Wordtris

"Can You Spell "Awful"?"

Oh my, this game is the pits. This is the product of combining Tetris and Scrabble, which I might add, is not a good conjuncture. If you dislike both of these, I suggest turning back and not reading any further, as this review will probably only bring back reasons of why you hate those things.

Gameplay:

Let me make one thing clear. I don't hate Tetris. I don't hate Scrabble. Some how, they've made Wordtris, which I find near impossible to enjoy. The bare bones of the game involves you making words using random letters. The major problem with this is the lack of vowels. How is one supposed to make any words using 6 Ls and 3 Ps??? However, unlike Tetris, the blocks don't fall down to the bottom of the playing field to make everything clear and easy; they stop half way down, cluttering up your entire line of sight. Then, any additional block placed on top of that block will push it down. Once you have pushed the blocks down to the very bottom, they start piling on top of each other. This is as confusing and annoying to repeat as it is to play through. Your words must be 3 letters or longer, and you get points based on the length (not on ingenuity of the word, like if you used a ''Z'' or ''X'' in a word). However, you will find that many of the words you do make were unintentional and brought about by you stuffing around.

With only 5 vowels in the alphabet, chances are you won't be making a lot of words beyond 4 letters. The multiplayer is tedious as you play on the same space as your opponent, allowing players to ruin your words before you have made them. There are various options to make the game more ''fun'', varying from increasing or decreasing the time limit, starting from a higher difficulty, or allowing words to be repeated.

Graphics:

Simple and boring. The game takes place on a plain black slate with letters on boring squares dropping from the ceiling. The greatest graphical achievement in the game are the pictures next to the game board. These pictures are highly pixilated and often horrendous circus pictures, including a bear riding a unicycle. I'm still not entirely clear as to why the game is circus-themed.

Sound:

Picture constant carnival music and you have Wordtris music to a tee. Nothing overly inspired or worth listening to. The sound effects are minimal and are merely clanking sounds as the letter pieces fall onto the board. Yawn.

Story:

Ha ha ha ha...next.

Seriously, what do you expect; it's a Tetris clone, so if you are familiar with Tetris, you will realise that story and plot are not strong elements of the game. Of course, this leads one to wonder what is the deal behind the clowns and unicycle-riding bear...if you can find a connection you probably deserve a Nobel Prize.

Replayability:

This game isn't fun to play unless you are a walking dictionary who has extraordinary luck. Even though as a general rule of thumb all Tetris games are supposed to have lengthy replay value, Wordtris is severely lacking in any enjoyment of going back for seconds, let alone a first try.

Buy or Rent:

Neither. If you want a good Tetris clone, stay away from Wordtris. It only scores a 2 by my standards because of its originality, despite its dullness.

However, if you make up the 0.000001% of the world's population who:

Enjoys clowns and circus music; Scrabble, Tetris, frustrating sequences of events, cluttered playing areas and second rate multiplayer modes, then by all means find a copy as soon as possible, because you will be in paradise.

Reviewer's Score: 2/10, Originally Posted: 01/02/04