by Matt Maerowitz

Created on: June 20, 2008   Last Updated: June 23, 2011

Galactic Imperia is a modified version of Monopoly. The game is set in outer space and you control a spaceship that will move based on the roll of the dice. Instead of properties you have planets and instead of houses you have rockets that can be bought or sold.

There are a few unique spaces in Galactic Imperia. One interesting space looks like a vortex and it makes whoever lands on it lose three turns. This space alone makes the game unbalanced. Losing one turn would make this space a bad one to land on and losing two would make it awful - losing THREE TURNS is beyond intense, particularly in the beginning of the game. There should be some option to buy your way out of this or reduce the penalty. If Galactic Imperia was played on a real board instead of on the computer, whoever landed on this space early in the game would probably flip over the board in frustration, ruining the game for everybody.

I could pardon the game and maybe even consider purchasing it if the game was virtually flawless outside of this vortex trap, but unfortunately, that is not the case. The host website for Galactic Imperia claims that players begin with "small start-up capital," which I found to be far from the truth. In fact, players start off with so much money that any reasonable player can buy anything he or she lands on risk free. This is a reason why being held back a few turns is especially devastating. As a whole, the game play features unique to Galactic Imperia are by no means an improvement to your average monopoly game.

While the game play is poor, the graphics are amazing. The graphics are three-dimensional with a lot of special effects, particularly after every roll of the dice. In fact, the graphics are so good that it appears that the game developers at Switlle were so concerned with the graphics that they forgot about the game play. While the dice roll looked pretty cool and real with a 3D effect, the dice takes a little too long to actually hit the board and land. This small thing extends the game duration unnecessarily.

The music and sound effects get decent marks. The music tries to provide a mystical space feeling, which is consistent with the theme of the game. The sound effects are interesting. There are a lot of cool and funky spaceship noises and a narrating voice that will shout out things such as "turns out to be a double snipe" if a player rolls a double in that both dice show the same number.

I hate to put it bluntly, but Galactic Imperia is simply a bad version of Monopoly. Thus, I did not find the game incredibly innovative and the more creative elements of Galactic Imperia do not really enhance it. Sure, the graphics and sound effects are cool, but any gamer will tell you that the quality of a game is determined first by its game play while the graphics are a distant second. The game play is subpar which is why I give Galactic Imperia a 2/5. As a result, Galactic Imperia is not worth the $25 dollars Swittle is charging for it.

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