Catan Image
Metascore

Generally favorable reviews - based on 27 Critics What's this?

User Score

Generally favorable reviews- based on 27 Ratings

  • Summary: [Xbox Live Arcade] Catan, based on the best-selling board game "Settlers of Catan," places you in the role of a colonist on a newly discovered imaginary island. Through strategy and trading, vie for control with other players over the territory and resources of this uncharted wilderness. Compete online with your friends from around the world, or go up against a computer personality. Features include an all-new 3-D "Living World" environment and robust computer gameplay to challenge all skill levels—even the experts. Difficulty levels: Play against historical personalities including Alexander, Cleopatra, and Tokugawa—a challenge to all skill levels, even experts! Also included is a "Learn As You Play" tutorial. House rules: Use popular house rules including Friendly Robber and Friendly Resources. Dice roll options: Choose from Randomized, Dice Deck with re-shuffling options. Multiplayer interaction: Taunt your opponents with engaging animations and emotes. Online support: Engane in multiplayer on Xbox LIVE (1-4 players, limited to one player per console) with Voice Chat enabled. [Microsoft] Collapse
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 25 out of 27
  2. Negative: 0 out of 27
  1. Captures the essence of the board game beautifully (quick to learn but hard to master).
  2. One of the best reasons for buying a game like Catan on XBLA—which comes with a cost of 800 Microsoft Points or about $10—is that you don’t have to know the rules and procedures that well.
  3. If you’re a fan of the board game or strategy games in general, there’s no better way to spend your Microsoft Points.
  4. Perhaps the biggest flaw though is that the controls never stop being cumbersome. With several important information screens requiring more than one button to be held to be seen (never mind a strange and convoluted "emoticon" system for multiplayer matches).

See all 27 Critic Reviews

Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 11 out of 11
  2. Mixed: 0 out of 11
  3. Negative: 0 out of 11
  1. NickG.
    10
    Never heard of or played the original, but this game is a lot of fun. It takes a few rounds to pick up how to play, but once you do, there�39;s a lot of strategy involved. Enjoyable both online and offline. Expand
  2. rastykH
    10
    This is a great game. I love being able to play this whenever I want, and they did a great job with all parts of the game that I have seen. (I love the way they incorporated some of the "house rules" too). I own the board game, and that was fun -- this does a good job in translating it to the xbox. Expand
  3. I.B.
    8
    The tool from EuroGamer who had a problem with (gasp!) holding down two buttons (the horror!) needs to get a freaking clue. Lack of local multiplayer does suck though. Expand
  4. Uff, difficult, this game is good, but some parts of the game are boring, Catan is a good game, with some mistakes, is addictive, but is so strange. Good game, not excellent. Expand

See all 11 User Reviews