Bookworm

"Could have been #1"

This game is an incredibly addictive puzzler! I've played it for hours on end and even written a FAQ for it. Although, even though its a really nice game... it left something to be disired. I think that it should have included the following:

(a) more than one kind of normal game music. There should have been the option to cycle through a number of like 4 songs (including the original). Kinda like tetris. The first one can get kinda annoying... although I remember what nintendo tried to do to Dr. Mario 64 songs... they ended up as crap and just worn't worth listening to annyway!

(b) They should have put the action mode from the computer version of bookworm in.

(c) They never bothered to put in a vs. mode! This is a key thing for a puzzle game.

(d) They took out the dictionary discriptions of odd words. This isn's really important... but i kinda liked it for stuff like ''qua''.

(e) The ranks should have gone beyond bookworm supreme... most of the time the ranks are what most drove me to complete the next level; and if your still going strong past 1,200,000 there isnt much to drive you except the funness of the game and trying to get your score as high as physically possible.

(f) It would have been cool to if they included a story mode or something, but then again, that can be forgivin though because just like a racing or fighting game the story would have been probably stupid. Without a VS. mode there wouldnt be much of a way to play the story mode either.

One of the best games I can compare bookworm to is the original tetris of the gameboy. Both games can keep you going for hours (or even days) and they are still fun and addicting. Yet, tetris did include a VS. mode, multiple game modes, and multiple music selections, which are things that bookworm does not have. I think that the lack of the action mode was a key weakness in this game. It differed from the original layout of the original bookworm just enough that it felt new and worth spending its own couple days on. The action mode would also enable bookworm to be more accessible to the VS. mode feature. These points aside... the game is still really fun. And again for $20 its a pretty nice fun to money ratio. Its just the game could have been so much more than it is. If these points had been included it would have scored a ten in my book!

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 05/01/04