Monopoly may just be a children’s board game but why oh why didn’t we see the warning signs?

Just think about it: you could buy a string of houses and hotels with no credit history, banks were handing out money for simply walking around the board, and it was remarkably easy to pay your rent with a second prize at a beauty contest.

It was bound to end in financial tears. A realistic Monopoly ‘Here and Now’ would start with all players owing the banks two hundred thousand pounds, you’d have to wait five years to build a house and passing Go would cost a couple of grand in interest.

Instead, Hasbro has simply added a few zeroes to the numbers and laid out a jet-setting board where Park Lane and Mayfair are replaced by... Riga and Montreal? I’m all for taking a global perspective but anyone who thinks Riga is worth more than Taipei (the old Old Kent Road) should probably quit their job at the merchant bank. From the 20th floor window.

Despite cosmetic differences – such as Community Chest and Chance cards that force global trivia down your mobile neck – Monopoly Here and Now is very much the same as Monopoly There and Then, except that you can’t sneak a few extra pink 500 notes when the banker isn’t looking.

Hasbro has livened things up by allowing you to tweak the house rules, so you can start with more or less money, a handful of properties and even bid on unwanted properties using a neat auction system. Animation and sound effects are jolly enough (although the jaunty music quickly gets tiresome), and a Bluetooth mode lets up to four human players compete with computer AIs.

If you like Monopoly’s plodding gameplay and greed-is-good subtext, you won’t be disappointed by this slick – and thankfully recession-priced – mobile port.

Details

Price: £4 (£6 after 2 April, there’s inflation for you)

Rating: 3+

Size: 2MB

DOWNLOAD Monopoly Here and Now