15th Jun2020

‘Monopoly Voice Banking: Control It All’ Board Game Review

by James Smith

Monopoly is the board game we all know and love. Yes, it has torn apart countless families and caused many the tantrums, but a family board game evening would not be the same without it. Monopoly is likely the most well-known board game in the world whilst Mr Monopoly (who was formerly known as Rich Uncle Pennybags) is instantly recognisable as the mascot of the game. The Monopoly game trademark which was first created by Parker Brothers has evolved through the years and continues to transcend. Monopoly casinos now exist where players can play different types of Monopoly slot games. McDonalds Monopoly is another super popular game that has made fantastic use of the Monopoly trademark. Despite all the recent turmoil that 2020 has brought us, there remains nothing quite like sitting down to play a game of Monopoly. We will now answer the question of whether you should buy the brand-new Monopoly game – Monopoly Voice Banking: Control It All.

Monopoly Voice Banking completely changes the field of play. In this new Monopoly game, there is no cash, and nobody has to be the banker anymore. Although Monopoly Voice Banking: Control It All is not the first cashless Monopoly game (it is in fact the third) it is the first Monopoly game to utilise voice banking. In the middle of the elegantly designed Monopoly board there is a top hat that serves as an electronic bank and banker. When you press the tokens button on the top hat and give a voice demand, for example, ‘buy Baltic’, Mr Monopoly will talk to you and will confirm your purchase. All players will be given a list of voice commands to use during the game in order to make the process as simple and easy as possible. Each command will activate electronic transactions. For example, if you need to pay rent to another player who owns the property Oriental, you simply have to state the words ‘pay rent on Oriental’ and the voice banker will confirm the transaction. Furthermore, chance and community chest cards are now virtual too (all apart from the Go To Jail card which is still physical). Let the banker know that you landed on one of these spaces and it will let you know what to do next. You can also check your balance at any point in the game.

Other than the voice banking aspect, the rules are much the same as every other standard Monopoly game. You travel round the game board whilst landing on properties to buy and sell. As usual, you will receive 200 monopoly money every time you pass GO and every so often you will be sent to JAIL. However, one feature that has been added into Monopoly Voice Banking are trade spaces. If you land on one of these spaces, you can pay to trade any of your undeveloped properties with your choice of any of your opponents undeveloped properties. If you do not want to buy a property after landing on a property space, then Mr Monopoly will host the auction for the undesired property. In another twist, the railroad properties no longer exist either, instead when you land on one of the spaces where the rail roads used to be, you will instead be sent to a random property on the board which is chosen by Mr Monopoly himself.

Pros

  • Overall, the game goes faster than previous versions of Monopoly.
  • If you are a group full of super competitive players especially who drive a hard bargain, this version will take trading to a level where players have no choice but to give up their properties thanks to the trade spaces.
  • The railroad spaces are always able to put a random spanner in the works by picking our random property spaces that players must land on.
  • No cash ensures no cheating. Who has not played with a player who secretly sneaks money from the bank when nobody is looking?

Cons

  • One downside to this version of Monopoly is that it can only be played by 2-4 people, so if you are a family of over four people, you will have to team up in order to all play.
  • There are some new rules to learn which requires a bit of patience.
  • The voice banking system requires batteries.
  • All of the player pieces are the same colour which will cause some confusion

Final Score: **** 4/5

Monopoly Voice Banking: Control It All is available online at Argos.co.uk, or at your local games store. Don’t know where yours is? Try this handy games store locator.
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