Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)Warning, this game is NOT made by Hasbro. It is licensed from them and piggy backed on top of an actual monopoly game. Ok, no big deal you think but this does create some problems.
1) The instructions aren't written as a whole they just added the instructions for the new features to the front of the REAL instructions.
2) the cards (Chance and Community chest) weren't updated with the new updates. So, you draw get the card that tells you to pay for building repairs to houses and hotels... but what about skyscrapers? The cards are the standard cards that send you to all the original properties and none of the new. The card which doubles the railroad rent is still there... But, if your opponent has all four railroads AND has a train depot which doubles the rent to $400... then the card doubles that to $800???? (This did happened to me.) Ouch, for a $100 investment in a train depot you just earned more than most hotels earn on the medium to expensive properties. That seems lopsided.
3) The rent on the skyscrapers is in the thousands so paying $15 in poor tax or winning $10 for third place in a beauty contest is completely out of the scope of the new rents (they've included a $1,000 bill) and seems like a complete waste of time. And, there are no new cards which say something like "Won $500 in a state lottery" or something like that.
4) You use 3 die now. The third die is special. It has special squares as well as 1,2, and 3 dots. One of the special squares is "Mr Monopoly" and he is a bonus. But, the instructions tell you to move the number of squares on the other two dice and if you've rolled a Mr Monopoly then you proceed to the next unsold property. This is designed to speed up the acquisition of property... but you still only get $200 for passing go. So, you run out of cash and can't buy them any way. Plus are you supposed to pay rent on the first place you landed after moving the number of spaces on the conventional dice or is it all considered one turn? The instructions don't really specify. If you play it as all one turn then players use "Mr Monopoly" to avoid paying rent and zip right past your skyscrapers to land on the next unowned property. Either way by the end of the game it is usually the expensive green and blue properties that are left unsold so you go wizzing around the board with "Mr Monopoly" until someone finally saves enough money to buy them up and stop the madness.
There are positives...
1)Building shortages... Was this in the old rules (I don't remember)? When players use up all the buildings then you have to wait until some are sold back in order to build.
2) The skyscrapers and train depots are a cool idea and they look cool. They are plastic. I have no problems with plastic. Plastic lasts longer and has the cool little details that the wood blocks wouldn't have (like tiny little shingles on the houses).
3) The bus passes allow you to move forward to any spot on the side of the board you are on. There are a finite number of them and once they are all used then there are no more. Great idea. However, if you play the variant where you put $500 in the center of the board to be collected by someone who lands on free parking then you quickly find people bussing over to free parking to make quick cash...so you'll want to ditch that idea.
4) Additional properties. They added one property to each group (those with 2 now have 3 and those with 3 now have four). They added another utility (gas). So, with 3 out of 4 properties you can build houses and hotels... but you need the fourth property to get skyscrapers. (This, of course does violate the rule of evenly distributed buildings because when you acquire the 4th property you might already have hotels on the other 3 prpoerties.)
Summary: Nice ideas but they just didn't think all of these rule changes thru, nor did they integrate them with the old rules and cards of the game (and actually try it out) to make sure the gameplay was still as fun as the original game.
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Monopoly The Mega EditionThe classic game of Monopoly just got bigger and better! This Mega Edition has 12 new spaces, including seven states, and a special speed die to help take the game to new levels. You can own it all - build train depots and skyscrapers in addition to houses and hotels. For 2 to 8 players.
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