Monopoly Tycoon

"Economics 101"

Let's face it; everyone loves Monopoly in some way or another. I liked to go to Walgreen's years ago and buy packs on Monopoly money for the heck of it. I can recite all the properties from memory. I also never lose at the Monopoly board game unless I get bad rolls. But Monopoly Tycoon has taken the whole concept of Monopoly and has tweaked it beyond comprehension. Is Monopoly Tycoon another trashy Tycoon spin-off? Not really. Instead, you get an interesting hybrid combining the RTS element of Starcraft and the city-building of SimCity in a unique twist of the series.

Monopoly Tycoon is a retail management simulation in which up to six players compete to make the largest sum of cash possible. The gist of the game is this: all the players are presented to a city consisting of "blocks" which correspond to the properties of Monopoly. Players will build businesses and apartments all around the town and try to rake in the dough. However, there's more than one player in the game, thus there will be economic competition. People around the city are seeking certain goods as well as apartments to live in. Some of these goods include food items, books, clothing, furniture, jewelry, restaurant meals, toys, ice cream, and movies. There's all the different properties in order of prestige, including a new set of brown properties, which fit below dark purple in terms of prestige.

There's plenty more depth to this game than just "building stuff." Some people like to shop at wealthy, prestigious shops. Some just want to find the best deal for their money. There's all the different variables to tweak, such as what goods the business sells, the business's location and overall quality, the price of goods, and the building size (which affects how much stock the business holds). Businesses only hold so much stock, so it's a good strategy to sell out each day or else some of the goods will be "spoiled" and lost for the next day. Overall, it's very difficult to satisfy the citizens of the city, so this game is all about compromise--how can I get sales from as many people as I can yet at the same time make profit?

Strategy comes into play. Generally, you want to offer as many products as possible as the lowest prices in order to sell out while making your opponents lose money. You can also build on more prestigious, expensive blocks near apartments to coax consumers to stop by your business instead. With up to six people building at the same time, it becomes increasingly tense--and ridiculously fun at the same time, given that you've probably never played a game like this before.

Each "day" represents a five-year period, starting in 1930. There's two types of businesses--day and night, each of which kick in at different times of the day. As the days pass, the population increases and new products are able to be sold. You can also lease blocks for a limited time, including utilities and railroads, by winning auctions with other players. Owning a lease will accrue some benefit. Owning a colored block garners land rent and allows you to build parks, while owning all two/three of a color allows you to buy out opponent businesses on those blocks and build hotels for mega profits. Owning utilities and railroads primarily serve to give flat amounts of money which exponentially increase the more utilities/railroads you own at the moment. Also, you can "draw a chance card" if you wish, which may increase or decrease your monetary balance. On top of building businesses, there's another layer of strategy to behold here.

Probably the biggest problem with the gameplay is the unexpected results. Businesses may fail to sell goods at times. It may be due to outside reasons, such as a big sale on enemy blocks, but sometimes a good setup may fail. Obviously, this game requires some intuition when it comes to pricing goods and stealing away customers, but sometimes, an idea that sounds lucrative such as a big Boardwalk shopping complex may bomb big time. Strategy guides are only so comprehensive, and this game forces you to play it safe a bit too often by keeping prices low. Either way, circumstances are constantly changing, and reacting the best to them will net the most profit.

In-game options include single-player and multi-player. Players can settle for the in-game missions and try to do all sorts of objectives, such as make the most money to a certain year, or make so much profit in a day, etc. The game objectives don't change the gameplay that much however. However, the AI is can be pretty bad, and only novices will have trouble against them. Once the player's empire starts picking up speed, the AI will cease to build anything. Online play is much more fun and the action can be intriguing albeit a bit slow. It's not possible to speed up time on internet play, but this is to give players the most possible time to tweak their businesses. Also, it's very rare to find players on the internet years after this game's release. With a couple of players in a Lan game, this game can be much more fun.

Graphically, the game is bare enough to keep it from being sub-par. The buildings' geometry looks a bit sloppy and the textures don't differ much except for the kind of business and who owns it. They are also a few graphical errors and the pedestrians tend to do stupid things from time to time such as slide around on their feet and clip through buildings for no reason. The draw distance in the city is very good, however. Either way, the game's looks are just enough to get the job done. The sound, however, is more or less of a success. Sounds effects of money kachinging' and dings and stuff are repeated frequently, but the game's music is better. They reflect the current time period; for instance, in the 1940's, you'll hear a jazzy tune while in the 1980's, you'll hear some tacky synethesizer beat. The music captures the mood quite well, but it loops itself every once in a while, so players may just turn the music off.

Monopoly Tycoon can be a very charming game. The whole economics aspect combined with the gaming RTS aspect make this enjoyable, but, all in all, you just build buildings and click on buttons. Like it? It can be found in bargain bins for cheap and may be well worth the money. All in all, this game at least makes for a fun, gimmicky game, but without frequent players on the internet, it may be too late to invest heavily into this game.

Presentation: 7/10 -- Menus and stuff to click on. Overall, a generic PC game presentation.
Gameplay: 9/10 -- Building, earning money, and competing against opponents is original and fun, but can a bit too tedious at some points.
Graphics: 6/10 -- Buildings don't look too good, but it's detailed enough to pass.
Sound: 7/10 -- Other than the snazzy music, the sound effects are simply average.
Replay Value: 7/10 -- There are some missions against the basic AI, as well as free play against the AI and other players; however, you'd be hard pressed to find some players to join in.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 09/29/06, Updated 06/12/08

Game Release: Monopoly Tycoon (US, 09/24/01)