Word up! (Scrabble 2005 (PC))

Member Name: paulhanton

Product:	Scrabble 2005 (PC)
Date:	16/10/08 (209 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Solid, will play on any old PC.

Disadvantages: Not that exciting.

Scrabble 2005 - Ubi Soft

A three year old game I hear you cry, but that is like, ancient in PC terms.....well, yes, but at £2 from a boot sale it was pretty much a 'must have', especially since I had an earlier version.

I love Scrabble, plying with friends, playing on PC, it matters not, and word games have been shown to keep the brain young, and boy do I need that.

~~~Boring Techbits~~~
OPERATING SYSTEM 98,2000 or XP (also runs on Vista)
PROCESSOR PII 350MHz (like anyone has one of these still)
RAM MEMORY 256 Mb
HARD DISK 350 Mb

Can play online too.

Installation is about as easy as it gets, just a mouse click and it is loaded.

~~~Interface~~~
Very easy to navigate...start with 'New Game' or 'Quick start' and you are playing in seconds.

Board:
You can change the board type, there are several boards from the traditional look to 'stone' or 'wooden' boards,I prefer the trad type. You can tilt the board, change the angle etc, all novel, but not really needed.

Visually:
Nice and bright, graphics are fine but nothing special, it is a word game, not an action game.

Ease of use:
Could not really be easier, drag and drop the letters onto the board, clear instructions such as 'your turn', there is almost nothing to say about it other than that.

~~~The game~~~
Most people have played scrabble so it does not take a lot of explaining.

You can play the computer at various levels (and more than one computer player), play friends, or play online (I have never played it online yet).

There are some features such as 'hint' (mentor) where you can get some help with words, this is useful in the higher levels when you can get some of the really odd two and three letter words such as 'Xi' or 'Dzo', but once you get to remember these, using hint is just cheating so why cheat yourself? play at a lower level until you are good enough.

You can set a timer if you desire.

There are also other games other than straight Scrabble included, such as anagram and 'joker'. Whilst these may appeal to some people, I prefer straight Scrabble.

~~What else?~~
The music is extremely irritating, so I turn it off, though thanfully there are no bells and whistles when you take a turn, like earlier versions of this game. The game save option is useful if you cannot finish a game for whatever reason.

I particularly like the 'profile' feature where you move up the ratings, especially when playing 'tournament'.

Oh, and if you want to play in French, Spanish or German, no problems, pas problem, Keine Problem, ces't possible.

~~~My verdict~~~
It aint a power hungry game, there is no fancy graphics and you will not be raving about this to friends. It is one of those games that sits there on your PC and you will play it from time to time when bored or you notice it on the desktop.

For serious Scrabble fans it is a must as it is approved by Mattell and by the Official Scrabble Championship (though I guess is a little out of date now).

Good, solid, play, and if you are not worried about newest versions of games, this will last for some years. I would certainly not pay £20-£30 for such a game these days when similar games abound on Facebook etc., but for a couple of quid, hey, why not?

Website info below:

http://www.ubi.com/UK/Games/Info.aspx?pId=1787

Summary: Good old word game.