Ah, 'The Game of Life,' staple of the family game rotation. Just about every house seems to have a set in the attic somewhere, and mine was no exception growing up. I loved it as a kid, completely enamored with my little plastic car full of peg-children, but forgot it as most of us do as I got older and more finicky. Let's face it: you spin the wheel thingie, pick it up off the table after it pops out, spin it again more gently, then see if you make or lose money. It's like a slot machine with little station wagons.

But circumstances would lead me to revisit my old friend once again, now older and wiser, or at least more cynical, which is the budget equivalent of wisdom. I was helping my friend Jeanine look after her daughter and a few of her friends, and we decided to go the board game route. I had my heart set on 'Shifting Sands,' but I suspected it might be a difficult sell. Instead, I quietly sat back and let the kids pick. Would it be 'Sorry?' 'Mouse Trap?' One of those eight gazillion Monopoly variants based on the cartoon-of-the-month?

No. It was 'The Game of Life,' my old friend. This was a snazzier new version of the game than I had growing up, but it was obvious that few of the major elements had changed. I rubbed my hands together and prepared to grab my law degree and run the little punks off the road.

To Milton Bradley's credit, they actually made some useful changes to the game to add a bit more spice. They also made a luck-based game even MORE arbitrary, but such is Life. Should you choose to go to college, you'll wind up drawing an occupation and salary card at random. This leads to the amusing scenario of a doctor pulling in $40,000 a year while his artist buddy is making $90,000 selling avant-garde lawn sculptures on E-Bay. Odder still, random spaces on the board can force a career or salary change. You ever wake up one day and find out you're a police officer? These Life designers seem to quietly follow a dark philosophy that life is nothing but capricious insanity.

They certainly don't believe in contraception, as evidence by the absurd number of peg-children we all seemed to have in tow. Young Amanda ended up with so many kids she needed to use a second car to drag them all behind her. Perhaps she had her fourth son sit up on a stack of phone books as he steered his Desoto in the family's mini-caravan. Despite the game's enhanced design, I was heartened to see that Milton Bradley still uses the old-school pink and blue 'children' pegs, which are arguably the most iconic part of the game.

Running a close second, though, is the infamous spinning wheel you use to see how many spaces you move. 'Life' veterans all have war stories of the darn thing spinning out of the cradle about 600 times a game, knocking over little orange cars and sending innocent peg-families sprawling into some goofy space like "buy your uncle's rutabaga farm for $30,000." The spinner on this version was pretty tame, though. Milton Bradley's Spinny-Wheel technicians finally seem to have found a safe design.

Thanks to a functional spinner, the game moves pretty quickly. The girls all had a good time, and Jeanine and I had a good time watching them enjoy themselves. Little touches helped a lot, like the job-specific squares. Landing on a "buy a masterpiece!" square used to mean dumping money at the bank, but if there's a player with the Artist career in play, s/he gets the payola instead. This made the jobs feel a little more interesting, and the card art was cute, too.

Still, the endgame is nothing but dumb luck mixed with a basic addition test, making every game end in something of an anticlimax. This version was especially prone to this, as you could earn these little achievement tokens (I forget exactly what they were called) over the course of the game. When it's time for the final tally, you flip them over and see how much cash you get from them. Again, kind of cute, and it's nice that you accomplished stuff in your fake life besides paydays and rutabaga investments, but it's not much different than picking a winner randomly by pulling names from a hat. I know, I know: it's the bleepin' 'Game of Life.' It's meant to be silly. But I still gotta vent a little.

But even as my brain produced these snide little comments, a good time was had by all. The girls added up their life's savings with unexpected earnestness: these little moguls were in it to win it. Particularly fun achievements - I think one of us discovered Atlantis? - were marvelled at with genuine enthusiasm. And everyone clapped with good sportsmanship as Claire took her little blue car and did a victory lap around the board. If nothing else, the experience marked 'Life' as a step above 'Monopoly' and 'Clue' in the "well, we should play SOMETHING, eh?" sweepstakes.

Obviously, hardcore gamers will have little use for 'Life,' mild improvements or no. But it seemed to soothe three savage girls for its duration, and that is no mean feat. If the kids aren't biting on 'Carcassone,' this one might do the trick.