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Post Date: 07:27 29-09-2009
Rating: 7
Author: awesomedrako
Comment: This game is fairly good, and the description is correct, the game IS similar to Monopoly. You buy properties, you upgrade them (in Monopoly, put houses/hotels on them), and you collect rent from other people. There is even a Jail, and Events that are similar to Chances and Community Chest. However, this is where the changes start.
Gameplay: 8.5/10
Galactic Magnate is more about strategy than luck than Monopoly. In Monopoly, you just have to be lucky to land on the right properties to buy then, thereby getting a monopoly. In Galactic Magnate, when you land on a property, you can either auction the property or leave it. You cannot simply buy it there and then. This means that no matter who lands on what property, when buying them, everyone gets a chance to buy that property, this leads on to strategy about whether to auction the property or pass on it, say, if it is the last property to be bought for a monopoly by another player. Other changes include that, if you land on Jail, you are not passing jail, you GO TO JAIL, so the Jail becomes a spot everyone wants to avoid. If you manage to buy a property, you go backwards back to Start (Go for Monopoly players), so you don't pass it and get a Salary. Passing Start gets you money like in Monopoly, but being a more strategic game, Galactic Magnate makes the Salary changeable, or rather, lowerable. This is because the Salary when you pass Go starts out at about 300, but it can slowly decline due to anybody landing on the Meteor Shower square, getting an Event that lowers it by a little, or "Progress" (haven't worked out what this means yet), and if the Salary hits 0, then economy collapses and every single time you pass Go, I mean Start, then you have to pay 300! This makes passing Start a strategic thing! Other changes include Extractors, which replace the stations in Monopoly. These are things that extract money. Every single time someone, ANYONE, lands on these, the owner of it gets money, unless he/she is in Jail (because you can't collect rent, or profits, or do anything in Jail other than wait 3 turns, no rolling doubles or paying to get out either!). Utilities do not rely on chance to get rent. Utilities use a system much like the Stations in Monopoly, the more they own, the more you pay.
Graphics: 4/10
Quite Mediocre, the board is a bit cluttered. Also, the graphics themselves aren't all that good, they look like a cheap futuristic-style board game. I'd say the original Monopoly looked a bit better. Monopoly the board game actually looks a bit cleaner and less cluttered to me.
Community: 5/10
Hard to rate. I'll rate it average, because the players seem friendly, but there are ONLY LIKE 5 PLAYERS ONLINE AT ANY TIME!!! INCLUDING ME!!! This makes finding a game a bit hard, you just have to log in at some point and hope for a free player to appear as well.
One last thing before I give an overall score, the game has a learning curve that is a bit steep if you DON'T READ THE RULES. You MUST READ THE RULES!!! I'm not even joking, this is a good board-game, and it's similar to Monopoly, but don't think that since you've read my review and know the rules in Monopoly you can just rush in and play! I read about half the rules, then jumped in and played. Well, it went rather badly, not knowing half the rules, I got a bad monopoly that wasn't worth it, and the other player ended up with way more money than I did, and they had a couple of extractors as well.
Overall, I give this game a 7/10, because its gameplay is EXCELLENT, but it is a bit let down by its graphics and TINY community.
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