Monopoly; we’ve all played it. It’s one of those games that’s been around forever and has infected our world to the point where pretty much everyone has a copy in their closet. But does anyone older than 10 like it? Maybe, I can’t speak for everyone. But I can speak for myself. I don’t like the game. It’s boring, it requires no skill and it can bring out the worst in some people. You roll dice and hope you land on spaces you can buy and avoid spaces you can’t afford to pay. There’s no decision making involved. No strategy.
So I refuse to play it. And yet, some how, like most American’s I still have three copies of this terrible game up in my closet. However, one of these I don’t intend to get rid of. I can hear you asking, why do I keep a game I despise? Star Wars, that’s why. It is vintage classic trilogy set, though in terrible shape. I picked it up back in college before the prequels had all premiered and it was in very used shape even back then.
The game board is the same design with Dagobah as the first cheap location and Coruscant standing in for Park Place and Boardwalk. The railways are replaced by starships as are the houses/hotels. Instead of building four houses and upgrading to a hotel you build four X-wings and upgrade to a Millenium Falcon.
One nice thing about the game is it does continue the tradition of nice pewter pieces for players. In this case, you can choose from Emperor Palpatine, Darth Vader, a Stormtrooper, Boba Fett, Luke Skywalker, Obi-wan Kenobi, Han Solo, Princess Leia or C-3P0. Why they choose to leave out R2-D2, the best character in Star Wars, I can not fathom. Probably because he’s too cool for Monopoly. I would imagine so is Han Solo, but he’s not the wisest when it comes to money.
Despite the Star Wars facelift it’s still the same old Monopoly. So while amusing it’s still not any fun.
Another classic game, that I don’t have the same antipathy towards, is Life. This has also received the Star Wars treatment. Instead of embarking on your journey through life – going to school, getting a job, having a family – you are instead a Jedi Padawan learning the ways of the Force. The mechanics are essentially the same as Life. You spin the dial and move along the path. You have a few choices to make as far as paths go and in some cases for discarding cards.
Along the path you will pick up a Jedi Master, build a Lightsaber and eventually become either a Jedi Knight or Sith Lord. Instead of earning money as a means of winning you gain skills. Taking the Dark Path can get you to the end faster and give you a chance to earn some quick skills, but you also miss out on a lot of the board which might result in some lower net skills. This is the main reason I like this one better than Monopoly. While much of the game comes down to what space you land on, there are a few times where you get to make choices that will impact your game.
Now, on the positive side of classic board games that have been given a Star Wars twist we have Trivial Pursuit. This game is a true test of your Star Wars fandom. Like most Trivial Pursuit games this requires some obscure knowledge. It’s not an easy game. And it should not be played with non Star Wars supergeeks.
I once sat down to play with an old buddy who is also a Star Wars supergeek, he is the one who introduced me to the old Expanded Universe novels; my wife; and another friend. It quickly became a a game between me and my buddy and the other two were just sitting around, unable to answer most of the questions. And my wife likes Star Wars and has seen them more than a few times.
Wayne Basta
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