Scrabble
GameSpot Review
Hasbro Interactive has been bringing board games and Atari titles to the PlayStation for a couple of years now, and with a library in both categories that is interminably deep, it's no surprise that another one has just launched from the gate. Enter Scrabble, the game you used to play on your kitchen table; it's now on your TV screen, and that's probably telling enough. Perhaps more versatile than the board game itself, this version has three modes of play: normal, solitaire, and tournament. In the normal mode, you play against another human or a computer opponent in a single match. If you select the computer player, you'll be able to select its intelligence level. These levels include novice, beginner, intermediate, advanced, expert, champion, master, and grand master. The solitaire mode is pretty self-explanatory: You play a round against yourself, aiming to earn as many points as possible. The tournament mode is a single-player game in which you play your way through the ranks of computer opponents - beginning with the dimmest and working your way up to the grand masters in an attempt to become the Scrabble champ yourself. And it's not too tough. One of the only downsides is that you can't manipulate the CPU into believing some stupid word you heard once in a foreign film you didn't understand and misspelled wrong in the first place is actually a word you should receive points for. The interface is 2D, allowing you all the traditional board-game Scrabble functions, from rearranging your letters on the rack before placing them on the "board" to trading in the sour letters at the cost of a turn. And you can't keep your pals from cheating in two-player mode as any idiot can figure out, because you're looking at the same screen. But "Turn around before I kick you out of my house" is one way to deal with it. The Scrabble hard sell? It does the math for you. The worst thing? You can't cheat by stowing illicit tiles in your lap. Scrabble on the PlayStation appears to be exactly what you expect from Scrabble at your mom's house - minus the little wooden letters that look like bouillon cubes. It's slow, there aren't any power-ups, no one jumps out of the ceiling to shoot you in midturn, and you can't apply stealth in any way whatsoever. If you're the card playing, board-game digging type, this'll probably be right up your alley - or you could buy one of those jazzy lazy-Susan Scrabble boards for about the same price. But don't go into it expecting Scrabble on the PlayStation to be anything but Scrabble with a cathode-ray glow.--Lauren Fielder--Copyright © 1998 GameSpot Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part in any form or medium without express written permission of GameSpot is prohibited.
Great game for Scrabble buffs....
My husband and I love the game. I more so than my husband. There is one thing I didn't like. They supply the dictionary and there is no way to turn that off, or the "hints" part either. My husband uses that more often than he should and usually wins because of it. Other than that, the game is great for Scrabble buffs.
This is the worst Scrabble version I've ever played
I bought this version of Scrabble for my PlayStation2 thinking it would be at least half as good as the one I own for the PC. Boy was I surprised. This is the worst version of Scrabble I've ever played. First of all, you cannot see the whole scrabble board. Also, the controls are very awkward and not well thought out. There is a zoom in view, a zoom out view, and a zoom out with scrolling view where you can't press many of the buttons. The zoom in is HUGE and useless, the zoom out modes are too close so that you can never see the whole Scrabble board at once! You are forced to scroll the screen to see only portions of the board at a time. Both me and my wife were extremely disappointed by this version of Scrabble. BEWARE, unlike the PC version which is a 5 star version, this version barely gets one star. Unlike the PC version the music isn't very good and you can't change the music, you can never see the whole board when playing, you can't change the type of board you play on, you can't change the view angle, you can't change the background, the tiles look flat and ugly, your tiles on your rack are so HUGE that they block the view of the board extensively. The score (when visible) takes up too much of the screen, and of course makes it difficult to see the board. Fortunately you can turn off the score view. This is a very sad implementation of what is a great game. I don't recommend buying the PlayStation version at all. If you own a PC you are much better off getting the PC version. The PC version is 100 times better than this version is. Hasbro is normally a very good quality company. I'm surprised Hasbro allowed this version to hit the market place.
No more lost tiles!
I really did like this way to play Scrabble. You can play against "Maven" (the AI) which has levels from novice to grand master, you can play against up to 3 humans or you can play solitare. There is also an option for tournaments which sounds interesting. Rules can be adjusted and scoring is all taken care of. The only negative is the music-very annoying. It's a good thing you can tone it down.
