• Review Settlers Of Catan For Macbook

The board game Settlers of was originally released in 1995 and has since reached sales of over 11 million copies making it a bona fide modern day classic. Now, if you're not in that group of people that have been made aware of Catan you may be wondering why this game made it to the Xbox Live Arcade before more immediately recognizable board games like Chess or Monopoly. But that doesn't stop Catan from being a great board game. While the electronic port to the Xbox 360 may not be the best possible way to experience the game with several questionable presentation calls, the fun of Catan still shines through, making this title worth a look. Catan is a game that is fairly simple to learn and begin playing, though the turn based strategy and wheeling and dealings done by the players allow for as much depth as players are willing to put into it.

Review Settlers Of Catan For Macbook

Each time the game is played, a series of hexagonal pieces are randomly pieced together to create the board. Each piece represents a resource that players can begin harvesting if they build a village on one of the corners. Using the resources at hand, players begin building roads, villages, and eventually cities, in an attempt to block other players' expansion and to build their network. Dice rolled at the beginning of each turn determine which hexagons will produce resources for that round, creating a shortage of the necessary tools to expand. This random element forces players to trade for the resources they need. Things get slightly more complicated when you add in the robber, which allows players to block resource production and steal from opponents, and development cards.

Rather than bore you with the gritty details, we'll just tell you that the XBLA version of Catan has a good tutorial built into it that allows you to play, and unlock basic Achievements, as it teaches you the general rules. Start there if you're confused. You probably won't be confused for very long, though. Like we said, Catan is an easy game to get going with and the social nature of the game makes it that much easier to hop in without any idea of what you're doing. Catan's social nature both makes it a great candidate for the Xbox Live Arcade and hinders its widespread appeal. There is a single player game, and a quite good one with some well made AI opponents. The trading screen is well laid out and the AI opponents will behave realistically based on differing board conditions and difficulties.

But like many board games Catan is most fun when you're up against a couple of good friends. Negotiating deals is half of the fun. If you have a few friends that you want to play Catan with on Xbox Live, you're all set. If you don't, you might find this game a bit lacking.

Due to the need to keep which resource cards you have a secret, you can't play Catan in a multiplayer fashion offline. It's the nature of the game, but it also makes the game less family friendly and being family friendly is what board games are all about. As we said earlier, made a few questionable decisions as far as the presentation of Catan goes. The first is the omission of Vision Camera support.

Catan is a social game and is best played with a group of friends that you know. At the very least, you'll want to play with a group of outspoken and interested opponents.

Playing the game with a mute bunch of people you don't know is hardly enjoyable. Allowing people to use the Vision Camera would only have added to the social nature of the game. Take a look at Uno if you need proof.

In place of visual queues you could deliver yourself, a range of emoticon animations were added. These would be adequate if there weren't better alternatives.

What's even more questionable is the lack of animations on the default setting. All you get is a flat board with a static background. To get a more animated and 3D board, you'll have to change the options to a new skin, something few people will think to do. Even with the 3D board, the number of animations and level of detail is still fairly sparse. Even though Catan isn't the best possible representation of the game and the limitations of the game itself prevent a family from gathering around to play together on a single console, it doesn't stop Catan from being a good game. It's worth a look if you haven't played the board game yet just as a simple introduction to the series.

If you're a fan, you've probably already downloaded it. It's exactly what you'd expect out of a Catan game without any bells or whistles - and that ain't half bad.