Customer Reviews

Monopoly Tycoon

5 star:		(19)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(17)
2 star:		(12)
1 star:		(12)

 

 

This isn't a bad game. I tend to use the full range of stars for reviews, so truly fantastic items get fives. Threes don't mean the game isn't worth your time, it just might not be your taste.

Positives: A well thought out spin on the classic monopoly game. All the elements are there. Railroads, properties, color groups, hotels, and of course, monopolies.

Looking for a competitive game that won't drain your whole afternoon? Want to know exactly how long the game will last? This game can be played with definite limits. A plus for those who have time windows to play in.

Differences: The game isn't so much about controlling the whole gameboard (in this case a city) or driving others to bankruptcy. Instead, you play against others in a race to complete the goals of the scenario. This might be overall sales, empire value, or election to mayor. Some scenarios do pick off players one at a time (in a Weakest Link style fashion), but this doesn't mean that player went bankrupt, just that they were in last place in some fashion when voting was conducted in the town by its "citizens".

Negatives: Marketing fluff - This isn't really a sim, but a complex game. To call this the world's first competitive sim isn't anywhere near the mark. Rollercoaster Tycoon is more of a traditional sim, and Simcity more so. This is definitely a souped up boardgame that is complex enough to require a computer to model it. Second complaint, this game has nothing to do with Rollercoaster Tycoon (Chris Sawyer). The folks at Deep Red have made a great game, but the association by the publisher ("brought to you by the folks who brought you") is plain irresponsible. That's like saying Activision "makes" Quake.

Depth: The game seems to have a lot of different strategy. I have gone down several paths to win scenarios. In other words, I don't feel like I've played the game out, yet. The Computer AI is challenging, but doesn't seem to practice the same depth of strategy I do. You get the feeling you can manipulate it. Online play may be a key here (haven't played online as of this writing).

Overall, I find this game fun and challenging, with enough variation to allow for subtle strategy changes mid game. Some people ARE reporting lockups and freezes on the community boards, but its unclear whether something is really wrong with the code itself, or these are jsut isolated issues. I myself am not dropping a warning on this for game stability.

Monopoly Tycoon is significantly different from the Monopoly board game we've all played, so even if you liked the original game, you might not like this one. Monopoly Tycoon is a real-time strategy game where the object is to build up city blocks and satisfy the needs of the city's residents in order to win. The pace is fast, and the computer opponents know the rules and play hard even on the easy difficulty level.

Let me point out that you CAN play games against the computer without playing a scenario. I've read reviews that say this is impossible, but they are mistaken. The game allows you to host a multiplayer game with up to five computer opponents. You can also select various types of win conditions. Even though you are hosting a multiplayer game, if you want to play by yourself, simply start the game without any human opponents. Simple. But be warned; when playing multiplayer, you cannot pause the game nor speed up the clock.

There are a lot of positives to this game. I've had no problems installing or playing the game, and I only have a Pentium III/500 Mhz. The graphics are excellent -- true 3D with easy camera controls, wonderful lighting effects, night and day, cars and people that move about the streets, and more. The environment really makes the game -- it is well done and fun to look at.

Unfortunately, you don't spend much time looking at your creations. You're always on the lookout for new business opportunities, which typically means identifying a need for a given block (for example, your citizens might want a grocery store) and then building the appropriate store to service that need. Repeat indefinitely. You rarely have time to sit back and appreciate what you've built! The game does have some time-saving features that become easy to use with practice. But ultimately I found myself wishing that I had some time to enjoy my city.

There's some fun buried beneath the surface of this game, but it won't appeal to the average gamer. Unless you like economic warfare mixed with real-time strategy, this game probably isn't for you. And it really doesn't bear much relation to Monopoly. But it's still an innovative game, and it's certainly fun to look at -- when you feel you can spare the time just to look!

Update: This will not play on Vista/Windows7 unless you disable the music/sound in the game menu. Which is disappointing because it's cool when the decade changes...the music changes to suit that decade. You may also have to right-click on the icon, choose properties, Compatibility and change to XP SP2.

Monopoly for the PC has been out for some time, so I don't know why the complaints about how this "isn't Monopoly". What's so exciting about regular Monopoly that take hours to play?

This game is fast pace and cut-throat. I can just imagine what the multi-player is like. Being that I haven't played that yet, I'll just stick to the single-player. It has the familiar game pieces (as their 3D representative character) and blocks. The premise is similar, but with a twist. Instead of hopping around a board via die roles, you pick a block and start building. The single player gives you progressive challenges each with 3 difficulty levels. You only need to complete the easiest level to progress to the next. You also have railroad and utilities that you can buy in some scenarios.

In single mode, you are pitted against 2 computer challengers and get scenarios such as "Be the first to make $2,000 in 1 day of business." This is where the "sim" comes in--you're not only building a wide array of shops, you're trying to build what will draw the consumers and shut out the competition. You poll the people in the neighborhoods near where you want to build to find their desires, which change over time. Fill a block with businesses and take it to auction--if you outbid the others, all of your stores get free rent/utilities for a period of time so that your bottom line grows. The game starts in the 1930s but ever 1 "day" is a five year advancement in time and you gain the ability to build new business that weren't available in the previous time period. Fads come and go so a store that was popular in the 1940s may not be in 1960s. That's okay because you can renovate and change the type of business it is.

If it sounds like you get bogged down with all this, don't worry, you don't. You don't have time as it's very fast paced. Building is a matter of choosing a business type and dragging the mouse over x-number of squares and it zooms to completion immediately. The larger the building and/or the nicer the frontage, the more it costs. You can also sell off businesses that aren't doing well or change them into a different business. You have day businesses and night ones so you have to pick your building time well. Money comes in from customers, but goes out when it's time to re-order supplies and pay rent at 6 a.m. Also, you want to keep an eye on your cash levels and those of your opponents so you can send your block to auction at the best advantage for you.

Like the traditional Monopoly, you can get "Chance" cards, some good, some bad. No passing go or landing in jail, though. One thing that's a neat touch is that the music changes to the appropriate period as you move through the decades.

The only things that can be frustrating is the auctions--the characters can be tediously the same. (If you decide to quit the auction, you can click a button and speed up the pace. I wish it would just do that itself instead of bidding continuing to come from the computerized opponents.) The other thing is that it takes you through specific challenges--you're not just allowed to play a regular multiplayer against the computer (at least at first--I haven't finished all of the challenges.) The scenarios do help you get started if you didn't do the tutorial, but it would be nice if you could pick and choose which ones you want to play instead of forcing you to complete each challenge before moving on to the next.

All in all, they've kept true to the idea of Monopoly, but have given a new spin to an old game.

The guys at Deep Red have done it again. The last time I was driven to write a review was when I had lost an entire weekend playing Risk II, created by the same bunch that have developed this little gem.

If you're into tycoon games or the best of the Sim games, you will surely love this baby. It will blow your Monopolies clean off! I've not long had my copy because I had to import it, but I've barely stopped playing it since I tore the pack open.

The AI provides great opposition, the 3D is genuinely gorgeous, the learning curve is nice and shallow, the entire game oozes quality from the moment you install it. I've just finished playing 10 hours straight over a LAN with my girlfriend. She's got bigger monopolies than me but boy, did I have fun beating her, and winning the race to be Mayor. The scenarios are so varied - in this one all of the citizen's of the city vote each day for the player that they want to be Mayor. How cool.

I guarantee, if you're like me, it will turn out to be the best 40 bucks you've ever spent. Be quick though, it seems to keep selling out. I guess that's confirmation of the fact that this is one awesome product.

Way to go, Infogrames - this is your best yet!

There is in computer games (as everywhere) an attempt to mine existing licenses for extra cash. That's why you get things like "Clue: The Movie" and "Lord of the Rings: The Dental Floss". The results of this are often tedious and atrocious, keeping the wrong elements while discarding the stuff that might be fun. Developer Deep Red has gotten it right with "Monopoly Tycoon" by keeping the property names and a few key concepts of "Monopoly" and combining them with business simulation concepts and real-time action as found in "Roller Coaster Tycoon".

First thing to keep in mind is that this is NOT Monopoly-The-Board-Game nor even Monopoly-The-Computerized-Version-Of-The-Board-Game. It's a Real Time Strategy game, and time moves rather quickly. It requires far more "twitch" than, say, Roller Coaster Tycoon or Trevor Chan's marvellous (but far more complex) "Capitalism" series.

It's also a business simulation: You can buy property, build hotels and apartments, and even the railroads and four utilities (Gas Works and Telecoms are added to the board game's Electric Company and Water Works)--but most of the time you're surveying the people of the city, building businesses, and adjusting prices when your competitors try to undercut you.

A few things make this work: A good selection of scenarios with different goals; pleasant, fully 3D graphics which capture the flair of the board game, AI which does a pretty good job of thwarting the obvious plans, and brevity, brevity, brevity. You =can= play a long game but the scenarios are mostly on the short side and it's possible for a game to swivel back and forth between players rather dramatically.

The titular "monopoly" itself carries over nicely from the board game: With it, you can build hotels AND it allows you take over a competitors' businesses. (You can do that without a monopoly, too, but it's drastically more expensive.)

There are downsides: the overall coolness of the 3D presentation is offset by the rather bland building graphics (where every store more-or-less looks like every other), the musical score consists of one short-ish (albeit good) track, the vital data you need to get to quickly is spread out in a couple of places--and this seems to stem from the developers' desire to make the game a little harder--and some things about the mechanics are not entirely clear (again, perhaps from the same desire to make the game harder).

But, all-in-all, as a short diversion, Monopoly Tycoon is pretty sweet. It's a shame that a sequel is so unlikely.

MONOPOLY TYCOON begins in the 1930s, when the original MONOPOLY game was introduced, and progresses in real-time through the decades up to the year 2000. As the game advances, the architecture of the buildings and the needs and professions of the people change according to the decade. Players get to see their city in the daylight and wee hours of the late night, and every hour in between. There's lots of work to do and decisions to hash through, as players compete to become mayor of the city and try to be the first to earn $1 million, or be the wealthiest player by the year 2000. With a click of the mouse, players interact with the city's residents to find out what the people need and want. Listening to the residents of their fair city helps players formulate strategies to determine what properties to buy and how to develop them. Make your city the most successful by constructing residential, commercial and industrial buildings that keep the population happy and offer the best deals around.

A little one-noteish, if still addictive. The premise sort of smashes Sim City with Monopoly imagery, which is kind of cool, except the game unfolds in a linear, scenario-based way; you can't just go hog-wild and start building a city/financial empire until you're broke against computer (or online players) ina free-form environment. You always have to do it in terms of scenarios with goals, so you end up doing the same thing over and over again until you can beat the level you're on just so you can go to another level that makes you have to do something similar, just in a bigger box. I can't believe nobody over at Infogrames didn't think, "gee, maybe somebody will want to just start from scratch and play against a bunch of players (computer or otherwise) and see who can break the other players." That's what we do with the board game...why wouldn't we want to do it here?

The game engine is sound and the graphics are okay, but there just isn't enough to do ghere outside of the box. Hey Infogrames: "Think outside of the para-dig-em!"

I read a number of rave reviews of this game and was excited to try it. I didn't get it for Christmas AS REQUESTED so I bought it for myself for my birthday. I love Monopoly and I became a SimCity 1.0 junkie back in college 13 or more years ago.

The only real "Monopoly" aspects of the game are the names of the places, the different types of property and the colors associated with them, the different characters and the idea of added power when one owns all properties of a given color.

It is mostly a SimCity type game, very well thought out. I would call it an "economy" simulation. The simulation mainly consists of you polling the citizens in the game, determining what service(s) they want and meeting those demands. You do this within constraints of space, distance and budget.

I played it for an afternoon and enjoyed it. It didn't "grab" me and suck me in, however. I hope to pick it up again and play some more however I won't be surprised if it gathers dust like so many other games I have tried.

Actually I like the game. Played it for the past two days and it is pretty easy to learn which is a plus since I don't have a lot of time for games that require extensive tutorials and learning. My only problem is that with the single player games, you only play scenarios. You have to play at GameSpyArcade or thru a LAN connection to play a full game (I guess). But otherwise for people who like Monopoly and like strategy type PC games, this should be one to try.

This game is a lot of fun -- initially. Played on a Monopoly-like "board" it's up to you to create a balance of shops and housing for your SIM residents; earning you the big bucks and wiping out the competition. There are a series of challenge levels that take you through various competitions from earning the most money by the year 1960, to who can make $40,000 in sales first. The auction part is interesting, as you try to outbid other computer-generated competitors to own the most property on the board, without going bankrupt (there's only one day's leniency if your bankroll is in the red). However, the game has no perceptual difference between the bronze, silver and gold levels to warrant that designation. It's like playing the same challenges through each of these accelerated levels. This game was a lot of fun though, it occupied hours of enjoyment for me, so it's worth the money. Enjoy!