Halo 2

Been revisiting this game over the last couple of days, played a few games on live with a few of my old chums and it really brought back some great memories. It hasn't been too long since it's release really, only a couple of years, but it had all but vanished from my mind. I played Halo 2 with my sixth form mates for a good few solid months online, but after that I lost interest as I usually do with games.

It seems different though, I've gotten so used to keyboards and mice for FPS games now (I only got a PC capable of playing 3D games a while after Halo 2 was released), and everyone else seems a lot better. I'm not one to brag, but I was pretty damn good at Halo, got to around level 15 (yeah I know, not that high) before I kind of lost interest in the game, and then all the stats got reset at some point. But at that level, I was doing pretty well and was making my way up. Now however, it seems like the levels are pretty much the same, I played with a few level 30's with my friend in a game of team slayer, the guys I was fighting in rumble pit seemed roughly the same skill level, and they were all around level 5. I'm finding it a lot harder now, a combination of me finding an analogue stick now completely alien to me, and the lower level players seem to be more skilled that they were at the start.

I also don't really like the selection of games anymore, I really enjoyed objective games, like CTF on Zanzibar. Most games now however tend to be generic variant ## of slayer, there was nothing I liked more than 1 flag CTF on big, asymmetrical maps, but now that seems to have disappeared. I'm still finding it fun and frustrating as before, but unfortunately less fun and more frustration.

I also remember the great fun I had playing Halo into the small hours with a group of really great mates round, now I remember it, I really miss those good old days, and wish I'd made more of them. Damn I sound like an old fart.

Catan

A new XBLA game, called Catan was released on wednesday, it's based on a hugely successful board game from Germany called the Settlers of Catan. At 800 points it's a steal IMO, I've not played the board game personally, but I've seen it being played, and it always interested me, so I snapped it up when it became available on xbox live in the morning. It has become probably my favourite of all my XBLA games, there are a few games I really enjoy, like RoboBlitz, Texas Hold 'em and UNO, but none of these compare to the addiction I have with Catan.

A little bit about the game, as I said, it's based on a hugely popular board game, in fact, one of the most popular board games. Forget what you know about other board games, this is nothing like the board games you may have played, like Monopoly or Cluedo. In many European board games, instead of having a fixed board like you do in most British and American board games, the board comes in many, usually hexagonal, pieces and fits together to make the board you play on. In some games, like another popular one, Carcassonne, the foundation of the game is laying these tiles in a fashion similar to a dominoes game. Other games, like Catan, the tiles are laid at random at the start of the game, this creates a unique board every time you play, giving added depth to the game.

The board is made up of 19 hexagonal tiles arranged to make an even larger hexagon. This large hexagon is Catan, an imaginary island that you and your opponents must race to colonise. The winner is the player who reaches a set amount of victory points (VP) first. There are a number of ways to earn VP, the most basic is constructing settlements. Each tile on the board represents a natural resource, there are five different types, Wood, Brick, Wool, Wheat and Ore, on the board there is also one desert tile. You begin the game with two settlements, settlements are placed on the corners on the hexagons, and have to be placed at least two corners apart, so you can fit a maximum of three settlements around one tile. At the start of each players turn, they roll two dice and add the values together, each tile has a number value between 2 and 12 (but there are not tiles numbered 7), if say, you roll a 9 at the start of your turn, all tiles with a 9 on produce resources in that turn, and give one resource card to each settlement placed on it. Players can then use these card to build various things, like settlements and roads. Obviously, some numbers come up more often than others, so it's a good idea to have settlements located next to tiles that have a number with a high probability of turning up. On a roll of 7, the 'robber' is activated, the robber starts the game on the desert tile, anyone with 8 or more cards in hand will have to discard half of them when a 7 is rolled, and whoever rolled the 7 can then move the robber to a different tile. This has two effects, it stops any production of resources on that tile while the robber is present, and you can then steal a single resource card from one player who has a settlement present on that tile.

Since it's likely that no player will be able to regularly receive all five resources, trade of these resource cards between players in a big part of this game, and add another layer of strategy. Need stone to build a road, but the only player willing to trade is close to winning? Do you risk the trade that might get him closer to victory, or do you hold off for a lucky die roll? Then theres the opposite, have you got cards in hand that could put you only a few points from victory, but do you use them now? If so, your opponents will be hesitant to trade with you, if you keep hold of them, you risk losing half on the roll of a 7.

As you can see, Catan is anything but a simple board game, that being said, it's quite easy to pick up and play, especially on the 360, since lots of useful information is only a trigger pull away. The basics of the game are very easy to get your head around, but learning all the strategies is another thing.

So if you don't have it, I urge you to try it out, it's only 800 points which is a real bargain in my opinion. The free trial has also been released, it was delayed due to some bugs or something.