Inappropriate Merchandise No. 1

Having spent so much time yesterday deconstructing the myriad ways in which Monopoly is completely without merit, and why its legion of fans are entirely devoid of critical faculties, I began to consider how one might go about fractionally decreasing the games level of total worthlessness. Several attempts have been made over the years to repackage the game in an attempt to fool people into believing it has ceased to be a foul-smelling bubo of a pastime. Some are merely cosmetic, with alternate locations (my parents decision to buy me the Middlesbrough version of the game is probably the greatest unexplained event since the Tunguska Blast, if I ever get the urge to buy up Teesside University it will only be so I can burn it to the ground), others make fractional changes to the rules (special congratulations are in order when you can make building Star Destroyers boring as all hell). All were uniformly guff-filled, pestilent abominations masquerading as entertainment.

As far as I can see, there’s only one way to transform this catastrophic non-event of a game into something halfway decent, and that’s to set it in Baltimore.

Think about the possibilities! Instead of properties, you have corners. You still get houses, of course, but run-down ones which may or may not have bodies stashed in there by that bounder Marlowe. Instead of those boring Community Chest (“Also known as your mother!”) spaces, you could be required to draw special Clay Davis “Shhiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit” cards which crush your spirit with unreasonable demands from City Hall (all the Chance cards involve your mates getting shot, or stabbed, or addicted to heroin, obviously). When the cops send you randomly to jail, it will no longer seem like an arbitrary game mechanic and more like a biting satire of a corrupt system (obviously you have a dangerously high chance of being strangled in the big house before you have time to role a double). We can replace some of the less relevant playing pieces with a broken soldier and hooker-packed cargo container. And lastly, each time you pass Go, you lose $200 as Omar pops up to brutally shaft you (if you’ll pardon the expression). The damn thing still won’t end, obviously, but this is no longer bad game design, this is a poignant commentary on the hopelessness of life in Baltimore. After all, the game never ends, aight?

Authors note: we recommend you play the game heavily drunk, and settle all disputes with extreme physical violence. Buy now and receive a complementary McNulty curly-pube wig.

(Oh, and anyone claiming Baltimore Monopoly and Middlesbrough Monopoly are the same thing can piss off right now. Baltimore is in the grip of a heroin epidemic, whereas Middlesbrough is all about the child prostitution).

(Picture courtesy of Senior Spielbergo).