Review: Monopoly, Boggle, Yahtzee, Battleship (Hasbro compilation) (DS)
Score: 76
There's little that's elegant about the titling of this compilation, but you can't fault the pedigree of the titles included - old favourites they may be, but the gameplay has been tested over hundreds of years. So how well have the four games been converted to the dual-screened DS Lite?
The first point to bear in mind is that at least three of the games require more than one human being (ideally). Boggle and Battleship work fine using single cartridge multi-play (i.e. using the 'download' function of each DS Lite over Wi-Fi), but Yahtzee and Monopoly each require multiple cartridges, contradicting the requirements stated on the box.
Monopoly is by far the biggest title/license on display here and it's an impressive conversion, with nice animations, a fluid 3D representation of the board and even tweakable rules (have you ever seen the same rule set played in more than one household?).
Some of the financial transactions are poorly represented on-screen, but otherwise the game progresses well (multiple carts permitting, as mentioned above) and Monopoly is a lot of fun - or at least as much fun as you can have with a board game and a spare hour.
Next up is Battleships, the classic grid game, shown below in its classic theme but there also versions provided for the likes of spacecraft and marine animals.
(Image
copyright IGN)
Battleships works superbly, with animations and sound effects and demonstrates two player single-cart play very well indeed.
Yahtzee is similar, with themes that can be applied to give the game a new appeal. There are some good animations and effects and it's a good strategy learner, playing on your own.
Boggle works very well with stylus selection of the letters to use, and there are a number of variations to try out with your friends. The built-in dictionary isn't perfect, but in multi-player mode you each get to approve (or disapprove) each others words,
Verdict: A great collection of classics, spoilt only by misleading multi-player requirements.