Monopoly City

Monopoly is my all-time favourite board game but even I'll admit after probably playing hundreds of games now it can get a bit 'samey'. I got this not long after it was released and have played it numerous times now.

It's best summed up by saying it's similar to Monopoly but different too. The board is arranged in a similar way and the aim of the game is again to move around the board, collect rent and buy properties and the richest player wins. However, the difference is the way you go about winning (or losing!)

Instead of houses and hotels there are various buildings that can be built, any time on your turn, on any of your properties. You don't have to have all of the colours in a group to build and your buildings now go in the middle of the board (you build a city) and collect increasing values of rent as in Monopoly. Community Chest cards have gone, new Chance cards are in and there is an interesting "rent dodge" card under Free Parking. Stations have been replaced with build a hazard/attraction spaces which stop another player collecting rent/block another player stopping you collecting rent. Electricity Company and Water Works have also gone. I promise you these aren't missed, after the initial "oh, where have they gone?", because of all of the new features. The money has also been revamped, it's not pounds sterling anymore but Monopoly money. It doesn't really make much difference, just more zeros on the end of the notes!

However, the biggest difference for me is that the game forces you to auction properties if you don't buy them on your turn (or you can't afford to buy a property you land on). There are also a few 'auction' spaces on the board. I know Monopoly, if played according to the house rules, made you auction but few people I know did in fact auction. It's good because it speeds the game up and you only have 50 seconds to auction a property off (there's a timer that beeps!) and makes it more exciting.

There are skyscrapers that double your rent if you own all properties in a colour group and the Monopoly Tower doubles the rent of all of your properties!

Overall, a brilliant game that has kept the core features in that made the original Monopoly great but altered a few things to make the game arguably more fun and exciting than the original.

If you loved the original Monopoly but want a different twist to the game; buy this.

I'm a lover of the original monopoly and was tossing up whether to get the old classic or try this one out. The household is very very happy with this version! As previous reviewers have mentioned it is a great remake of a classic game. The board and buildings makes playing fun and looks great!

We have played with 2 to 6 players and have found that it is great fun with all number, but you need to change your tactics depending on the number of people playing, which makes it more interesting.

And it is much faster as well, since there is no need to collect all the colours before building, it brings up the pace of the game.

All around I think that this is a great game and would recommend it to anyone who is looking for an upgrade to the normal monopoly.

I bought this for my 3 nephews for christmas,we played it on boxing day, the rules are a little different from the game i played as a child, but they are an improvement. The rules recommend using the box lid to thow the dice into i think this will reduce the longevity of the box.We all loved it, best of all my 7 year old nephew wrote to me to tell me they had played for 3 hours and he had won. yippie.