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Review

Monopoly Tycoon

7.8

Format PC

Developer Deep Red

Publisher Infogrames

Genre Unknown

7-Dec-2001 Mark Hill knows all about money. Now he just needs to get hold of some...

Mark Hill knows all about money. Now he just needs to get hold of some...

What a filthy, disgusting capitalist society we live in. Take last Christmas' biggest sellers, for instance. Championship Manager is all about looking after your bank balance, playing around with transfer fees and ensuring your players' wages are not too high, and as for Who Wants To Be A Millionaire, the title is explanation enough. But Monopoly is where it all really started, teaching children to love dough as much as mother's milk and preparing us all for the cheating, purse-grabbing world ahead. And while Monopoly Tycoon doesn't give you the satisfaction of seeing your mate land on your four-house and two-hotel property, it's still all about pound signs replacing your pupils. The real soundtrack to the game is the sound of coins falling on one another. And a very nice sound it is, too.

KERCHING!
As you probably already know, this is a very different version of Monopoly than the one we're used to, swapping the turn-based gameplay for fast-paced real-time and the flat surface of a board for a three dimensional city full of people, cars and an avid desire to consume. Comparisons to SimCity are inevitable. It is a simulated city after all. But Tycoon's gameplay is much closer to the classic Theme Park than any city-building god game. Although you can buy blocks, build houses and erect hotels, the game is about opening shops, bars, cinemas and anything else that will get the punters in and spending their money. Instead of the freeform nature of something like SimCity or Caesar III, Tycoon is very much scenario driven, so it's not all about starting from scratch. More importantly, there is no micromanagement whatsoever, beyond setting the prices of the products in each of your shops (which is important when you're trying to outsell an opponent). Each scenario sets out a goal you must achieve before any of your rivals (personifications of the board's playing pieces, with the shoe turning into a cobbler and so on), and which ranges from making a certain amount of money within one day, having the wealthiest empire by a certain year or even becoming mayor.

It can all seem a bit over-whelming at first, especially for people who are more familiar with the traditional Monopoly board game than sophisticated computer strategy titles. But Tycoon does a magnificent job of easing you into the interface and the intricacies of the gameplay, with a set of well designed tutorials and some easy and achievable first scenarios.

TAKE A CHANCE ON ME
Another of the Monopoly staples is also present and correct: the chance cards. They appear every so often in the corner of your screen and, while you don't have to click on them, the curiosity of seeing if it's a good one or a bad one is irresistible. They're often small rewards (win a �200 inheritance) or slight annoyances (pay a �200 hospital bill), but now and again a card pops up that can turn a game. Perhaps the most dramatic is the bad publicity card, which makes every shop in a targeted block sell next to nothing for a day. Others produce strikes in selected shops or make it easier to take over other's property.

Like most Theme Park-style games, Tycoon is unbelievably addictive for a short period of time, but it's difficult to imagine yourself playing it for more than a few days at a time. However, like Deep Red's previous game, Risk II, it's a title you can keep coming back to at any time for a couple of hours of fun. The game really comes into its own in multiplayer mode, but this suffers from being a bit too slow � you can't speed up the time � particularly if you set up a game against computer controlled opponents.

We're promised add-on packs in the future that will feature loads more scenarios as well as integrating one of the most recognisable Monopoly elements: the prison. This will also introduce a crime element, which should add some much needed spice to what is a fun, but ultimately too one-dimensional, title.

Mark Hill