A video game called “Carcassonne” can be an immediate turnoff simply due to its unwieldy title (or maybe because it contains the word “carcass”). Actually it’s a rather excellent Xbox Live Arcade title translated from a popular German board game. The object is to “own” more property than your opponents, but it’s a far cry from Monopoly. You do this by expanding your empire by placing randomly-chosen tiles representing such things as cities, roads, rivers, farmland, and monasteries. You lay claim to areas by placing “followers” on them. If you claim part of a city, for example, and the city is completed, you win the point value based on its size. The tutorial fails to cover all the angles, but a few rounds with the AI will fill in the gaps quickly. Carcassonne definitely falls into the category of “easy to learn, hard to master”, as most excellent games do. It’s a strangely addictive empire-builder everyone should try.