The Game of Life

The Good
This is a fantastic game. When I first saw this game I thought it was gonna be another half-hearted attempt at bringing a classic board game to the computer. But after I started playing, I slowly changed my mind.

The Game of Life is basically a board game where you go through life, and try to become the richest player in the game. Spin the spinner to move and move over the board, and collect money. You can choose a College path (3 choices for both Occupation and amount of Salary) or Career, which gives you one choice for each. First you Graduate, then get married and then buy a house. Then the basis of the game is to amass the most money.

You can in 2 different modes. The first mode is the "classic" mode. This follows the real game rules, so it is like actually setting up the game and playing. You collect "LIFE" tiles and at the end of the game you collect a random amount of money for each tile you have. There are only 20 tiles, so you end up stealing tiles from other players during the game. Lots of Bad Blood between players using the method grin

The second version is the "enhanced" version of the game. This takes advantage of the computer. Instead of collecting "LIFE" tiles, you have a game that brings up "Memory" type games (i.e. make like dollar amounts to collect the amount), also you can get random amounts of money. Also, buying a house is handled differently in the enhanced mode. Instead of spinning for a house and price, you can pick the style house you want, and then you spin for the price. Either you pay one of 3 amounts or you can get lucky and inherit the house. The enhanced mode also allow for Paydaty Revenge, which is a cool feature. If you land on a Payday, instead of collecting you pay from the bank, you choose another player to collect it from. Things get messy and cuthroat in this mode of play, which makes it even more fun.

The graphics are fantastic. The graphics are bright, but not contrasting. The board is nicely animated, and Mass Media even got the blurriness of the spinner right (trust me it's pretty cool looking). The cars are animated nicely, and the "car cam" is actually pretty cool. After you spin, the game cuts to a camera inside your "car", and you can watch yourself drive around the board. A nicely done enchancement. The Cutscenes on different squares are either still images (which are kinda dumb, but can be funny), or Nicely done cinemas. Take getting married for example. You pull up in your car, your bride (or groom) jumps ot of the church, bounces on a trampoline, does a few mid-air flips and lands squarely next to you in the car. Really cool, but you can shut off the cutscenes if youwant.

The sound is great. From the background music (which goes from '50 style up through the current style of music) to the "Bbzzzzzzzzzzzzz" of the spinner, Hasbro got it down pact. They got a good guy for the voice overs, so listening to the voice doing the play-by-play of the game isn't irritating. In fact, sometimes there is so much going on, if you shut the voice off, you'd have a hard time playing the game. In this case, the Voice is a added plus.

The control is Simple and straight forward. It's all done with the mouse, and a few keyboard commands. Easy to get right into the game.

The Bad
Actually, there isn't anything that I don't like. It's a quality product all around.

The Bottom Line
This is one of the better board game-to-computer translations. Unlike Sorry, and Boggle, The Game of Life is a fun, entertaining game that is sure to please kids and adults. A great family game all around.