While setting down to an ole game of how to lose friends and alienate people Monopoly often seems like a tempting idea, you always end up opting for Cluedo or hell, in times of need, Boggle instead. How many enemies do I want to make, tonight? You ask yourself while thumbing the evil edges of Monopoly’s dusty box. It’s not worth it, you think, and so you do the right thing: you settle for a conniving match of figuring out who managed to bludgeon Mr X with a candlestick in a ballroom. Simple times, happy times.
Because really, about three rolls of the die in, Monopoly has you like:
It’s a heinous game reserved for providing an impetus for divorce and nothing else, and that’s why you swore off it years ago.
Today, however, marching back to the board, settling old scores and reliving sore battle scars might be back on the cards, as Monopoly has announced their 80th anniversary “Here and Now: World Edition”. And the li’l hamlet of Sydney, bless, has scored some real estate on the board—now filled with 21 other cities in place of streets from London’s chicest postcodes.
Deciding on which cities made the cut was put to a vote by Hasbro, with Sydney scoring enough points to land a spot on the Magenta end of town. In terms of real estate, Magenta is not as embarrassing as the pathetic Brown squares of town, but it’s nowhere near the heights of Park Lane and Mayfair. Those coveted spots go to Lima and Hong Kong, for some reason.
The gameplay of the Anniversary edition has been slightly modified to suit the travel theme: players collect passport stamps around the board on cities they “visit” and players pay “visiting fees” when landing on squares they don’t rightly own.
Lord Mayor of Sydney Clover Moore was chuffed with Sydney’s addition, saying, “As Australia’s global city, it’s great to see Sydney take its place on the world stage.”
You go, Sydney! And none for Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide, Perth, Canberra, Hobart or Darwin, bye.
Dark Blue: Lima, Peru; Hong Kong, China
Green: Riga, Latvia; Lisbon, Portugal; Istanbul, Turkey
Yellow: Warsaw, Poland; Mexico City, Mexico; Santiago, Chile
Red: Belfast, Ireland; Athens, Greece; Belgrade, Serbia
Orange: London, England; Moscow, Russia; Tokyo, Japan
Magenta: New York, USA; Amsterdam, Netherlands; Sydney, Australia
Light Blue: Queenstown, New Zealand; Cape Town, South Africa; Taipei, Taiwan
Brown: Giethoorn, Netherlands; Madrid, Spain (the Wildcard winners)
Via news.com.au
Lead image by Lisa Marie Williams via Getty.
