And so E3 is upon us once more. And yet with all the promises of change from the last 12-months still ringing in our ears, it still seems as bloated, and at times depressing, as it ever has been.

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It comes to something when your girlfriend’s 12-week-old god-daughter has a better focal distance than you, but that’s exactly where I stand at the moment. Fuzzily.

Given anything further away than a couple of inches it tends to distort into a blurry, yet pretty, mass of colour and basic shape. Not very useful when it comes to driving, goalkeeping or, as I found this weekend, surfing on a busy Newquay beach...

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I have a dark secret. Something that my Gamercard unfortunately cannot hide: my name is BIGsheep, and I like German board games.

It started just over a couple of months ago with Settler of Catan appearing on Xbox Live Arcade and a hearty set of recommendations from friends over at Pinata Island. The concept of the game is simple: build roads, build settlements and build tactical cards in a bid to be the first to reach ten points. This is all achieved by collecting resources based on dice rolls and then trading said resources with the other players in a bid to get just the right combination to build your intended item.

As with most good games, it is the simplicity that is the key. It takes only a couple of minutes to get to grips with but the hook is how strategic it can be when it comes down to where to build, what resources to collect and the bartering that you must do with other players. As ever, it is the latter point, the human interaction, that really makes this game and it still amazes me whenever I come across anyone online who is not willing to mic up when playing – the mutes very rarely do well in trading.

After Catan’s vanguard, Carcassonne has followed and arrived online last week. Carcassonne by comparison is a far simpler game, based around a map made from square jigsaw pieces. The pieces fit together to form fields, towns and roads, with your task being to capture as many of each as possible in order to rack up the most points. Again, this sound deceptively simple, but you have to be careful not to grow your territories beyond control and make careful decisions about what to take ownership of in case your opponents build around you to cut you off.

I’m surprised that due to Carcassonne’s comparatively basic concept it wasn’t released first to allow a natural progression into Catan, but hopefully those erring on either should give them demos a go with an open mind to see what they’re missing. For those wanting a comparison Catan is like a streamline Monopoly whilst Carcassonne is Squares, but this does an injustice to both.

As a stamp of approval, not only do I now mark these pair as two of the best offerings Xbox Live Arcade has to offer, I now have them both in proper board game form; for some old-school System Link play, if you will.

Thursday evening saw Ali and I inject some culture into our lives as we went to Bosworth Battlefield’s Heritage Centre to watch a play. Cry Blue Murder, put on by the quintet that make up Heartbreak Productions, is a tribute to Agatha Christie and set, as you’d expect, in the rip roaring 1920’s where everyone had an amusingly named butler.

To take a phrase from the period, I had a ripping good time. Initially expecting quite a dry performance I was pleasantly surprised to find it almost Blackadder-esque in its humour with a lot of double-entendre and word play that would find the Prince of Wales and Lord Percy right at home.

What makes the company special is that they tend to perform in the open air and in rather spectacular surroundings, with various castles, halls and gardens littering their tour dates. Of course, this can have its draw backs as nature doesn’t always appreciate the arts in quite the same way. Needless to say, the big coats and umbrellas that were taken along to last week’s performance came in very handy indeed.