Monopoly: Here & Now - The World Edition for N-Gage
Gameplay
It's Monopoly! This is a full simulation of the 70 year old board game, which is based around buying squares and demanding rent from players who land on them. Anyone who cannot pay rent is declared bankrupt and out of the game, with the last person left on the board being the winner.
It's not quite as simple as that though. You can increase the amount of rent demanded from your squares by building houses and hotels on them, but you need to own all the squares of a certain colour before you can do this. You can raise money by mortgaging property, but then you will no longer get any rent from it. There are also a number of bonuses and penalties distributed through the Community Chest and Chance squares, and a "Go To Jail" square which sends you to a part of the board which you can leave by paying a fine.
Another layer of complexity is added by the trading system, where you can exchange money and/or property with other players at any time.
The game's interface is very fast, well-designed and efficient, with relevant options appearing only when you need them. The "autosell" feature lets you automatically sell or mortgage your lowest value assets, which speeds things up considerably.
The major drawback in the gameplay is the lack of help for people new to the game. Although practically everyone has heard of Monopoly, not everyone has played it recently, or played it according to the correct rules. It's a bit disappointing that there's no interactive tutorial included with the game, there's just a very badly-formatted text file with no proper paragraphs. This reviewer was very confused about how to add houses and hotels, as nothing in the game tells you that you have to own all of the properties in that colour first. Trading may also be slightly confusing for newcomers.
Graphics & Sound
For a board game, Monopoly looks very slick, with lots of cute animations and isometric 3D graphics. Each of the playing pieces also has its own amusing animations for various situations, which adds to the sense of polish. The board is drawn very clearly, and it's easy to see the status of each square. Animations can be fast-forwarded using the direction pad key, and can be turned off in the settings menu if you want the gameplay to be ultra-quick.
On the down side, it's a shame that all the traditional playing pieces (iron, old boot, dog etc) are missing, and the board is an international one with no option for using any of the national boards. There's a powerful nostalgia surrounding the old pieces and national board variations which could have helped sell the game more effectively, EA and Hasbro are being unwise to abandon this.
The music is nice, relaxing and gentle, but it can be turned off if required. The sound effects are good too, such as the police siren when players get thrown in jail.
N-Gage Arena & Multiplayer Options
There's no online multiplayer, which is a disappointment. Online multiplayer would have been extremely easy to implement on Monopoly, thanks to its existing turn-based multiplayer structure where lag simply wouldn't be an issue. Why didn't it happen?
On the other hand there is an offline "pass around" multiplayer mode for up to four people, or you can mix several human and computer players together in a single game (e.g. 2 human players, 2 computer players, or any other combination). This multiplayer mode could be very handy for keeping a family occupied on train journeys etc, and the TV Out option on most N-Gage phones also makes this mode viable for parties (see the Television Test section below for more details).
There is an Arena rankings system, though it's unclear how the scores for this are calculated. Also, there are of course the usual N-Gage Point Pickups, but they're for dull easy tasks like beating X number of opponents.
Television Test
Some N-Gage-compatible phones (e.g. Nokia 6710 Navigator, 6720 Classic, N79, N82, N85, N86, N95, N95 8GB, N96, N97) have a TV Out feature which lets you connect the phone to a television set. This can be used for playing N-Gage games, or for any other phone function.
All N-Gage phones are compatible with Bluetooth keyboards that use the HID Bluetooth standard, and such a keyboard can be used to control games or any other phone function. You can also use Nintendo Wii controllers with N-Gage games by installing mobiPad on your phone.
Monopoly for N-Gage looks and sounds great on a television set. The animations and 3D isometric graphics work very well, and the sounds are high quality through a TV's speakers. Best of all, when combined with with the pass-around multiplayer option, TV Out turns Monopoly on N-Gage into a pretty good party game.
Overall
In some ways it's almost impossible to review this title because it's identical to the Monopoly board game, and that's pretty much review-proof. Some people say it's too slow and too much is decided by chance, but clearly lots of people enjoy it very much as it's sold so successfully around the world for over seventy years.
If you like the traditional Monopoly board game, you'll probably enjoy this N-Gage version. The interface is slick and easy to use, with everything moving as fast as possible. Although Monopoly can take a long time to play all the way through, you can stop at any time and resume later (games are automatically saved when you quit).
If you hate the Monopoly board game, there won't be anything here to change your mind. There are no alternatives to the traditional game, though there are a few rules options which can be tweaked.
In terms of general criticism, the lack of online multiplayer is a disappointment and a huge missed opportunity. It's also very frustrating that there's no interactive tutorial, as the help section is too densely written.
Monopoly for N-Gage looks and sounds good, it has an excellent interface, and overall the developers have done pretty solid work. The "pass around" multiplayer mode is flexible, and when used with TV Out it makes this a surprisingly good party game.
AAN Score: 80% (if you like Monopoly!)
