The Bottom Line
Pros
- Very fast paced
- Local multiplayer
- Very addictive
- Easy to learn
Cons
- Slight pause when roads or cities are built is annoying
Description
- Addictive. You'll play dozens of games the first day.
- Local multiplayer is awesome. Nothing beats getting some friends around for some Carcassonne.
- Music is somewhat obnoxious, but you tune it out.
- Easy to pick up and play.
Guide Review - Carcassonne Review (XBLA)
The way Carcassonne works is that there are 70+ tiles that have roads, farmland, monasteries, and cities on them. You have to place tiles down on the board to build long roads, large cities, and connected farmland, and you also have to place "followers" on these areas to claim them as your own so you can earn points. You play until all of the tiles are gone, and at the end of the game points are awarded for any unfinished roads or cities you have as well as farmland.The game is fun because there are a lot of strategies to use. You can try to focus on farms, or roads, or little cities, or big cities, or sharing (or stealing outright) other peoples' cities, etc. There is some luck in the draw involved, but you can form a plan and stick to it, something that makes the game very satisfying.
Even if you have never played it before, Carcassonne is very easy to learn. Either using the included tutorials or just playing against the CPU for a couple of games, you can pick things up very quickly. It seems sort of intimidating at first, but once you learn a few things and figure out your own strategies, it is very rewarding and very fun.
The best feature of Carcassonne on XBLA is the local multiplayer. Xbox Live play is okay, but nothing beats playing with friends in your own living room. And unlike the real board game, all of the scoring is automatic, which will save a lot of headaches at the end of the day.
I have to admit, before they appeared on XBLA, I had no clue what Catan or Carcassonne were. But now that I have spent a ton of time playing both, I absolutely love them. And of the two classic European board games, I'd have to say Carcassonne is the better of them, if only because it has local multiplayer.
