Monopoly Here & Now is dead, long live… Monopoly Here & Now? Let me explain: Glu Mobile released the game in late 2006, but since then, the licence has passed to EA Mobile, as part of a wider deal with Hasbro.

So, EA Mobile has developed its own version, which as of last Friday has replaced Glu's game on the operator decks.

If that makes sense.

Our review is coming this week, but I talked to product manager Jamie Conners to find out what's new about EA's version.

"It's out in 19 different territories, and it's based on cities," he said. "So we've got London for the UK, Berlin for Germany and so on. The boardgames have country versions, but we've gone down the road of having cities."

That means here in the UK, we'll be buying and selling Brick Lane, Canary Wharf, Old Street, Saville Row, and Stansted Airport. And like the existing Glu game, the counters include a labradoodle, mobile phone and hybrid car, for extra zeitgeisty cool.

"We've made it so you see the entire board when you're playing," said Jamie. "And we've made the animation very fluid for each of the different counters – they're almost like characters in the way they move around the board. The dog sits down and scratches itself while waiting!"

You can play with up to three friends by passing your phone around, or choose AI opponents if you're on your own. Jamie reckoned that it takes 45 minutes to crack through an average game, but the status is saved when you quit the game, so that doesn't have to be in one session.

"The key was to make it as simple as possible, and accurate to the boardgame," he said, when asked if we can expect any extra modes. "It's pretty much a standard depiction of the game itself. The key was being true to the original."

He also talked up the trading element, where you can offer cash or properties to get your hands on other players' properties. We were impressed by the layout of the screen used to do it – you can see at a glance all your properties, and those of the player you're trading with.

"It could have been quite convoluted, but we tried to make it clear and straightforward," the producer offered. "It's just really simple. But the AI is really sophisticated. That's shown with the auction system, as it'll try to outsmart you, or bid just one pound over your bids. It's really cheeky, and battles you pretty hard."

Previous versions of Monopoly have been big-sellers on mobile, and the focus here is clearly to make the new game as accessible as possible, in a one-thumb stylee. At first glance, EA Mobile has done a good job – I rattled through a bunch of turns while Jamie was telling me about it.

This extends to making the game work well on less swizzy handsets, too. "We've tried to make it as consistent as possible across all the different handset tiers, so even in the 90k build [for low-end handsets], the animations are just as impressive," revealed Jamie.

"It's such a massmarket brand, so getting it across as many handsets as possible and giving the same level of experience was really important."

It's looking good, based on our initial plays, but can it measure up to Glu's version? Click 'Track It!' for an alert when our review is published later this week.