Sunday, 06 January, 2002

Monopoly Tycoon

I bought the game Monopoly Tycoon on a whim last month at Fry's.  It's a real-time resource management game that doesn't share a whole lot in common with the board game.  But it's a reasonably good game.  It looks nice, it's simple enough to learn the basics in an hour or so, and has enough depth to be entertaining for quite some time depending on how much you want to fiddle with optimizing your businesses.  I don't usually like real-time games because the time element makes me feel rushed when playing against the computer.  Against human opponents games get downright frantic.  In Monopoly Tycoon, though, things happen at a slow enough pace that I actually have enough time to enjoy the game.

Another thing I like about the game is that its scenarios are well balanced and presented in order of increasing difficulty.  After the first half dozen or so (which you can complete in a matter of minutes), each of the scenarios (at least the 15 or so that I've played so far) is short enough that it can be completed in about an hour.  Contrast that with Railroad Tycoon and other similar games that require hours to complete.

My only complaint with the game is that it's a bit sluggish on my computer.  I have a 700 MHz Pentium 3 with 512 MB of RAM.  The thing should run like a scalded cat, but it doesn't.  Mouse response is terrible at times, and I just don't understand why.  There just isn't that much going on in the game.

Sluggish performance aside, I'm delighted with the game.  I can spend an hour or two enjoying a scenario and then put the game aside for next time.  At this rate, I'll be able to play it for years.  Go to the web site and take a look.  Download the free demo and check it out.  It's a very good game.