I was aware that boardgames were coming to Live Arcade - Carcassonne and others - but I wasn't aware they were pulling in the company that made Rise of Nations to manage The Settlers of Catan. To be perfectly honest, I was expecting to choke down a half-assed port of their Windows version. I was wrong in absolute terms.
I mention it because (as I have said in the past) gamers - by which I mean gamers of the electronic variety - would find a lot to like in these games, because they are simply well-built systems which accept time as an input and produce fun. They have a delicious logic and a competitive thrill that strategy gamers especially might find irresistible. Microsoft needs games of this type badly, because as a strategy platform their hardware simply doesn't exist. These games need a presence on the other hardware though, and fast - the Wii especially, whose novel sensing and pointing apparatus might be used to retain the appealing physical elements a digital interpretation might lack. Dice rolling, tile placement, that kind of thing.
I'm aware that admitting a deep desire to roll virtual dice makes me one of the biggest dorks ever and perhaps even a kind of dork sovereign.
