The game enables the player to set up a game that's customized with various preference settings. These include the level of animation of how cards are displayed and how pieces move on the board (reducing the animations speeds up the game substantially); whether actions in a game are confirmed with dialog boxes; and whether the game-play is accompanied by sound. Rule variations are also provided, such as whether landing on Free Parking brings a cash bonus (from accumulated fines, income tax, and such); whether rent is paid when a property is mortgaged; and whether properties are passed instead of auctioned if a player doesn't choose to buy upon landing on it.

AI-AI-Oh
The difficulty in creating competitive computer-controlled players comes from the need for a high level of artificial intelligence (AI) built in. If there's not enough AI, the experience doesn't resemble playing a human player, and while Handmark has created capable AI for Monopoly's computer players, the game-play can often be somewhat sterile and staid. This becomes apparent during trades, which often result in off-balance value assessments. For instance, you wouldn't likely give up New York Avenue in exchange for a railroad-even though both cost $200 to buy-if the computer would gain a monopoly on that property group. No, not even if the computer offered you a little bit of extra cash.

A major problem comes with the infrared beaming of a game between players. The procedure is for one player to make a move, and then beam the game status to the other player, much like play-by-mail chess. While in theory, this seems to be functional, in actual game-play, problems crop up for situations that require both-or all, if more than two are playing-to interact. Auctions and trades require both to participate, but IR beaming doesn't support that level of interactivity.

Additionally, there's no restriction on one player taking up the action and completing a few moves on both sides in a human vs. human game, then beaming it back to the other person with the hope that they didn't notice. Again, using the play-by-mail chess analogy, it would be easy for the other player to realize that the other player cheated in such a way because the board position would be noticeably advanced, but it might not be as simple to keep track of the status of a Monopoly game given all the factors needed to be tracked (i.e., properties owned, money held, etc.). For these reasons, multiplayer games are probably better accomplished by passing around a single unit, though I'd guess that this is just one instance where the table-top game is preferable to higher technology.

The Handmark version has a few other foibles to deal with-such as not being able to delete players in the middle of the list, because clicking Remove only takes them off from the bottom. Also, you can put more than one player on the list with the same name, whether by writing in a human player's name again or by selecting the same computer player from the drop-down roll. However, if you do your best to work around these glitches, the Monopoly game is quite enjoyable, particularly because a computer version provides simplification and minimizes the tedium. Yes…even for someone who's not a Monopoly fan.

Andy Eddy is West Coast Editor of IE Magazine, the newspaper of the interactive entertainment industry. He has also written for many other computer game-related magazines.