X-Play Reviews a Board Game

(For those who don’t know about X-Play on G4 TV, they review video games and most likely do not spend their money on card board unless it temporarily encloses something electronic.)

-Announcer’s voice: And now, 2 people who think macaroni and cheese is finger food, here’s Adam Sizzler and Morgan Wedd.

Adam: Hello and welcome to X-Play. Today we’re doing something a little different. The powers that be…

Morgan: That’s the high muckety-mucks who pay us and have threatened to trade us to a local morning show in South Dakota if we don’t do this review…

A: Yeah, them. They’ve asked us to review a board game. Now for you youngsters with calluses on your thumbs, and eyes that fear the light of day, a board game is an ancient form of entertainment where people gather around a table full of cardboard, paper, and wood, metal or plastic in direct competition with each other to reconfigure these items in some way which results in earning points or money. My guess is that you should have at least one these board game things around in case the electricity goes out and you forgot to buy extra batteries for your handheld game.

M: Right, batteries. I knew there was something I was supposed to buy before I go home tonight.

A: The game we’re reviewing is Settlers of Catan and since it’s a multi-player game, we tied a couple of interns to chairs and sat down to try it out. When you open the box you find some wooden pieces that look like sticks and houses, a deck of cards, a pair of dice and a bunch of cardboard hexagons in several colors which represent different types of land that produce different commodities. There’s also a rule book which you have to READ! That’s right, there’s no in-game tutorial to show you how it works.

M: That’s when it’s nice to have interns to force to do your work while you go out to lunch in a nice restaurant.

A: You’d think with all our technology, they could include a DVD showing how to play the game so people aren’t forced to wade through pages of rules. Anyway, when we came back from lunch, the interns had set up the game and figured out how to play.

The idea of the game is that you’re a poor but hard-working settler trying to expand your colony by gathering the necessary commodities to build settlements and roads or to upgrade your settlements to cities with electricity for TVs, computers and game consoles. You can also buy cards with special abilities.

So on your turn you roll the dice, collect commodities if you’ve got more luck that a bad guy in a Clint Eastwood movie, and then you can trade your commodities with other players, the native inhabitants (who are shrewd negotiators) or take it to a port to trade overseas. Finally, you can build if you’ve managed to accumulate the necessary goods.

M: You don’t get to shoot anything or blow anything up, which I think is a big drawback. I thought it would be more fun if you could bomb someone’s road when you roll a 7!

A: That would be fun, Morgan, but a roll of 7 sends the Robber to steal commodities like a Robin Hood who has a disturbing attraction to sheep. Turns keep going around the table until someone gets 10 points. Points are earned for each settlement and city, the longest road and the most knights (which are cards you can buy). It wasn’t too bad, actually, if you like just sitting around using your brain and talking to people. Morgan, did you know interns have names?!

M: Someone told me that once but I didn’t believe them.

A: To sum up, I wouldn’t mind having this around for when my parents come to visit but for myself, I’d rather play Ratchet and Clank Go On Vacation. I give it 3 sheered sheep out of 5.

Does anyone know where I can buy a portable generator?
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Until next time, I’ll be the Blue player.

Mary