Catan
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A brilliantly crafted board game plus a quality developer equals a great addition to the XBLA catalog.

The name of the game is “Catan.” This name alone brings fond memories to those of us lucky enough to have played the board game “Settlers of Catan,” but for those of you that weren’t formally introduced to this great game, you’re in for a digital treat! Developed by Big Huge Games (of the award winning Rise of Nations), and published by Microsoft Games Studio – the game is now available for download via Xbox Live Marketplace. As we pointed out earlier here at GWN, it released on Wednesday May 2nd alongside a cheaper Millipede/Centipede Atari-age combo, but is well worth its higher price of 800 Microsoft Points (USD $10). Of course, as with all games on Xbox Live Arcade, it has a free-trial version available for download for all you try-before-you-buy gamers out there.

Catan, the name itself stirs up fond memories for those of us familiar with the board game.


The game is based on the board game “Settlers of Catan,” which was thought-up by a man named Klaus Teuber way back in 1995. Since then, the board game version has won the Spiel des Jahres (German Board Game of the Year), has already been turned into a PC CD video game in 2000, and has been available on MSN Games since 2005. Now, with a high-tier development team, publisher, and AI strategy being overseen by Klaus himself; the game sports some gamerscore achievements, all of the gameplay of the original board game, and some optional rule tweaks which all add up to make it one of the best titles for the money on XBLA so far!

The board game has been translated into several languages, pictured is one of them.


Let’s go over some details. It’s a downloadable title, and its download size is under 40MB. It comes with 12 achievements worth 200 points total. It has a single player mode, wherein you’re able to play against 2 to 3 of the thirteen distinct AI characters that are based on figures of historical significance. Your choices here range from Alexander the Great, to Cleopatra, to Abe Lincoln – each with their own playing style, tendencies, and personality. The game also supports Xbox Live multiplayer in both ranked and un-ranked matches. Invite up to 3 of your friends in this mode and have a ball talking trash to each other while secretly figuring out your path to victory. You also have the option of mixing in some AI players to make it a 4-player online game in the event you can’t get enough people to stay up late enough to play that tenth game in a row with you. There are 3 difficulty levels (easy, medium, and hard) and the game also sports several options to customize the rules as well as the look of your matches to help keep things interesting. On top of all of that, players can look forward to inching their way up single player and multiplayer Xbox Live score leaderboards.

To specify, this is a turn-based strategy game. To learn how to play, you can simply start a game and access the help pages via the start menu. There, you’ll find 14 helpful pages on everything the game has to offer. It may sound like a lot to digest, but its not.  The beauty of the game is the ease of which you can learn it. The hard part comes in piecing it all together to come up with a strategy to win frequently. The developers have also included a “Learn as You Play” mode wherein you begin a game and are given helpful information as it becomes relevant to the game at hand. Basically though, you could start a game knowing nothing about it, and still be able to pick it up rather quickly.




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EverWars.com - You have GOT to play this game!