Looks like I have to pick up my copy of OXM one last time before tossing it to check out these reviews... Somehow I missed them.

As casual gaming goes, it sounds like the OXM demo disc might be worth putting in your system starting next month. Sounding like they're going to have some kind of Mii-like avatar ("build your own custom rocket ship") and some time of community interaction build into the disc.

At first, my thought was, "I thought Catan would be $5 for sure!," but then I realized that the board game's $40, and the 5-6 player expansion is $20, so that's a $60 value for $10, and I can play with others any time. So it's not so bad.

I'm surprised anybody thought it would be $5. In retrospect, I suppose you could group it with Backgammon (the only other board game) or Uno. But those are all very simple games. Catan much deeper and more complex, isn't it?

I said "ouch" when Texas Hold 'em went from free to 800, but for some reason it never occurred to be that Catan could be any other price.

Too bad about the AI, though. I had just finished reading about how the creator of Settlers of Catan teamed up with the designer of Civilization II in order to develop the AI for this game. That sounded like a winning combination.

mkelehan was bold enough to say [quote] then I realized that the board game's $40, and the 5-6 player expansion is $20, so that's a $60 value for $10 [/quote]

True, But much of the cost of the board game goes to the physical materials in the package, which don't have to be worried about with a video game.

It sounds like the game won't have any of the expansions at the get-go, so only four players.

What's going to suck about this and all strategy games on xbox live, though, Is that Xbox Live doesn't seem to support re-joining a game if you get disconnected. So you have to hope that your internet connection stays solid for the whole game in order to win.

I hope that the Xbox team is working on a solution to that problem.

There are many Xbox Live games that support join-in-progress. If that's possible, I'm sure a game could hold that spot for a returning player if the developers wanted to do it that way.

How long does a game of Settlers of Catan generally take? Are we talking an epic multi-hour endeavor, or more of a 15-20 minute match, or what?

In real life, Catan takes a good 45 minutes to an hour for experienced players, with times going up to 2 hours if newbies are involved. At least 15 minutes of this time is spent in board setup.

Videogame-based board games tend to move more quickly, and I would expect playtime to be somewhere around 20-30 minutes per match, perhaps quicker with veteran players.

I've yet to see an XBL game support re-joining after dropping out, even on games like Hold'em where it would make a lot of sense.

 

if it's not a ranked match you can just join the session in progress of lots of games like gears of war, battlefield 2, etc

That's interesting. I hardly ever play non-ranked matches of anything, as if I'm going to be playing, I figure I might as well find out how good I am.

But when My internet connection drops in the middle of an hour-long match of XBLA 'Holdem, I'm screwed, where in most online poker games, my avatar would continue posting blinds and folding until I can re-connect.