Story dated 5 May, 2003

Monopoly is back!

With something of an oxymoron, Stern Pinball is making a second Monopoly game and once again it comes from Pat Lawlor Design only this time there's a twist - it's nothing to do with pinball.

That would normally be the end of the story except that the same teams that brought you Monopoly: the pinball, are now working on this beast of a redemption game:

That same John Youssi graphic style is given a spring clean for the side panels but the striking nature of the black and red remains. The top, though, looks anything but stylish - let's throw out the black and go for green and yellow. It's certainly a game of two halves.

As for the game itself, well it's a three player model and you are supposed to stop the lights around the board on the highest scoring number. There are three levels of game play depending on the amount of money inserted and payout rates can be changed by fitting different tables, but they are typically 32% and 40%.

There are both LED and dot-matrix displays with animations and sound effects taken from the pinball game to liven things up.

Stern will be manufacturing the game shortly and shipping later this month.