Yay I've gone bronze and no tanning bed in sight!!
Thanks to everyone for your ratings and comments...
Yay I've gone bronze and no tanning bed in sight!!
Thanks to everyone for your ratings and comments.
I always try to return all ratings and if I promise an E and don't get back to you feel free to give me a poke.
Sue
Member since:30.05.2009
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THE GAM OF LIFE
Mention 'games' to children today and they automatically think of Wii, X Box, Play Station or DS games. But what is better than a good old-fashioned board game that the whole family can play together?
I expect that many of you reading this review played it as a young person - but have you any idea how long it has been going?
It may amaze you to know that it was originally created in 1860 by Milton Bradley, and was then known as The Checkered Game of Life. The modern version was originally published one hundred years later, in 1960) by the Milton Bradley Company (now a subsidiary of Hasbro).
Game of Life is, just what it says on the box, a game about living your life and making choices along the way.
Luck does play a major part in the game, but there are also so important decisions that have to be made for each player as they make there way through life.
WHAT DO YOU GET?
Some of you may still remember this game when the board came complete with bridges and church buidings and a poor house and mansion. The only thing we might ever have to put on the board was the spinner Now folds nice and flat, but I don't like the new board nearly as much as the old and lumpy one. It's a pain to have to break down and set up the board each time you play. When you open the box today you get
· 55
cards (careers, university careers, long-term investments, starter homes, houses and Share the Wealth cards) · 25 Life tokens · 24 Spin to Win tokens · Spin to Win strip · 6 cars · 2 sets of people pegs (pink and blue) · 1 gameboard · 3 mountains · 1 bridge · 7 buildings · 1 sheet of stickers · 1 spinner (in 4 parts) · Pay rise certificates · Bank loan certificates · Money · Instructions
There are spaces in the board for various buildings such as a church and a retirement home to be placed. There are larger spaces for a toll bridge and mountains to be added for crossing over certain routes. Near the centre is a space for the spinner.. The mountain pieces and bridge all have stickers which need to be added and the spinner is easy to put together. The money comes in denominations of 1,000, 5,000, 10,000, 50,000 and 100,000.
PLAYING THE GAME
To be honest this is quite a complicated game when you first start, but the rules are quite easy to pick up as you play it , keep the instruction book handy for the first couple of times you play and you'll soon be whizzing around the board like an expert.
You start the game with a car, a car insurance certificate and £3,000.
The game begins with everyone making a choice about either going to university or going straight into a career. Going to university takes a few more spaces. Part of the goal of the game is to finish ahead of other people. (I don't want to keep up with the Joneses! I want to keep ahead of them!)
The bigger part of the game, however, is to finish with the most stuff. The careers for people who go to university pay more - just like they usually do in real life.
It doesn't take playing more than once or twice to realise that you are better off going to university.
After this initial choice you all follow the same journey although there are short cuts for those racing towards retirement. The aim of the game is to get to end of the game with the most amount of money and it is not necessarily the first to get round who will win the game.
After university, everyone stops to get married at the church. The church building is rather non-denominational looking, this doesn't bother me but I am rather surprised that in today's PC culture the game doesn't offer a choice of different buildings - a church for Christian denominations, a synagogue for Jews, a Mosque for Muslims, a little mini-Stonehenge for Druids...but I digress.
After getting married, people have children. There is a very definite set of moral values that this game promotes. I am not saying that I disagree with any of them, but I can see that in some families the 'you get a job, then married, then children' route may not feel quite right.
As you drive along, you have the opportunity to buy insurance, stocks, and property, get paid, inherit and lose money. Good luck and bad luck play their respective roles. The goal is to be the first one to reach the end and be able to retire rich. If you don't have enough money to win the game, you can also bet everything on a single spin of the wheel. If it pays off, you win. If it doesn't, you end up in the poor house.
When you reach retirement you can choose whether to go into a retirement home or head for the millionaire's mansion.
The game ends when all players have travelled through life and enter retirement. All that matters then is the money and the winner is the one who has earned and saved the most.
That is a VERY condensed set of rules, but you really do need to follow the instruction book at first, and this review would be pretty boring if I wrote out the rule book!!
WHAT DO I THINK
First of all I must day that my favourite new addition to the game is the possibility of a mid-life crisis when the player must change jobs and salaries. The first time I went through a game-version mid-life crisis I thought, been there and done that!
I also realised that this game was truly a product of the 50's. You had to get a job, had to get married and buy a house!!
This is a game that everyone I know loves playing, mainly as it lasts a decent time - neither too long or too short.
A game of 4 players usually takes us around 40 minutes to play but obviously with 2 it will be slightly less or with 6 it will be slightly longer. It is also a game that can be adapted to suit your own family situations - I have a friend who, when her family play it, allow gay marriages because she has a gay brother.
Although it is aimed at children aged 9 and over, we do have younger children play but we let the little kids choose their own careers rather than leaving it to chance. It gives us all a good insight on what their eventual dreams are. This game also comes in different themes, which would make ideal gifts for fans of the various editions available; they are :
The Game of Life in Monstropolis (Monsters, Inc.) (2001) Star Wars: A Jedi's Path (2002) Pirates of the Caribbean (2004) The Simpsons Edition (2004) Bikini Bottom SpongeBob SquarePants Edition (2004) Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest (2006) Twists and Turns Edition (2007) Spongebob Squarepants Edition (2008) Family Guy Collectors Edition (2008) The Wizard of Oz Edition (2009)
GAME DETAILS
· Item Weight: 1.5 Kg · Boxed-product Weight: 1.1 Kg · Item model number: 14529 · ASIN: B0002VZ2QY · Price £9.99 · Age 9+
This is a great family game and is adaptable enough with a little creativity to match your own moral compass. And, of course, sitting around playing board games is a great way to spend time with your children.
IF ONLY LIFE WAS SO SIMPLE!
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The Game of Life
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true. The house, the cars, the beautiful wife, he lives in a world of excess where loyalty is tied to the mighty dollar and where trust is as unpredictable as a roll of the dice. If you're going to play the game, you better play to win.
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Shoeshine for Nepute To Get Eaten By The Rats Tourtasia Claiming Middle Age A Decade Early Taiwanese Troft Trouble 13 Year Old Ruby Robando De Los Muertos So You Think You Know About The Game of Life (Party in the Rear)
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Advantages: Your character is a little blue or pink pin! What else do I say Disadvantages: If you're looking for twists, turns and general laughter-this isnt for you
starmisthaze 27.10.2007 (27.10.2007)
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Nov 4th, 2009
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