also suspect they just want to play with the "toy" that makes satisfying sound effects during each transaction. The machine is quite durable and still works perfectly after much rough handling. As far as what another reviewer said about the machine in the World version being slower than the regular version, we only have the World version and it seems to run at a fine speed.

I find that the game is slightly more educational than the original. I like the fact that the properties are more realistically priced. My younger children are getting more familiar with the concept of thousands and millions. I also think it allows them to get used to the idea of electronic banking and remembering to check their balance before they spend. We enjoy reading facts about the cities from around the world and admit to never having heard of a couple of the cities such as Gdynia. Finally, since we have to spread our games over 2-3 days, this version seems to be tidier when left mid-game than the original version.

When deciding to purchase this, I though the electronic banking concept would be faster, more accurate, and less cumbersome than using Monopoly money. In my experience it has none of these advantages.

For some reason, they designed the banking unit to pause a couple seconds before and after every transaction - it must do the actual transaction instantly, but stops to make a cash-register-like sound. All player-to-player deals must go through the unit. You need the unit to check your exact balance. It really becomes a bottleneck to the pace and hampers deal-making. Assigning a non-playing banker may help.

Accuracy of the unit is not in question, but making sure the cards go in the desired way (debit vs. credit) requires the banker to pay close attention to whose card is whose, and the nature of the transaction. Relatively small color codes on the cards makes this job more difficult. Finally, keying in the data must also be correct - numbers and denomination - and only the banker sees the result. Not transparent like handing over cash between players or banker. I'm sure the unit itself is accurate, it's the error-prone nature of the transaction process that leads to mistakes. The banking unit could have been designed better in this regard.

In my opinion, forcing all of the game's action through one person (the banking unit operator) is just not as fun as dealing with cash. The game itself is fine, with its interesting selection of properties and inflated currency.

Thew day my nephew received the game, he played it with his friends for over 4 hours.

We first played the Here and Now version while visiting family in Virginia during the February snow storm (we live in Louisiana- imagine that!). This version is so much fun!! We purchased it for our family days after arriving back home from Virginia. The electronic credi/debit card makes the money exchange so much easier and faster than the original version with the paper money. Also the high dollar amount on the debit/credit card and the high dollar property value makes this version interesting. We have actually researched d information on various countries on the monopoly board, so it is educational in that aspect as well. We look forward to playing and have set aside Family Game Night..even our 17 year old likes to play with us. He has also played it with his friends when they visit. Our son will soon be leaving for college and my husband and I often look at each other and smile as we acknowledged how special our family moments are together...thanks Monopoly! Our 17 year old son and 9 year old daughter continue to find wonderful ways to stay connected and this game has only enhanced that connection. We have also played with friends when they visit and several have purchased this product for their families as well!
Enjoy!! You won't be disappointed.

I am a monopoly fanatic and was really excited to see that the game had been upgraded to include electronic banking. Not even giving attention to the exorbitantly increased prices for everything, the banking system just didn't do it's job. Of all the six cards you are provided, only the player 4 card reads correctly when withdrawing money. The others either didn't read at all or showed up as though they were the player 4 card. I feel like this was such a waste of money. In my opinion, it's not worth the hassle.

I liked, but i wish if the design is enhanced to provide each player with access to the bank. if you are the bank it gets tiring afer while to charge all players. we tried passing the bank around, but that made the game slower. we played for hours since we got the games and it is easy to clean-up since no money to sort.

when i bought this i especially liked the card system its so fast but if used carelessly u could lose a specific amount of cash and u wont be able to get it back e.g. if u spend 9k u wont be able to recharge ur card with that amount again maybe for the value being very small and i did wish that monopoly made a single flip board instead of those 4 way opening ones, anywayx great product though i highly recommend it.....when u pick the chance/community contest it even has some specific facts thus providing an educational way of fun!!