iPhone Review: Words With Friends

Let’s face it, Words with Friends is a bit Scrabbley. But you shouldn’t pass it off as just a random Scrabble clone, because it’s better than that and deserves to be seen in a game in its own right. Sure it has its influences nailed quite blatantly to Scrabble’s door, but there’s plenty here.

The thing to remember about Words is that it’s all online. As the name suggests, the whole point is to play against your friends, and with the integrated Twitter and Facebook friend finding function (try saying that after a few pints) it’s nice and easy to do. Start a new game, punch in your friend’s username and you’re away. You take your move, and they get a push message telling them you’ve challenged them. After each turn the next player gets a notification, and on it goes. A nice relaxed game which you can spend days mulling over before taking your move. Except you won’t do that.

What you’ll end up doing is sitting anxiously by your phone, waiting for your opponent to make a move. The moment that push notification appears, you’re ready to make the next move. What could be a slow game very easily turns into a half-hour fast paced match up. It’s very addictive.

The problem is it’s only as addictive as your friends find it. If you have nobody who wants to give you a few games, then it’s largely pointless. And as it feels like a game that will go through phases of interest, it may not keep you fully occupied for anything more than a few weeks. But it’s likely to come back into the forefront of your mind every now and then, and when it does the familiar feeling of baiting your opponent into leaving a triple word score wide open for you to use if like an old pair of slippers.

You never forget how to play. Ultimately, as long as you can remember the English language then you’ll be able to play it comfortably. There’s always a friend who’s a bit of a smart-arse and will hit massive words and combo scores repeatedly, but with an ad-supported free version on the store you’ve got nothing to lose whatsoever.

Price: Free (with Ads)