Jones in the Fast Lane: CD-ROM

The Good
This is an enjoyable turn-based board game. It's not very demanding of your time - you can play an entire game in much less than an hour. The tone is lighthearted, the graphics are bright and cartoony. The gameplay is very addictive.

The Bad
It's not really a criticism of this game specifically as much as a problem with most early Windows games. When this game came out, it had the (for the time) demanding requirement that your display was set to 256 colors. Unfortunately, this game will ONLY display correctly in 256 colors at 640x480 resolution. You'll have to tweak your display before you run it. There are also many animations that play so quickly on a modern PC that they're all but invisible, but none of the actual gameplay seems to be affected by clock speed.

The Bottom Line
It's a little like a PC hybrid of Life and Monopoly and a lot like its own unique thing. You race around a game board completing tasks like finding a job, eating, shopping, working, and going to school. The interesting aspect of this game is that although you are playing on a fairly standard rectangular game board, you don't roll a die or spin a spinner for movement. You have a set amount of time you can use everyday to visit the various areas on the board (your apartment, your place of work, the grocery store, school, clothing store, bank) and you have to decide how to use it. You only have enough time to visit two or possibly three places every turn, so you have to plan carefully.