Settlers of Catan Coming to XBLA

For a time, Catan is one of those games that was adored by my small circle of gaming friends. I never saw the attraction of it: building roads, raising settlements and get this... never fighting. The closest you could come to inflicting violence on your opponent would be playing a bandit card that would steal gold or building materials. Oh, the bloodshed! Frankly, I don't think I could ever warm up to a non-violent game... or any game that depicts conflict so passively.

But wait, is that really the case or do I just have a bias against any game not built with 1's and 0's? I may have given bricks n' mortars Catan the cold shoulder, but what if an electronic version was made? Would I play it then? Do I enjoy asking myself rhetorical questions?

The news is out: the popular board game has already been developed into a video game and is due out for Xbox Live Arcade in Q1 2007. If my mental calendar serves me right, that's awfully soon. I found some tasty screenshots over at the Big Huge Games website and I have to say it is looking pretty sexy. The game will support 4-players over Live and can be played solo against CPU opponents. That's a big selling point for me, as I never got very deep into the subtleties of Catan and would get a lot of valuable practice by playing solo against some AI. Then there's the great selling point of being able to play at almost anytime over Live and not being restricted to playing against the same old friends.

So yes, I do have a bias against board games. I look forward to breaking this news to an old friend of mine and former Catan-fanatic just to see him do a backflip or something crazy and joyous.

Another point for the XBLA and Microsoft. But let's cut the crap already: Give Me My Double Dragon!!!