Download The Game of Life (Windows)

"You can learn about life when you play The Game of LIFE!" Many (American) readers will instantly recognize this catchy television jingle of some twenty years ago promoting the old boardgame by this name. While the fact was that the only thing you might learn was a bizarre caricature of life according to stereotypes formed during the 1950's, The Game of LIFE was certainly one of the children's/family games that most people of my generation will remember having played on at least a few occasions, along with such games as Sorry! and Clue. Of course, this is 1998, so it seems almost natural that a version would be released for the computer. Hasbro Interactive are releasing quite a few of their boardgame titles on computer (such as the aforementioned ***Sorry! ***as well as Axis & Allies), and as a result we're now able to play The Game of LIFE without having to clean off the dining room table. Is it worth it?

It all seems so absurd

The Game of LIFE is an excellent children's game because there are a minimal number of decisions to make during play. You simply spin the spinner and move as many spaces as it tells you. Thus, players don't get punished for making bad decisions: they simply get punished for bad luck. Consequently, everyone has about an equal chance of winning any given playing. As a result, this is a game that children will play with their friends or that the whole family will play together. For this reason, I'm not sure how useful a computer version of this game is. If I were a child and old enough to play a game of this sort, there would probably be far more interesting things for me to do on the computer than play The Game of LIFE. If I really wanted to play a game of this sort (again, as a child), I would be far more inclined to play the boardgame and interact with the other players directly and move the pieces myself rather than focus on the computer screen.

Gameplay consists of advancing across the board, which is divided into a number of spaces. Landing on a given space causes some "life-related" event to occur, such as having to pay taxes, or going on vacation, or some such. Players will either collect or pay money on each space, or they will collect a "LIFE tile." LIFE tiles consist of cards with random dollar values that the player reveals only upon traversing the entire game board and "retiring." The object of the game is not to be the one to traverse the board first (or even last -- you don't win if you live the longest!) but to have the most money after everyone has finished (retired). Some people might consider this a questionable goal in light of the fact that it might encourage children to be more materialistic, but I would suggest that these people lighten up. It is, after all, only a game.

That this should have occurred

The game can be played with up to six players, with any combination of humans and computer opponents (exception: no computer opponents are available for network play). "Playing" the game simply requires hitting the button that says "spinner," and watching what happens next. Obviously, this can become a bit tedious, and the fact that -- unlike the boardgame -- you don't even have to pick up and move your piece or count the spaces means that you are really not much more than a spectator once you hit the "spinner" button.

Hasbro Interactive have tried to spice the game up visually by giving you a first-person perspective as you travel across the board. In addition, there are animations or cartoons for each of the spaces on which one can land, and some of them are even mildly amusing. However, the animations can be extremely slow. In fact, a P200MMX with 64MB RAM and a 16X CD-ROM doesn't come anywhere close to running them at an acceptable framerate. I originally played the game with a friend (who had graciously agreed to try one run-through of the game in hot-seat mode) and we decided after about two minutes that the only way we would ever be able to last through the game would be to turn all the game animations off. Granted, the machine in question is not particularly fast by today's standards, but it should be fairly obvious that the type of person this game would appeal to is not necessarily going to have a high-end PII optimised for 3D-shooters and flight sims.

The interesting thing is that when I tried the game later after installing a 16MB Voodoo Banshee 2D/3D card, the animations played much better. Why this wouldn't run properly on my old video card (an S3 with 2MB EDO -- yes, it was old) is beyond me, but it seems to me that this type of machine, sans high-end video acceleration, should be exactly the type of machine the game needs to run with. Sadly, it didn't appear to do so. In fact, I would consider the "Recommended" machine configuration listed above (provided by Hasbro) to be a complete joke. Interestingly, the game booklet lists a 2MB SVGA adapter (which I had) under the recommended specs. Experienced gamers will already be familiar with games which vastly understate their minimum specs in order to encourage purchases, but for this sort of misstatement to occur with a game like this seems a tad ridiculous.

In addition, loading saved games is excruciatingly slow, and switching back and forth from the game to the control menu (in order to quit or save a game) takes forever and a day. This is precisely the sort of thing (staring at a blank screen while the hard drive runs or the CD spins up) that will cause kids to lose interest fast. This is a major point against the game, as far as I'm concerned. The game accesses the CD drive far too much, but there doesn't appear to be any way in which to install all the files to the hard drive. As a result, slow load and play times will be the norm.

The game can either be played from the first-person perspective mentioned above, or you can disable this option (which saves you from having to run a large animation window of your car whizzing around the board) and simply see a zoomed-out view of the portion of the board you are on where you watch a small car move around in a third-person view. There is even a full zoom-out option wherein players can see the entire board at once, presumably so they can keep better track of the other players as well as their own positions. This is nice, I guess, but the zoom-out makes the board so small that the writing on the spaces is illegible. Of course, since there isn't anything you can do to influence where you'll land on the next turn, I suppose having a legible board isn't necessary.

One of the most annoying things about the game is the fact that it is locked into a staid, cliched view of life circa 1950. The game is driven by what is written on the board, and the fact that this never changes means that The Game of LIFE is inextricably tied to the Eisenhower Administration. For example, a mandatory stop of "life's highway" is "Get Married," and there is (Heaven forbid) no divorce. Certainly Hasbro Interactive could have made some attempt to bring the 1998 version of this game closer to reality. For example, imagine alternate boards corresponding to various lifestyles that have joined the mainstream in recent years. One of the boards could be, say, "Urban Homosexual," in which the "Get Married" space could be replaced by "Start a Theatre Company." Or one could play on the "College Socialist" board, in which most of the game was played with the student actually still in college, whereupon his career choice becomes "work for non-profit organization." Instead of the "You're Fired! Begin New Career" space, this board could have "Discover your liberal arts degree is useless. Go to law school." And so forth. While the humor would be lost on the kids, having downloadable boards like this might be amusing for parents of my generation.

My very only secret

The game comes in two versions. The first is called the "Classic Board Game" and simply consists of the rules present in the original board version. The second version is called the "Enhanced Game," and differs from the basic game by replacing LIFE tiles with something called "Life's Little Games." These are, as you might expect, little games that are played immediately upon landing on the appropriate space. They are all quite simple, and give the players the opportunity to win money by performing a variety of tasks. For example, in one such game the player is presented with 12 identical face-down certificates, which he must turn face-up, look at the revealed value (from $10,000 to $50,000) and then reveal a second one. If they match, he keeps the revealed value in cash. If not, they both go face-down again. The player has a finite number of chances at this. This is very much like "concentration," and the other games included in the "Enhanced Version" will all strike the player as something he has seen before. All of them are on a level appropriate for the children at whom the game is targeted, and at least give the players something to do other than just hit the "spinner" button again and again.

The zoomed-in map, and one of "Life's Little Games."
The game can be played solo, via hotseat, or even via TCP/IP connection. While the first two options seem reasonable for a game of this sort, I'm mystified by the inclusion of a TCP/IP option, as it calls into question who Hasbro Interactive think is going to buy the game. I just can't see children getting together for massive Internet games of The Game of LIFE, nor can I see families sitting around the computer to take on the Tikkanens that live across the street (in Helsinki). I suppose that once the decision has been made to produce the game, one might as well make it TCP/IP compatible. Still, it just seems kind of odd.

The game was quite stable, and did not exhibit any flaky behavior of any sort other than the incredibly jerky animations which played very smoothly only after the addition of a new video card as stated above. Since there aren't very many things for the player to click on, it would seem to be difficult to "break" the game: once the spinner has been spun, the game takes control of the action, and the players just watch the pictures. This makes it unlikely that the game will hang up due to unexpected, child-induced input from the keyboard or mouse.

And I had to go and leak it

Hasbro Interactive have done a nice job of porting this classic game to the computer. My only question is, well, "why?" Games like The Game of LIFE are essentially social games, and putting them on the computer robs them of the very element that would induce someone to play them. On the other hand, it could be that computers are becoming a social focal point of their own in this regard. If that is the case, I could think of a lot better things to do on the computer as a family than play this. However, if you're inclined towards this sort of thing, the game works well. Just make sure you have a fast PC and video card.

Review By GamesDomain