I know it’s not the most exciting game in the world but I
really like Scrabble. That’s why
whenever there has been a computer version, I’ve bought it. It might not have the same atmosphere as
playing on a board, but it’s a lot less hassle.
Ubisoft have been in control of the Scrabble licence for the
past few years and have released a new updated version of the game bi yearly
ever since. I owned the 2003 edition and
whilst it was fun, and played a good game, overall the presentation was so poor
and lacking that I rarely played it.
So how does the latest version (2007) fair?
Developed in conjunction with the French Scrabble Society,
it’s promised to deliver the best game of Scrabble you can get. Whilst I can’t exactly deny that, there is
only so much you can do with Scrabble and how realistic a computer opponent can
play. As long as all of the rules and
the dictionary are in place, that’s it.
The entire Collins Scrabble dictionary is here so that you
can be sure all words played are genuine and when playing human opponents that their
eccentric looking words are actually valid.
Upon loading the game you are presented with 5 rooms:
The Library, which contains the rules of Scrabble for you to
read, as well as some annotated games from professional matches.
The Bonus and Training room contains a series of games based
on Classic Scrabble to get you up to speed, or in this case, word. There are also crossword and anagram modes
for you to play through.
The Games Room is where you can actually play Scrabble for
real against the CPU or a human, sort of a quick start mode.
The Tournament room is where the real fun is, a full on
Scrabble championship where you play the CPU in a series of matches with
increasing difficulty as you go.
The multiplayer room is where you can play matches with
people on different computers, either online or via LAN. Each player will need their own genuine copy
of Scrabble 2007 to be able to play however.
Good news for 56k modem owners, as the game is slow paced; you don’t need a
broadband connection to play this one with friends from all over the world.
It’s even possible to lock the game into Junior mode, this
way the player and CPU will not be allowed to play words which could be deemed
inappropriate for younger players. A bit
too politically correct in my opinion, children are more likely to come to harm
in the playground at school, if I was a parent I would feel that letting my
child see a few naughty words would be the least of my worries in regard to
keeping them safe from harm.
Having played through all of the modes I can safely say that
traditional Scrabble, be it against a human or CPU is the most fun. Some of these other games are an interesting
distraction for a little while, but you don’t get World Anagram Tournaments for
a reason you know.
So playing proper Scrabble through, everything is fine. It’s Scrabble. The computer plays a good and tactical game,
even on the lowest level. But when you
raise its level you’ll soon notice the more unusual words coming out of the
woodwork. I don’t mind that too much,
you’ll never learn them if you don’t see them, that’s my motto.
Online play is fun, although I’m really puzzled as to why
the server is practically empty, only on the odd occasion have I seen someone,
let alone a group of people waiting to play a game of Scrabble. I think it’s a shame because testing yourself
against other humans and building up your rank and rating is what it’s all
about. I really think we’ll have to wait
until the Scrabble licence goes to a developer who wishes to put some more
effort into the series before online Scrabble play will take off. However when I have managed to get an online
game going, the performance of both game and server have been has been great.
One other thing to mention about online play is that Ubisoft
will eventually take down support for this game and you’ll end up not being
able to connect up to the server anymore and you’ll have no alternative that to
buy the latest version of you want to play online (offline play will be fine of
course).
Graphically in comparison the 2003 version, things don’t
really seem that different. I realise
that Scrabble itself can’t change too much; 100 wooden tiles, a board and a
timer, but even with four years to improve things, Ubisoft seem to have done
very little improving the presentation.
The same bland look, unresponsive buttons and clunky interface remain,
and that I find very disappointing.
There are a few graphical glitches when playing this on Vista which don’t occur
when using XP, over all though, Vista compatibility seems fine.
It seems that to keep this games running on old versions of
Windows (98.2000), Ubisoft have basically not done anything flashy at all. I would have loved to see a 3D board and
tiles, even some realistically human looking CPU faces or something, but
no. This really wouldn’t trouble a 10
year old PC with a 32MB graphics card, that might be fine for the few of you
who haven’t invested in a new PC in a long time, but for me with a nice whopping
graphics card (oooerrr), I want to see a bit of effort to use modern technology
every now and then.
There is little room for customization, you can select from a few different
boards and some background themes with their own ambient music, but that’s
it. I don’t think the option to use your
own music or background picture would’ve gone a miss, nor would have it been
difficult to implement had they been bothered.
The sound effects are basic but inoffensive, possibly a
little too tinkly for me though.
Over all then, if you’re a scrabble fan, you can’t go wrong
with this. I don’t think it’s the
definitive version of Scrabble, but it’s the best there is at the moment.
