Scrabble 2009

I would stay with the 2007 version, at least you get challenged progressively by different opponents as your game improves. 2009 does not do this, you have to manually change your opponents. The campaign is dire beyond belief with some mundane story which is neither suitable for kids or adults. A total miss. Whilst the "story" rambles on and on, the campaign itself is easy, short and extremely disappointing. The additional games are fine but if you are any thing like me and want a good old game of scrabble which challenges your skills as they improve, stick with 2007 and do not waste your money on this.

I like Scrabble and tend to play online. I'd say I was pretty good, knowing all the 2 letter words and several weird words using J,Q,X and Z. I bought this for a different challenge and the option of travel play.

For the game itself, well - it's Scrabble. The board fits onto the bottom of the DS so you can see it all but you can zoom in if you want to see an area (and the points on the tiles) There seems to be 7 computer players to play against but no obvious rating for each (there is a description on their style but that's it) and there is a multiplayer option for other DS users. It records high scores for words, totals and margin of victories (but only a Top 3)

Unfortunately, while the Quick Play mode should give any level of player a decent game, there seem to be some glitches. The computer players play poorly on occasions. I risked WARN which ended just before the triple word square. The opponent played BEGETS next but in a bad position. Surely anyone would have made WARNS with this, giving a triple word score for both words? This was one of the better opponents too! Another issue is when you play a certain move you get a message saying 'Parallel play unlocked' as if some new feature of the game is available. I can't see where there is any difference or new feature.

The campaign mode is very poor. I was under the impression you go around the world playing different people. This is true but you aren't playing in tournaments starting from beginner to expert. You are in a story-mode given mini-puzzles which act as a 'how to play' guide. One problem with this is that you are given hints without asking if you take 20 seconds or so which makes it even easier. This could have been a lot better (think of some of the Scrabble puzzles in newspapers for example) but the only reason to do all this is to unlock a new opponent. There is no replay factor and even worse, it is very short.

There are several mini-games which look fun (one like Texas hold-em it seems) but I haven't tried them yet.

Overall, not bad but not great.

`Scrabble 2009' is an improvement on the previous game for the DS, but still manages to offer the features we liked from the original. This game is easy to set up and you can have a couple of profiles for different family members. It has the original Scrabble game that you can play in `quick game' format, as well as a campaign version that teaches you various Scrabble techniques and various puzzle games to help improve your vocabulary. There are no fancy graphics or bells and whistles, but the basic game is as addictive as the board game and transfers very well to the hand held console format. You can also use the included Collins Scrabble dictionary for when you play against a real life opponent instead of flicking through a book dictionary to track down elusive words. This has simple graphics, sound and game-play, but endless hours of fun. Well worth considering.

Feel free to check out my blog which can be found on my profile page.