Carcassonne

"This game is not about carcasses, believe it or not"

One wouldn't think that a simple translation of a board game could be very fun, but rarely do games based on board games come out as good as Carcassonne. If you are unfamiliar with the title, it's a fairly popular German board game that is gaining increasing popularity in the United States. It is a tile based game, and you basically are planning out a French city of the same name, and you and others (your opponents) have to lay out tiles that correspond with cities, roads, farmland, and monasteries.

The player must align the tiles to make sure that similar parts are touching each other. For example you cannot have a city tile lining up against a grassy section. Points are accumulated in several ways. The most common and productive way would be completing cities and placing a marker representing a knight, otherwise known as a follower, into the city claiming it for you. You get two points for every tile containing city space on it. Similarly you can place a thief follower on a road and once the road has reached two dead ends or a junction, it is completed and you gain a point for each tile the road took up. Another way to gain points is to build a monastery and surround it by 9 pieces, this allows the monastery to be completed and each surrounding tile earns you points. A far more complex way to gain points is placing farmers on grass tiles, and whichever cities that farmland touches you gain three points for.

This sounds very complicated, but once you get the hang of it (probably two or three quick games), it becomes second-nature and very intuitive. It's deceptively strategic.

You can play the computer, online, or locally. Unfortunately the game isn't very populated online and I have had a hard time finding matches to play against. With that being said, it is a very fun game to play locally with friends. It's definitely workable as a substitute for the real board game.

The game understandably lacks flashy music or graphics. It has the same medieval-esque track playing throughout and it gets somewhat monotonous. The graphics are vaguely cel-shaded and are limited to drawing of buildings, roads, and tiles. There isn't much the game can really pump out graphically for a game based on a tile board game.

In the end, Carcassonne is a fairly simple game, that might take one or two tries to get the hang of, yet a while to completely master. It's definitely a worthy addition to anyone's repertoire of Xbox 360 Arcade titles, especially if you're looking for something strategic and different from what is typical.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 06/23/08

Game Release: Carcassonne (US, 06/27/07)