Games: Scrabble Mobile by EA

Today we’ll be looking at Electronic Arts (EA)’s mobile version of Scrabble. Loaded with several game modes, 2-player same-device support, and decent speeds, Scrabble looks like a winner at first glance. Read the entire review to get the lowdown on this new game.

Skip to the end if you just want the overall summary.

Scrabble is a world-famous word game where you form words by putting little wood letters on the board and connecting to other words. Created by Alfred Butts (no joke) a heck of a long time ago, it’s grown into a rather gigantic franchise, with millions of board games selling each year. There’s even a 24-carat gold version of the game. So to call it world-famous is almost an understatement.

Owing to its popularity, there’s a couple versions of Scrabble for mobile phones floating around - EA’s version, another one by Jamdat, and yet another by some unnamed company.

Let’s begin the review.

EA’s Scrabble is written in Java, a programming language that usually equals sluggish speeds and long load times when it comes to mobile games. However, there isn’t a noticeable load time in this case - the game will display the EA logo and the Mattel logo, both of which can be skipped with any key.

The main menu is very cleanly presented and lets you Play, configure Options, view Statistics, and get Help. You can choose from several different game modes: Single Player vs. Computer, Single Player vs. Self, and Pass ‘n Play (two player mode on the same phone). Pass ‘n Play is a feature that should be implemented into every mobile phone game, and it’s nice that EA added this option. However, this mode only supports 2 measly players, which is to say kinda lame.

Once you start a game, you’re presented with the game board and your rack of letters. You can zoom in and out of the game board as necessary, which is a boon when you’re trying to calculate possible word scores. And here we run into problem number one.

Scrabble has certain spaces on the board that give bonus points if a letter lands on it, known as double/triple word and letter score spaces. Using these effectively is key to scoring big points.

Problem is, EA Scrabble doesn’t tell you which spaces are for letter score bonuses and which are word score bonuses. All it does is give you a vague “x2,” “x3″ which is pretty meaningless. At least display a message or something similar when the cursor’s on the space, please.

Other than that, the graphical interface is fairly intuitive. Shifting tiles around on your rack is a simple process (although slightly laggy) - when you’ve got a letter selected on your rack, just use the arrow keys to move it around. You can also Randomize or Sort the letters.

This version of Scrabble does have its limitations - first, the game will only validate words with a maximum of 6 letters. Note that you’re actually allowed to drop a 7-letter word on the board, but there’s no onboard method of checking it to make sure it’s a real word and not some garbage you just dreamed up.

Limitation number two: you can only keep one saved game in memory per game type. It’s not such a big deal though.

Summary

EA’s mobile version of Scrabble looks good, plays well, and there’s a nice variety of game modes to keep you entertained. The drawbacks are minor at best (no 7-letter word validation, word and letter score bonuses aren’t recognizable, a little slow here and there) and the game more than makes up for it in other ways.

Final Verdict: Recommended.

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 8th, 2007 at 3:11 pm and is filed under Mobile Phone Software. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.