Montage of Hex
What does it take for a game to become an all-time favourite? Now celebrating its 20th anniversary, The Settlers of Catan (recently rebranded, for whatever reason, as simply Catan) has broken free from the relative niche of designer board games and seemingly rises in popularity with each passing year. ‘Why?’ is the most obvious question. It’s not particularly cheap, at least in comparison to a chess or Scrabble set. And, while no Twilight Imperium, it’s considerably more complex than the likes of Uno. Maybe it’s all just the result of a lucky dice roll.
Whatever the reason, Catan’s crossover appeal is now firmly entrenched, even as it still provides casual players with a frisson of pure geekery every time it’s pulled out. Certainly, one facet of its enduring ability to engage is its surprising open-endedness. The narrative of the game centres around the expansion of players’ settlements, but the route to victory can be found off the path of pure construction.
Players can certainly choose to treat Catan as a sort of area-control game, spreading the tendrils of their budding colony as far as possible in an effort to hoover up ever more natural resources, snowballing their expansionist capabilities. But less conflict-oriented players can, especially in games with fewer participants, treat it as a sort of competitive solitaire experience, avoiding encroachment into others’ territory, opening up trade ports that let them take advantage of a monopoly on lumber or wool. Still other players can turn the dining-room table into a trading floor, with offers and counter-offers for rarer goods dictating the course of the game. And this is all to ignore the myriad expansion sets there are for the game, bringing in city building and archipelagos of settlements, among other things.
The interoperability of these rules and tactics, chopping and changing as circumstances necessitate, certainly helps to keep games pacy, especially as the running time starts to rival a languid Monopoly session. Maybe it’s this blank-slate nature that keeps Catan going strong. Like the titular island, it’s sort of an untouched landscape (the awkwardly native-seeming robber character that roams the island aside) that lets each player bring a piece of themselves into the game. Of course, this only makes it all the more galling when your mum crushes your meticulously developed economy into the ground. LD
Axiom Verge
Playstation 4, PC
When Axiom Verge first boots up, you might need to double check what’s between your palms to ensure you’re not holding a Super Nintendo controller. In the context of an overpopulated indie-game sphere that increasingly relies on nostalgia driven aesthetics, the excellent quality of the 16-bit music and tightly drawn pixel art is immediately reassuring: this is going to be much more than a simple throwback.
Axiom Verge goes all-in with its channelling of ’90s gaming, to the extent that some of the dialogue seems purposely mistranslated, as many Japanese games ended up being upon reaching Western shores. This witty decision goes far beyond the usual level of consideration afforded by modern games borrowing this style.
In the grand tradition of Metroid and Castlevania, Axiom Verge is a two dimensional platformer which centres on boss encounters and gated exploration. Unlocking new equipment gives you the opportunity to access new areas which were originally out of reach. While being well versed in its source material, Axiom Verge succeeds at subverting most of the mechanics a seasoned Metroid fan might expect.
Considering that such subversion and mastery of the Metroidvania style hasn’t happened since Daisuke Amaya solely developed the 2004 classic Cave Story, it’s fitting that Axiom Verge is similarly the creation of one individual. In Axiom Verge, developer Tom Happ has made a reassuringly familiar yet often surprising work which stands confidently in the genre’s lineage. It is a healthy reminder that games of this kind are still fun and compelling; if you’re feeling a bad taste in your mouth from Konami’s recent 3D Castlevania exploits, let Axiom Verge act as a glorious mouthwash. AW
Like a Boss
Ridley
Metroid series – Various platforms
A perennial player over the last 30-odd years of Metroid games, Ridley has maybe the greatest claim on being protagonist Samus Aran’s arch-nemesis. Despite the lizardly appearance and fire-breathing attacks, his dastardly motivations seem more complex than you may expect from a ten foot high monster. Indeed, evil as he may be, all through Samus’ exceedingly lonely adventures, he might just be the closest thing she has to a true friend. Aww, come in for a big, sharp hug. LD
Words: Leo Devlin & Aidan Wall
