Since its inception, the Xbox Live Arcade has been, ostensibly, a source for quick-hit casual gaming: something designed to fill the time between demo downloads or pass ten minutes until you mates come around for beer, pizza and Gears of War. This has meant a lot of retro remakes or Flash favourites from boutique developers. This perception has recently been challenged in two big ways: Electronic Arts muscling in as an Arcade "publisher" for Boom Boom Rocket, and Brian Reynolds' Big Huge Games studio developing Catan.

Catan represents an untapped market on the Arcade service: board games. And despite having some 11 million players worldwide and being translated into a dozen or more languages, it's a bit of an unusual choice given its relative obscurity compared to say chess or Monopoly...or Hungry Hungry Hippos for that matter. Nevertheless, Catan answers that tricky question we've all been wondering: can board games work well on the Xbox Live Arcade? And that answer, thankfully, is a resounding yes!

For those of you who haven't the foggiest what a Catan is or how to pronounce it, we're talking about Settlers of Catan, a hex-based board-game that pits four rival factions against one another on a newly discovered island, all vying for control of its natural resources. It isn't a game of martial conflict however; the objective is to build more settlements, cities and roads than your opponents and reach the requisite number of victory points. As a result, there's an emphasis on clever trading, smart placement and more than a little bit of luck.

Big Huge Games' Xbox Live Arcade version of the game, abbreviated down to simply Catan, includes a great "Learn as You Play" tutorial mode to help you come to grips with the game. Simply put, you place settlements or cities on the corners of a hex tile, and each tile represents a specific resource: wheat, sheep, ore, brick or lumber. At the start of their turn, players roll a pair of dice, and the resulting number corresponds to one or two random hex tiles on the map, and those tiles pay out resources. In this way, the allocation of materials is totally dependent on luck, although some numbers statistically roll more frequently than others.

Catan fits into that category of easy-to-learn-hard-to-master games, which of course makes it even more compelling. The tutorial takes you through all the basics without holding your hand; helpful information pops up whenever you encounter a new concept or technique, and then it leaves you alone. On easy difficulty the game should pose little challenge, although the various A.I. personalities do mix it up a bit. Some favour certain resources, others may like to use development cards, and others are just plain stingy when it comes to trading. Experimenting with all these variables prepares you for the real meat of the game: multiplayer

By its very nature, Catan is an intensely social board game that requires you to wheel and deal with your competition, at any one moment trying to gain the resources you need to advance your mini-empire while also hindering the expansion of your foes. One of the elements required to keep your adversaries guessing is to play your resource cards close to your chest; sure, they might be able to remember a few of what you have, but the less they know the better. The unfortunate thing about this is that it makes single-screen multiplayer difficult, and as a result Big Huge Games opted not to included it at all. This is very disappointing: while high-level players may find it too unbalancing, the average Joe playing with his mates over a few beers or with his family isn't going to be too worried.

So unfortunately, Xbox Live is the only way to go for your multiplayer action, meaning a subscription to Xbox Live Gold is somewhat of an essential when purchasing this game. In their defence, Big Huge Games have created outstanding A.I. for those of you who prefer to go it solo, but negotiating with (and shafting) someone you know makes the whole experience much more amusing! Which makes the lack of support for the Live Vision Camera all the more puzzling – visual clues make bluffing much trickier, after all.

By default, Catan loads into a standard board-game appearance of flat, coloured hexagonal tiles and simple wooden pieces. To get the game to look like the colourful island you've seen in screenshots, you actually need to delve into the options to activate the enhanced mode. This conceals key information listed on the tiles (such as their corresponding dice-roll and the likelihood of that roll result), but a simple squeeze of a trigger makes this information visible again.

In fact while there's little in the way of animation or details, Catan is an incredibly smooth and well polished title. The musical score is soft but pleasant, and the controls are well-mapped with every piece of information you could possibly require available in one click. There's a nice variety of "house rules" available in the options to allow you to customise your game as well, including some friendly options that offset the game's steep penalties a bit, which makes it easier for new players to get involved.