DS

Collection of poor minigames. The Puzzle Bobble clone is particuarly rubbish. The word game would fun, but is hampered by a terrible dictionary. Very poor.

Well, with Zelda annoying my pants off, it was time to play something else for a while. So, for a change of pace, Scrabble.

There’s not an awful lot to say, as based on four games against rubbish opponents, this seems to be fine. Using the stylus to place words works fine. Opponents don’t often play ludicrous words (though it does happen).

One nice feature is that the game gives a definition of the main word played each turn. It’s a pity you can’t get definitions for the weird little two-letter words that the AI sometimes uses to be able to place its main words, though. And every now and again there’s a definition missing.

Also, if you place a word that doesn’t exist then you just get to try again, which makes things a bit too easy, I think. I’m trying not to abuse it, but it’s hard. Last night I put down QUINS, which I wasn’t sure would be allowed, but it let me have it. (No definition, though.) If I’d have been penalised had it not existed I probably wouldn’t have risked playing it. (In another game I also tried QUIMS, which was allowed and had a definition. There is a tick box on the player profile screen to say if you’re a Junior player or not, I guess ticking it would disable that type of thing.)

One last thing about the AI, now that I think of it- they don’t play tactically. They’ll happy place words near the triple letter score and won’t place a low-scoring word over one to stop you using it. Doesn’t feel like playing a human at all, in that respect.

Anyway, so far it seems to do what it should. I’ll probably play through the career mode until I get to timed games – I’m a slow, slow player – and then just play quick matches when I feel the need for some Scrabble. (Oh, and there are some other mini games which I’ve not investigated yet.)