In Europe, British publisher iFone is well known for bringing popular board games to mobile, including Monopoly, Battleship, and the upcoming Clue SFX. Although Monopoly has technically been out on a few Sprint handsets since last year, it only recently achieved wide distribution on other carriers--like Verizon--to good effect. The LG VX7000 version of Monopoly is a slick mobile board game from front to back, thanks to its highly usable interface.
The mobile Monopoly lets you play the classic Hasbro board game with up to seven CPU opponents or friends using pass-and-play multiplayer. There are three different flavors of Monopoly to choose from: quick game, which ends as soon as the second player goes bankrupt; regular game, which continues until a winner emerges; or timed game, where players compete to have the biggest net worth when the customizable buzzer goes off. This array of game options complements the board game itself, which is attractively and logically presented.
The screen only portrays your immediate segment of the board, but this is actually a good choice, because it keeps the play window from getting too busy. You operate your turn off a simple menu, from which you can roll dice and make offers for properties, or you can switch to a summary view, which lets you drill down into each player's holdings and cash reserves, as well as cycle through the properties or look at the entire board from above. A few small problems mar the experience, however, like your inability to skip the irritating dice-rolling animation. Additionally, you have to manually change your offers to other players using very small increments. But this Monopoly is otherwise very close to the real deal (minus "creative" accounting). The CPU opponents don't have adjustable skill levels, but they'll probably give most players a close game.
If this Monopoly had over-the-air multiplayer, it would be superlative, since that's about the only thing that's missing from the package. The game even uses a fair amount of appropriately hushed sound effects, which is often a rarity in mobile board games. If you're looking for a mobile board game, take it from us: Monopoly is a good investment.
