by:	February 20, 2006

I’ll be honest, before I played this game I didn’t really know what Backgammon was exactly, other than you used checker pieces with it. Silver Creek Entertainment’s third in the trio of games they are offering for Xbox Live is arguably their best, although the game can have some strange rules. I am willing to bet that you yourself haven’t actually experienced Backgammon, and you might have seen it on Live, but weren’t sure if you wanted it or not. First I definitely recommend the demo, but you might actually find yourself getting quite addicted to it and may want to own up and pay the 400 point ($5) for the game. Silver Creek Entertainment deals with a lot of card games, and board games online for computer, and this has no exceptions other than the fact that it has Xbox Live play.

Visually the game isn’t much to look at. You can change the background and boards, along with your checkers to different colors, but the options are few and far between. It is definitely a game you could imagine being a great and interesting novelty back on a Windows 95 machine, but for today’s standards it is simply functional and nothing else. Same goes for the sound, which I don’t know if you would be expecting a John Williams caliber soundtrack for a board game, but luckily you get to choose your own music of course.

As for the actual game, it is definitely unique, and if you like board games, and haven’t played it yet, you might actually prefer to buy this than going out to the store and shelling out ten bucks for a physical version of the game where you might lose the pieces. If you have already played Backgammon and have a hankering for something different on the 360, and actually like Backgammon then this is for you as well. The rules are pretty simple; you have to move your checkers from one side to the other opposite side counter-clockwise. You roll a dice, and one dice indicates how many places your pieces can jump, and if you roll doubles, you get double the moves as well. The game has three different difficulty levels and the game’s AI can still be pretty cheap even if you know what you are doing. Luckily you can also do a two-player game on the one Xbox 360, or you can play it over Xbox Live with another opponent.

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The game isn’t too bad, and is nicely priced at 400 Points. If you are really into strategically thinking board games, or already into Backgammon then this is the perfect game for you. It has some pretty good single player, and even better Xbox Live play. The Xbox 360 Achievements are challenging enough, but also playing for long enough you should be able to get them, making this a great game to get achievements for as well.

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