Overzicht: Monopolie voor Blackberry door Magmic
Overzicht: Monopolie voor Blackberry door Magmic
Het schatten: 
7/10
Verbinding: www.magmic.com
OTA: www.magmic.com
Kosten: $9.99
Hier is het eerste voorschot van onze reeks Magmic spelenoverzichten, om te beginnen met een schrijver uit de klassieke oudheid onder de schrijvers uit de klassieke oudheid: Monopolie.
Ik had andere havens van dit spel aan verscheidene computerplatforms, van het Spectrum ZX (dat mijn tijd) zou moeten openbaren aan de Vensters OS vernomen. Maar ik speelde nooit om het even welk van hen en dacht altijd zij werkelijk teleurstellend moeten zijn. Ik zou, maar niet om de redenen juist kunnen zijn die ik in mening heb gehad. Ik dacht dat porting een raad en spel aan de computer was iets dobbelt die geen kans om werkelijk had te werken. Ik was zeer verkeerd op dat bepaalde punt. Ik ben niet van de andere havens op de hoogte, maar dit één kijkt werkelijk en voelt als het echte ding. U rolt dobbelt, beweegt zich rond de raad, koopt en verkoopt bezit, gaat naar gevangenis, krijgt uit gevangenis, daar is elk klein detail van dit klassieke spel. Ik voelde opnieuw als een kind. Er is overvloed van instructies op hoe te het spel van het Blackberry „gebruiken“, maar er zijn geen instructies op hoe te om Monopolie te spelen. Deze haven zal u niet de regels onderwijzen. Dat is correct, ook niet maar niet niet volledig onredelijk. Kent Who niet de regels van Monopolie? O.K., misschien uw jonge geitjes niet, maar dat is wat de ouders voor zijn. 
Tot vier spelers kunnen spelen en zij kunnen menselijk zijn of robots die door de software worden geleid. Met andere woorden, kunt u tegen de computer spelen. Komt hier mijn eerste nag: pluk de Auto van het Ras en de Kruiwagen. De hond is ook niet niet te slecht. Het probleem is dat enkele karakters zich rond de raad te langzaam en/of onhandig bewegen, ergerend genoeg te zijn. De auto van het Ras en de Kruiwagen hebben wielen, zodat regelmatig glijden zij. Ik testte eerlijk alle karakters niet om te zijn. Maar wat van hen ergerden rechtsweg me.
Iedereen vertrekt met een bepaalde (configureerbare) hoeveelheid geld van het Monopolie. Ik ben zeker u het in uw handen voordien hebt gezien en gehouden.
U zult dat geld nodig hebben om bezit te kopen, uw monopolies te bouwen en van elke één van uw tegenstanders te scheuren. You also need the dough to pay for many expenses, because your opponents will rip you off too, sure enough. Every turn of the game works pretty much like the real one: you roll the dice, face the consequences and let the other player(s) do the same. In between turns, anyone can buy, sell, mortgage or improve property. This version of Monopoly has done a marvelous job reproducing the traditional board game and proving that it is indeed possible and can be very enjoyable. I had the greatest time playing it for a few minutes. But it really disappointed me in ways I could not expect.
Let me start with the minor flaw: multiplayer. Up to four players can play and all of them can be humans, but not via the Internet or even Bluetooth. What the heck? What is the point then? Are you going to pass the phone around and have all the other players stare at the current player staring down at a phone? Really? Come on. I said that is a minor flaw. It is to me. I’m sure many people will have a big problem with that, but I still think it’s no big deal as long as I can play against the computer. Face it: this is about you and your phone in a really boring and lonely moment. If you had any company, you would strike up some conversation, not play Monopoly. You’re almost certainly going to be on your own challenging the software. But that is sort of a disappointment too. The robot players are too dumb. I lost the first time I played it - cut me some slack, I hadn’t played Monopoly in decades! - but then I played several other times against one, two and three robot players in the hardest level and I drove them all into bankruptcy in more or less twenty minutes every time because they’re such losers. The only real enemy I had were the dice. They were not very nice to me sometimes.
So you can’t play against real people and the artificial intelligence is substandard to say the least. Is there any fun left? There is quite some fun left because the game really feels like the real thing and you can spend some enjoyable time just rolling dice and ripping off everyone in town. Who cares if it’s too easy? Let’s just get filthy rich and kill some time. But even that kind of foolish self gratification will run into obstacles. Summing up, whoever designed this game is guilty of a small series of very serious usability blunders.
Any player - including robot players - can buy, sell, mortgage or improve property BEFORE and AFTER each turn. That is the first part of the problem: you will find yourself hitting “Roll” or “Continue” on a menu way too often. WAY too often. On top of that, if you have any property that a robot player wants to buy, it will PESTER you twice, before and after it rolls the dice, and in every single turn. If you think that Yang has problems with Ballmer breathing down his neck to buy Yahoo, wait until you play the Blackberry version of Monopoly. And you have to confirm every single darn dice roll too, even if it is a robot’s turn to play. The robot will keep pestering you until you accept the offer. You can reject it, of course. How? You press the Menu key then the trackball or Enter key. You will soon notice that pressing any of those two key combinations is not very comfortable, especially when you have to do that over and over and over. I couldn’t get used to it although I had to do it a lot.
And it gets worse. Improving or mortgaging property requires the following steps: scroll through your properties and click the trackball; then select Build or Mortgage in a really tiny menu controlled by a trackball that has no precision whatsoever and is sure to have you click the wrong option most of the time. The same “loose” trackball will roll around like an idiot while you try to select the right number of houses to build or property to mortgage. OK, 10% of all this grief is the trackball’s fault, but 90% really is the game’s. When you have finally made your selection, you can’t just exit this horrible screen. No. You go back to that first scroll and scroll up very carefully back to the top (you will miss it a few times, that’s for sure), where you’re supposed to click the trackball once again, select “Back” or “Accept” in another tiny menu where the damn trackball wobbles around unsure once again and, finally, hit the trackball once again. There is a lot of “once again” in this game’s interface. Apparently, it’s by design.
What about trading property? Well, first you select whatever you want to buy or sell. Then you scroll (with the wobbling trackball) up to the amount icon, press the trackball and select how much money you want to pay or receive for the transaction. Then you do your best to scroll with the wobbling trackball up to the icon that represents you (and you will miss it a few times, that’s for sure too). Then you hit the trackball and you hit the trackball AGAIN to get past a frigging warning that is very useful the very first time you see it but will drive you crazy in every one of all other times because you already know whatever it is telling you and, by golly, you don’t want to see it again ever for the rest of your life, but it will keep popping up over and over and over and over and over… Then you get - just hear this - yet another confirmation that makes you hit the trackball twice. Again. Then you have to see if the other party accepts the deal. If they don’t, you can change some of the conditions and go over all that trouble again. Rinse and repeat. Or simply give up, which requires that annoying Menu key then the trackball or Enter key combination I mentioned before. Because a lot of stuff requires confirmation in this game, buddy. Sometimes, twice. You’re messing with Monopoly money, you don’t wanna make any mistakes, do ya?
So here is pretty much the summary of this game: a classical and very entertaining game almost entirely ruined by really annoying interface design and some bleak lack of real opponents. I really don’t know how I should rate this game. On the one hand, I had quite some fun playing (or trying to play) it. On the other hand, after one week, I am more than ready to uninstall it because there is no challenge in it and I am REALLY sick of so much clicking and confirming. You had better judge it by yourselves. I swear it’s not that bad in the first hour or so. After that, you’re on your own.
Pros: very good reproduction of the actual board game.
Cons: virtually no artificial intelligence leaves you with no interesting opponents; repeated interface design blunders may anger many users.
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