Catan Review - Xbox 360

If you’re a fan of board games, chances are you’ve at least heard of Settlers of Catan.  Although this German-style game is a far cry from Monopoly, it’s achieved near worldwide recognition thanks to a delightfully simple yet deep play mechanic that relies heavily on social interaction with other players.

It’s that whole “social interaction” thing that has stymied past attempts to translate Settlers of Catan to video game form.  But developer Big Huge Games put nose to grindstone, worked out nearly all the kinks, and delivered a slick, smooth, playable version of the game for Xbox Live Arcade.

Come to Catan, Man

In Catan players take turns building settlements which in turn garner resources that one can use to further expand your holdings and to win points. During each turn players can also trade resources with one another. The first player to gather 10 points wins the game.

The Live Arcade version successfully translates all the rules and gameplay from the board game without missing a beat.  In truth, there’s not a whole lot to the rules.  Despite the abstract look of the board, nearly everything about the game can be picked up in a few minutes.  The “Learn as you Play” mode does just that.  The game explains everything as you go through the first few rounds of play and then leaves it to you to pick up the rest as you go.

A Legitimate use for the Smiley

A big part of Catan is the social element present throughout the game.  Against human opponents, the Xbox Live headset can be used.  But for those who don’t feel all that chatty a series of 16 emotes are available to communicate your thoughts to other players.  There are the obvious ones for expressing happiness and (naturally) anger with your opponents.  But some are more nuanced.

For trading, emotes like “Care to Sweeten the Deal,” “I’ve got nothing,” and “No way man, you’re about to win” help explain why you’re perhaps not willing to do business.  Even without using emotes, it’s a very easy game to play with others over Xbox Live.

Fans of single player need not worry.  The Computer AI is a tough customer especially when set to “hard.”  They too, will use emotes, which adds a great deal of personality to single player matches.

If you can read this, you’re too close

If there’s one gripe to be had, it’s that on HD sets, some of the onscreen text (especially the tutorial and options text) is really too small to read comfortably.  That and when trading for multiple resource cards with another player, the cards stack in such a way that it’s hard to tell what the ones underneath are.

So it’s settled then

But really, this is a top notch conversion of a great board game.  A good match generally takes less than an hour and there’s no clean up after you’re done.  Well worth 10 bucks.

Article by: Greg Bemis