MONOPOLY Here & Now

Newer is not always better. 2/10

Here's the premise for this game, Monopoly is too old so let's replace the old with the new. While this kind of thinking works for theme-based Monopoly clones like Star Wars Monopoly, it fails horribly in this case. All of the properties have been replaced with, what appears to be, randomly generated names of places. A property can be a mountain, a bridge, a city, a tourist attraction or one of many other places. These properties are also grouped in a seemingly random order. To further create an appearance of "here and now" all of the prices and transactions have been multiplied by 10,000. This modification in no way makes the game realistic, earning 2 million when hitting go is nowhere near what I make per year. The difference between multiplying everything by 1,000 and 10,000, however, is that now all the math is screwed up and confusing.
The game is also plagued by numerous bugs and "features." One such feature is that the game is saved after you end your turn. What this means is that if you made a bad throw, or one of your computer opponents made a too good of a throw, all you have to do is quit the game, and continue from beginning of your or computer's turn. Another feature is the Auction. When you land on an ownerless property, you can check the amount of money and properties that the other players have and decline to buy the property. Declining to purchase a property activates an auction where the player with the highest bid wins. How is this a bug? Even though you declined the purchase you are still allowed to participate in the auction. If the propert is worth 3 million and the other players have 4 million or less, you are likely to get the property for 2 million. I was often able to purchase properties for as low as 50 thousand.
There are 2 cards that state that either the player has to pay or collect from the other players. This works fine when all four players are still in the game. However, when one or more players lose, the game still collects and pays as if all four players are active. Another bug is when you have over 250 million, and you land on Income Tax, Instead of paying 2 million, you pay 10 thousand, or 1 dollar by classic monopoly rules. Yet another bug is on the rule selection screen. You have an option of turning Go Double on or off. No matter what selection you make, you will always be given a second and third roll if you get doubles.
Computer opponents can be set to one of three difficulty levels, yet they play exactly the same in all aspects of the game. During the game, you have an option to trade with other players. The trading AI is horrible. Computer will offer to swap monopolies, with you getting a worse monopoly and still having to pay the computer a generous amount. The computer will offer you a deal, you decline and re-offer it back just to have the computer decline its own deal. The computer will offer a deal that involves giving you money, if the deal is declined it will be re-offered next turn only with you getting less money.
Why did I give this crap a 2 out of 10? I like Monopoly, and for all its faults, this is still Monopoly. Also, you get to chose from a number of popular rule modification like collecting taxes when landing on Free Parking.