People Play Games #3: Monopoly/Battleship

People Play Games is back, taking another look at old video games that are uniquely terrible for one reason or another. Today, we’ll discuss video games based on board games, looking at the examples of Monopoly and Battleship, both for the Nintendo Entertainment System.

It’s hard not to like a good board game. They’re inexpensive, they’re easy to learn, and they provide simple but competitive fun. Additionally, most of the classic ones have been around for like a hundred years, so board games like Monopoly and Battleship are ingrained in American culture. Even if you’ve never played a game of Monopoly, you probably know how it works and what it’s about.

For some reason, video game companies thought that consumers would want to spend $50 to play these age-old American institutions in a newer, shittier way. Never mind the fact that a copy of the real Monopoly is probably in the area of $20, that a board game is inherently more interactive and fun because you are actually rolling the dice and moving the pieces, and that no one has any need or desire for a digital Monopoly game.

This miscalculation could be forgiven if the video game sported amazing graphics or put a new, fun slant on the original game. Of course, it doesn’t. Unless I see the thimble and the iron popping out of my television set or unless I’m getting real money to play it, I think I’d rather play the real game with real people.

But does it feel like the real Monopoly? When playing board games, there is inherent and constant shit-talking, especially when some poor sap just landed on your deluxe hotel property and now has to fork over all of their cash. In the NES Monopoly, the game moves so fast you hardly have any idea what the fuck is going on. The computer rolls the dice, lands on a property and purchases it in the space of four seconds.

Yeah, that looks just as good as playing the real thing, right? So Monopoly for Nintendo offers no discernable reason for playing it over the real board game and it costs $30 more. Why was this made?

If Monopoly is the baseball of board games (a patient and strategic game, takes forever to play, has been around forever), Battleship is the football. The action is violent and quick, players slowly squeeze the life out of each other once they get a “hit”, and the game can turn around in an instant if your opponent gives you an opening. Again, this sounds more exciting in real life, right?

Battleship for NES adds some insane “wrinkles” to the classic game, allowing the player to use “depth charges” and shoot five missiles at once. I point to this as evidence that the game didn’t need to be made in the first place. Everyone loves Battleship. I don’t think you can find a person who knows what Battleship is that doesn’t adore it. People like it the way it is. The only justification for its existence on Nintendo is that the programmers piled some stupid shit on top of it and claimed it was a new game.

In past articles on the Musicarium, we’ve discussed media that claimed to promote family values while simultaneously undermining them. The Tamagotchi allowed kids to raise a virtual pet when a real life pet is much more fun and rewarding. TGIF told families to sit and watch other, better families on TV and passed this off as a family activity. Board games can be played by anyone, but I’d wager the first thing you think of when you think of the term “board game” is a family sitting around a table playing one. In this instance, board games are perfect the way they are. The idea of improving on them by making a group of people perform yet another activity where they sit around a television is a tad insidious.

Although, it is cool to see the enemy battleship actually blow up.

John Lacey