Monopolizing the Big Apple with your Little Guy
Written: Sep 21 '05 (Updated Sep 22 '05)
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Pros: Updated classic board game is surprisingly well-suited to preschoolers.
Cons: Minimal adult appeal when played with standard rules.
The Bottom Line: Don't monopolize the grown-up games: even the youngest New Yorkers can learn and enjoy this classic
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| theeye's Full Review: Monopoly - New York City Edition |
Mention Boardwalk and Park Place to my five-year-old son and you'll likely get a blank stare. You'd never guess that behind that blank stare lurks a Monopoly addict.
My husband and I received Monopoly: New York City Edition as a gift years ago, before The Kid was born. A close friend, who worked for Citibank, had been involved in organizing some publicity stunt in which these special edition Monopoly games, featuring CitiDollars in lieu of the standard Monopoly currency, were given away. After the big event, she had found herself dowered with the excess inventory and thus we became the lucky recipients of a free board game, which we promptly tossed in the back of the closet, being more the Scrabble - Settlers-of-Catan - Magic-the-Gathering types ourselves.
You're undoubtedly already familiar with the equipment, rules and strategy, such as it is, of classic Monopoly. If not, hie thee over here, where you'll find, um, one or two reviews to peruse; I won't be reinventing that wheel in this review. Our agenda here today is more specific: an overview of the Big Apple thematic overlay of this special edition and an assessment of the suitability of the game for the preschool set.
Opening up the Box: In a New York Minute
The specific edition I have is the 1995 game pictured on this page. There have apparently been several more recent editions released, both before and after 9/11, with rather more vibrantly illustrated packaging and, I gather, a different set of property names. I was relieved to note, when we brought the game out about a year ago, that none of the properties is named after the World Trade Center. The only reference to the Twin Towers in our set is a not particularly obtrusive illustration in the center of the board, a fitting and not unduly ghoulish tribute to what once was.
A quick glance at the box contents does not immediately reveal any significant differences from the classic game of my childhood. The game is in all respects perfectly isomorphic to standard Monopoly, with equivalently (and ludicrously) priced properties in corresponding locations and a set of Chance and Opportunity Chest cards which differ only in their incidental text. In revamping the game, the manufacturer evinced a proper respect for the nostalgia of its baby boomer market, reproducing the precise property colors, fonts and layout; bringing back the familiar little green houses and red hotels; and even reprising the metal avatars of old. Yes, the shoe, the dog, the cannon and the rest are all back and indistinguishable from their 60s counterparts.
The properties, of course, are all now renamed in honor of The Big Apple. The high rent district of Boardwalk and Park Place is replaced with (what else?) Trump Tower and Tiffany, while the cheap end of town is occupied, rather oddly, by the Lincoln Tunnel and the Port Authority Bus Terminal. The Electric and Gas Companies naturally feature the Con Edison corporate logo. The four railroads morph into a more NYC-centric mass transit system including an MTA city bus, a taxi cab, the Metro North railroad and United Airlines; the famous New York City subway system is inexplicably omitted. The magenta slots are given over to the media trio of The New York Times, KISS-FM radio station and WNET (Channel 13), while the Yankees, Knicks and Rangers take the orange positions. Sorry, Mets fans. Four trios of renowned retail stores, tourist attractions, investment banks and hotels round out the list of properties.
Free Parking is in its usual corner, though the rules don't seem to mention that finding free parking in New York City generally requires circling the block a few dozen times -- without passing Go or collecting $200. Jail remains suitably generic; the designer didn't go so far as to label it Riker's Island, which was probably a wise decision. The City and Luxury Tax spots retain their now-even-quainter miniscule assessment rates: as a New Yorker, I would love the option to pay a fixed $200 in city income taxes.
Everything old is new again
In short, the New York City edition is precisely the classic Monopoly we all remember, dressed up with Big Apple references galore to warm the heart of any New Yorker without violating the integrity of the classic game.
Monopoly is, after all, the iconic board game of childhood, especially for those of us of a certain age who grew up during the sixties and seventies. I recall the long, lazy summer afternoons with my best friend, building houses and hotels with deadly earnestness. And the Sunday mornings, far too early for my overworked Dad to awaken on his day off, playing on the floor in my parents' bedroom. My father, still under the covers and with eyes firmly closed, would direct the play from on high: Roll the dice for me. Move me. Where did I land? Does anyone own it? Okay, buy it for me. Your turn.
Now that I am the parent of an eager aspiring gamester myself, I have a newfound appreciation for my father's indulgence in giving over his Sunday mornings, however halfheartedly, to what must have been stiflingly boring, interminable hours of oddly implausible real estate wrangling and all too realistic jail terms. At least, I never subjected him to Chutes and Ladders.
Child's Play
For Monopoly, after all, is very much a child's game. Despite the real estate tycoon conceit, the game is strategically fairly shallow, at least when played by standard rules. (But see the footnote for some more interesting variants.) Its appeal wanes rapidly as childhood gives way to adolescence and I can't recall playing it much past the age of ten or twelve.
Until recently, that is.
Fast forward a few decades. Our adorable tyke had blossomed into a little gaming junkie, no longer satisfied with that famous troika of preschool board games, Candyland, Chutes and Ladders and Hi Ho Cherry-O. Don't we have any other games I can play?, he would whine incessantly, albeit adorably. That's when we spotted Monopoly in the back of the closet.
No, it isn't precisely age-appropriate, given that he can't read and all, we thought, but . . . how does that old adage go? Parental desperation is the mother of gaming opportunism. And he was begging, wheedling, cajoling us to show him the game. So we pulled the box out of the closet and gave it a try.
As it turns out, Monopoly, in either its original form or this special New York edition, is remarkably well suited for a pre-literate, math-ready preschooler eager to advance to more grown-up games. It's true that the game involves significant reading, but it does not, in fact, require any independent reading at all: the gameplay never requires that a player keep any information secret. And that makes all the difference.
As long as he's playing with a patient adult who's willing to read all the cards to (or with) him, assist with the arithmetic and provide a little gentle guidance on investment decisions (note: this will require actually opening your eyes and getting out from under the covers), any four-year-old aspiring gamester should be perfectly capable of playing and enjoying Monopoly. Most of the strategic decisions are quite simple and the basic mechanics of gameplay are not really that much more complex than Chutes and Ladders.
Adding It All Up
And while the adult appeal of the game is minimal, the educational potential is rather richer than you might think. Reading a pair of dice and counting out the moves is good practice for the youngest players. Kids who are starting to learn some basic arithmetic skills should be able to understand that each side of the board is eleven spaces long, with the transportation spot centered at position five. Learning to use those cues to jump directly to the correct spot without counting out the spaces is a wonderful way to teach basic addition and give kids a tangible sense of the concept of number.
Each real estate transaction or rent payment affords a child the opportunity to practice reading numbers from the cards and combining bills together to produce the desired total. Since the higher prices are typically evenly divisible by ten or by one hundred, children who are comfortable adding single digit numbers can readily see how addition extends to larger numbers without too much intimidation. It didn't take too long for our son to learn how to put together a total or make change, skills which will serve him in good stead as he begins his more formal mathematics study in school.
Not that he realizes that he's learning math. As far as our son is concerned, Monopoly is just a really fun game. A really fun grown-up game, which is even better. It takes a long time to play, which only adds to the appeal for him even as we approach yet another test of parental endurance with willful cheerfulness. And he knows that with a suitably winsome look, he can prevail on us to let him get his particular favorite properties (the transportations, of course: what boy doesn't like vehicles?).
It's A Hell of a Town
As for the localized flavor of the game, it seems only natural to our son that the places and attractions of his world are featured in his Monopoly game. He has been to the top of the Empire State Building; he frequently travels through the Lincoln Tunnel; and he easily recognizes the stylized banner font of the nation's paper of record.
One of these days, it will finally occur to him to ask us why one would want to build a hotel on the Lincoln Tunnel. And not long after that, I suspect, we'll be tossing this game back in the closet -- to save for our future grandchild.
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Additional information and notes:
Hasbro's (Parker Brothers) official Monopoly page: http://www.hasbro.com/monopoly/
Statistical and strategic analyses of the game: http://www.tkcs-collins.com/truman/monopoly/monopoly.shtml
http://www.durangobill.com/Monopoly.html
http://hometown.aol.co.uk/monopolycheat/prob/prob.html
Variant rules for more interesting play: http://wiki.playagaingames.com/tiki-index.php?page=MonopolyHomeRules
Reviews of the original edition
Parker Brothers also has a Monopoly, Jr. game aimed at 5 to 8 year olds. I have not looked into that game and thus have no opinion on it, but I do firmly believe that 5 to 8 year olds can handle the 'adult' version of the game, with some adult help.
Other games my son (and his folks) recommend for the grammar school gamester: King's Table, Fluxx, Kill Dr. Lucky, Aquarius, DuelMasters
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): gift
Type of Toy: Board Game
Age Range of Child: Whole Family
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Epinions.com ID:
theeye
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Location: New York, NY (it's a hell of a town!)
Reviews written: 66
Trusted by: 165 members
About Me:
Company president, math geek, first time mom at 39, epinion addict. Sleep? Not lately.
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