2008 Woodie Awards
'Express' board games: more fun in less time
Smaller versions of old favorites condense game board for convenience
Stacy Downs
MCT Campus
Issue date: 2/26/08 Section: The Mix
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Clue is a blast. It's thrilling to learn whodunit and find out just where in the mansion Mr. Boddy meets his untimely demise. Was the murder weapon the revolver, the candlestick or the rope?
I'm always up for Trivial Pursuit, Risk or Battleship. And after I discovered a 1930s board game called Star Reporter, I just had to buy it on eBay.
But my board-game days came to a halt nearly two years ago after my first child was born. Spare time is rare now. So when I recently learned about the new, sped-up versions of classic board games with the slogan "take a 20-minute game break," I was intrigued. Would express versions of Monopoly, Scrabble and Sorry! be as much fun as the originals? I decided to roll the dice and find out.
MONOPOLY EXPRESS
The games in Hasbro's Express series each come in round 6-inch diameter plastic boxes, a definite plus because they're better for traveling and storage than bulky cardboard boxes that rip apart around the edges.
To play Monopoly Express, my husband, Richard, brother Randy and our friend Ricky gathered at my parents' house, a great venue because it has a wonderful game table and free babysitting. Growing up, Randy and I were competitive playing the original Monopoly, so we highly anticipated discovering a new way to play the game.
The Monopoly Express game board is slightly larger than a compact disc. All the players laughed at its diminutive size because it suffered the same scale problem as Stonehenge in "This Is Spinal Tap." The tiny board also was challenging for us 20- and 30-somethings to read.
Figuring out the rules took longer than playing the actual game, which involves rolling 10 or 11 dice. There are four green houses, but missing are the fun silver game tokens, hotels, Community Chest cards, Chance cards, array of properties and, the best part, colorful cash. Colors on the Monopoly Express board represent properties, but you don't retain any of them turn to turn.
"This doesn't feel like Monopoly," Randy said. "The fun of Monopoly is landing on expensive property with a bunch of hotels and wheeling and dealing."
My feelings exactly. So after playing a couple of 20-minute games of Monopoly Express, we went on to old-school Monopoly. It took more than three hours to play one game, but the board got interestingly scary as players filled the coveted blue and green properties with hotels. I wasn't the winner (Richard was), but I beat Randy, so I felt victorious.
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