PixlBit

As soon as I saw a new release of Catan for consoles last month, I got the game. I have the board game too, but I haven't had an oportunity to play it. Console versions, however, I've played a lot, including this new one. 

The bad reviews on Xbox made me hesitate, but I had to see for the game for myself. The concerns were only partially accurate. Most complained about every aspect of the game being broken, but in a lot of cases, it was just people not understanding the menu and how to adjust things. The menu system is a bit confusing, however. I'll agree with that.

Only one issue bugged me and that is the game sometimes doesn't respond to the controller on first bootting the game. Quitting and restarting the game, or a hard reboot of the system fixes this, but it seems to come back every so often. Other than that, everything worked fine for me both on and off line. 

I've been playing online while my friend has been playing offline against AI. Online works just fine. Only once did it crash on me. The dice roll animations linger a little too long, but that's a pretty minor complaint. As long as people don't take forever to take a turn and trade, the game moves along just fine. Whole games aren't short, however, but they aren't crazy long like Monopoly can go sometimes. If a player drops out he/she is replaced with an AI right away. Real players can drop back in too. The offline experience is customizable, and my friend manages to win every time by selecting himself as the other players. The Dude, does not abide such behavior. Ha ha. 

So I think it's a fine console edition of Catan. My friend says the Xbox 360 Catan was better, but it seems about the same to me. Now I'd like some expansions. The board game and PC versions have many.