Milton Bradley Board Games Review

Milton Bradley Board Games gives you the opportunity to play checkers, dominoes, or backgammon against artificial intelligence, other players on an online cell network, or in a two-player pass-and-play fashion. Unfortunately for all three of these games, there's something about the gameplay that gets lost in translation, and some of the onus is on Milton Bradley Board Games for automating a few too many features.

Dominoes is usually a thrilling game... Honestly.

Dominoes is a simple game as it is, but Milton Bradley Board Games makes it even simpler by automating a large chunk of the process. Each player, whether you're competing against the computer or a human opponent, is given eight tiles. The objective is to be the first to get rid of your tiles by placing them down on the board in a line, with only matching numbers touching each other. Whichever player has the higher tile with two identical numbers on it gets to place that piece down first, and the players alternate from then on. When players can't make a move, they must draw from the pot of dominoes until they can successfully play a piece. The game ends when one person is out of tiles completely or when the pool of dominoes is empty and neither person can make a move. The problem with Milton Bradley's mobile version of dominoes is that the game does too many things for you. It automatically draws all the tiles until the one you need appears, and it takes you quickly to the place where you can put the proper domino down. It might seem like this removes some of the natural tedium, but too often it feels like the game is playing you, instead of vice versa. A game of dominoes goes quite quickly, and this mobile version is noticeably not as satisfying as the physical game. Dominoes might be a classically popular game, but it's poorly translated to this medium.

Milton Bradley's Checkers is similarly problematic. It's the traditional game of checkers, through and through, but that doesn't necessarily make it a good mobile game. You move your pieces diagonally as you attempt to hop over unguarded enemy checkers, all in hopes of capturing them, as well as having your pieces "kinged." Your ultimate goal is to dominate the entire board. The problem with the game is that near the end, you'll almost always find yourself in a stalemate. The AI has no problem moving the same piece back and forth into eternity, which you could do as well, since there's nothing in place to force one player to take a risk. It's also apparent that your supposedly human opponents in the online mode are either bots or botlike in their behaviors. Every single opponent begins every match with "Good Luck." and ends with "Good Game." And no opponent will ever respond to any text (whether chosen from the preset list or handwritten) from you. Perhaps this will change if more people buy the game, but right now, it's downright boring.

Backgammon fares the best of the three games, because it's the most conducive to mobilization. The only problem with this version of Backgammon is that it's far too slow. You must watch each piece drag individually around the board when moved by you or your opponent. The game plays well, aside from that, but you might find it a little more tedious than you would otherwise expect.

All the online opponents act just like bots. Hmmm.

Visually, all three offerings are up to standard, and the games are presented clearly and brightly, without too much else going on. The graphics serve to showcase the games well, especially on Sprint's LG-MM535, but there's nothing spectacular about them. On each of the game's menus, there's a short piano piece that plays, which is suitable for an elevator or a cocktail hour at a lounge--two places where it's possible to play dominoes, checkers, and backgammon, although perhaps not the first locations you'd associate with those games. The in-game sound effects are minimal to the degree of being pointless. In backgammon, you can hear a tiny plunk when pieces are placed down, but you really have to listen for it. While the games could have used more sound, it certainly isn't necessary.

Despite its problems, Milton Bradley Board Games generally makes a decent attempt at providing mobile dominoes, checkers, and backgammon, because these games are hard to mess up too badly. This game might be worth a look simply because you get the opportunity to play all three games in one, whereas other, better versions of the individual games don't offer the same value. You'll likely be more satisfied with the real thing, but if it isn't possible, then this game is a fair replacement.