Publisher/Developer: EA Mobile
Genre: Board game
Price: $4.99
Acquired: Review Copy Provided
Verdict: Faithful conversion of Monopoly but cheating AI lets it down badly
Pros: Looks and plays just like Monopoly….
Cons: ….except the AI seems unbeatable!

Right at the first hurdle, the idea of Monopoly on the iPhone falls flat on its face. You see, maybe I’m sadistic, but the most joy you can gain from Monopoly is playing it against friends and family and destroying them financially. We’ve all got our own tactics to achieve this. Mine? I tend to go for the mid range locations and buy as many hotels as possible, gradually wiping out my opponents’ money stockpile. Eventually they succumb and I’m victorious and smile smugly at them. Yeah, I’m evil like that.

As such, Monopoly on my iPhone seemed a little foreign to me. The first thing I checked in fact were the multiplayer options: fortunately it wasn’t bad going with local Wi-Fi play and pass and play multiplayer available, but I was still unconvinced how it would be as good as exchanging physical Monopoly money with each other. And I was right. The graphics are comprehensive and just right for this kind of game, the ability to shake the iPhone to roll the dice works nicely and it’s all just right. At times I did have a few problems with ‘Low system memory’ errors but that may well be my aging 2G iPhone at fault rather than the game’s.

The main flaw here, however, is somewhat more unforgivable. The AI cheats! Maybe it’s just me that sucks but it all seems to happen far too frequently, to the extent that it feels like the AI is cheating me out of success. I’m no sore loser but the dice seemed to be clearly rigged. The AI was always avoiding my properties by some weird form of ‘luck’. It just gets so infuriating that it put me off playing the game. I knew I’d lose anyway.

It’s a shame, as in all other respects this game is a pretty comprehensive conversion of Monopoly. It looks accurate and the early tutorials are great at explaining just how to play. The game’s certainly got potential but up against AI alone, it just makes you want to throw your iPhone out the window, or maybe just delete the app instead. For $4.99 it really isn’t great value for money unless you have other friends to play against, as at least you know then that they’re not cheating you out of a fair game.