just how much of a dope you were? That’s how I feel whenever I come upon this cart.

So may this review serve as my catharsis... despite my present-day love of all things

eurogame, I did enjoy Monopoly as a child. So when I received a portable version for

the Game Boy... well, I played the paint off of it. Shut me up but good for hours at a

time. Better than any pharmaceutical my parents could’ve administered. At once, I’m taken

aback by the underhandedness of the tactic, and rather bemused at how clever they were.

Behold then, Action Video Monopoly, slayer of many a long car trip.

If you’ve never played Monopoly... well, let’s be reasonable. No one’s never played

Monopoly. Anyone who says they haven’t is just lying about it. Love it or leave it,

there’s a Monopoly for every taste these days, though this Game Boy version - released

back in 1991 - cares for none of it. And those house rules you so love, the “dump all the

fines into the center of the board” clause, the “Roll 3 doubles and you have to buy

ice cream” stipulation? GONE. You’re playing by the rules of the game, and only those rules,

even the ones you’d probably never heard of before. Like having to auction a property

if you don’t feel like buying it. Fortunately, this being a video game, most of those more

fiddly bits are completely automated, such that the game doesn’t come to a grinding

halt if someone needs to calculate what 15% of their assets comes out to. ‘Cuz you all

know a guy who did just that, knowing he was in last place, hoping that everyone would

just get bored and go do something else during the reckoning.

But if you take away... well, other people, the board, all the parts to get lost, and

some players’ misunderstanding of the rules, Monopoly makes for a fine fit for the Game

Boy. You can handle all the business you require through the use of a simple menu system, from

managing buildings to making trades to viewing deeds. This version also includes eight AI

opponents, a number of pre-set scenarios if you’d prefer to start a game from the middle

and save yourself an hour or so, and the ability to speed up the AI if you realized you’re

just thirty minutes from your destination and you want to see this thing through, by

gum. It’s really all you can do, since there’s no way to save a game state for later. But

while the game is perfectly functional... it’s also as minimalist as possible. During

the game, you’ll rarely hear any music, and aside from the blip of a menu cursor or

the crunching of the distressingly anthropomorphic cash register, barely any sound effects either.

But I didn’t care. I had digital jerks to run into the poor house. Until we got to grandma’s

house, that is.