The board game Scrabble has been around decades before I was even born. It brings me a lot of joy that EA has ported this word building game over to the iPhone. In case you haven't heard of Scrabble, it's a game where you get seven letters that you use to build words on the game board. Certain letters have varying points while certain squares provide opportunities for you to augment your scores. The primary objective of the game is to create words that earn the most points or a higher score than your opponent.
Before moving forward with the review, let me just say that Scrabble doesn't disappoint and it is worth $9.99!
EA seemed to have put a lot of thought into the opening splash screen with all the fancy animations. That being said, if they'd put more thought or even placing themselves into our shoes; they'd understand that it gets annoying after sitting through the splash screen three or four times. There isn't a way to skip through or speed up the LONG 20 second wait, so your only option is to patiently wait for it to finish. After the fifth or sixth time, I have this urge to launch my precious iPhone 3G towards the nearest wall (yes, I know it's misplaced anger and the iPhone doesn't deserve it - but hey it's the only tangible object in my hands). Once you get pass the 20-second load time, a menu pops up with options for Quick Play, Custom Play, game Options, Statistics or see More Games by EA.
Quick Play is you vs. computer. In Custom Play menu, you're presented with options to select game modes (Solo Game, VS Computer, and Pass ‘n Play). Solo Game lets you change the Game Style to Classic or to 75 or 150-point and 8 or 12-rounds. Depending on how good you are with formulating words from letters, you can pick the difficulty level ranging from Easy, Normal or Hard. If you like, you can even turn of or on the Duplicate words. The Game Style doesn't change for Pass ‘n Play option. It allows 1-2, 1-3 or 1-4 players. Make sure to Pass ‘n Play with people you know and trust, and not to mention has good personal hygiene. [Vincent's tip] With the iPhone 3G in short supply, you never know if that dude is going to run off with it. Since you actually have to hand over the iPhone to the other players, make sure their hands are clean; last thing you need is for your iPhone to be the conduit for unwanted GERMS. Of course, these would be moot points if EA implement a new feature for multi-player over EA Scrabble for iPhone & iPod touch OS 2.0WiFi or 3G.
Under the Option menu, you can turn on or off the Game Music and Game Tips, change volume, SFX Level and Rest the game.
Visiting Statistics provide you with date pertaining to your Best Game, Best Word, Best Turn Wins, Draws, and Losses. Should you need help, it's only a click away. If you love EA games and want to learn more about the company, click on About, and to see other offerings, click on More Games.
Moving tiles to the game board is as easy as holding your finger down on a tile until it turns dark and then drag it up where you want it. The game board automatically zooms in, in placement mode. I found that it doesn't matter the size of your fingertip, you might find it difficult to see where you're trying to place the tile.
EA Scrabble for iPhone & iPod touch OS 2.0[Scrabble's tip]: TWO-FINGER CONTROLS, let you use two fingers to hold a tile and move/zoom the board at the same time.
I don't know about you, but when I play Scrabble, I like to move my tiles around. The process helps me to think through creating the best words possible. I'm delighted that EA lets me do just that, move the tiles around with my fingertip. Or if I just want random jumbled tiles, all I need to do is press the Shuffle button or shake the iPhone or iPod touch and voila - the titles are randomly rearranged. Other game play includes swapping out a completely new set of tiles by tapping the Exchange bag; by doing so, you're forfeiting points for that round.
EA gives you the option to "sort of cheat", if you're really-really stuck figuring out a word. You can press the heart button and bam - the Scrabble word-god places the best word possible on the game board. You do have the option to decline using it.
Every now and then, you get a "blank" tile that you can use as any letter you like. When you place it on the game board, a window pops up letting you choose the letter that you want to use.
Scrabble is available for iPhone, iPhone 3G, and iPod touch running iPhone OS 2.0. It's an awesome implementation of Scrabble mainly due to the iPhone's gorgeous 3.5-inch touch display. It's intuitive and easy to learn to play, and I highly recommend it. And as I stated earlier in the review, it's worth the $9.99.
