Monopoly: The largest board-game on Earth?

I've never been terribly keen on the board-game "Monopoly". This probably goes back to the days when we played it as kids. You'd go round to a mate's house on a rainy day, spend a merry half hour dealing out the cash and arguing over who was going to have the Racing Car, before endlessly rolling double ones and "Going to (wrongly spelt) Jail". After an hour or so, everyone except whoever was playing the Banker would be getting a bit bored, so the game would degenerate into bickering and recriminations with the occasional competition to see who could make the tallest tower of hotels.

I find the enduring success of "Monopoly" rather depressing. If you ask anyone to name a board-game, this is usually the only one that they can think of. Nearly everyone has played it and if they didn't enjoy it, they are likely to have been put off board games for life. This is such a pity, because there are much better games to be found. Old favourites, like "Buccaneer" and "Formula One" were always more entertaining options, but if you want to try something a bit more modern, I'd strongly recommend "Settlers of Catan".

"Monopoly", of course, continues to thrive and is coming to a street near you, because the latest manifestation of the game, "Monopoly City Streets", allows you to play on a board that encompasses the entire planet. By marrying the principle of buying and selling streets to the global streetmap of "Google Maps", you can now play with real streets. You can buy the street where you live and build a massive block of flats on it and watch the rent roll in, or you can build a Factory or a Sewage Works on someone else's street and watch the property values plummet.

The game, which is free, has only just begun and runs until 31st January 2010, so if you sign up quickly you may be able to buy your own street before someone else nobbles it...