The Monopoly franchise is one of the largest and most successful to have originated from a board game. Everyone has played the board game at one time or another, but this app really has very little to do with the roots it came from. The game involves individually managing different hotels by pleasing guests, and building your empire. It may be different from the original, but is it still worth your time?
When you begin Rich Uncle Pennybags will guide you through the basics of the game. The tutorial is comprehensive and you won’t be left wondering what to do by the end. The only downside is that occasionally the tutorial will move too slowly and you will be left doing repetitive task for longer than most people attention span lasts – although if you don’t like repetitive tasks, this game definitely isn’t for you, as we will find out later!
The graphics are what you would expect from an EA release – flawless. The models look fantastic and generally the artwork adds to the charm of the game. Charm is something this game has by the bucket load. The game is self-aware enough to make jokes about the repetitive tasks, and this quality just makes you want to play on.
The game itself is multifaceted. Essentially you build different decorations, rooms and activities to keep you guests busy, but it soon becomes more complicated as each one of these has a size, and your hotel is only so big. Each guest also has a list of things that will make them happy – please your guests and receive a financial reward, although there is no penalty if you don’t. The main way of generating income in the game is by tapping on falling money. The money is constantly falling, so the game quickly becomes boring as you just wait to amass enough money to build the next thing. There are a few mini-games to keep you interested, but they all involve repetitively tapping – such as refilling the generator at the Electricity plant.
As your income increases, and you fill up your currently owned hotels there is the possibility to expand, but a lot of the more expensive properties will require you to make purchases from the micro-transaction store. The new hotels have names true to the original board game, but this does little to sweeten the pill of having to spend actual cash.
Overall if you enjoy simulator games, or Monopoly, you will probably enjoy this for a small amount of time. The game quickly becomes tedious, but it clearly wasn’t designed to be played intensely.
