Tested on: Samsung Galaxy Tab
Upon starting up Mega Words you are greeted by an introductory message explaining the game concept.
The first step is to register or – if you have already registered – login. Registering takes all of 5 seconds—you need only enter a user name, email address (optional) and password, and voilà! Hit the big register button and you are good to go. The game takes a few seconds to load, but by no means an unreasonable amount of time (less than 10 seconds on the Galaxy Tab).
You may remember me boasting about my love for words in a previous app review, and in doing so alluding to my – ahem – sizeable vocabulary? Well, I was brutally put back in my place today whilst playing rounds of Mega Words against ConeyHoney, Joshkipa and Elmooo. During my first few rounds of Mega Words I came to the sad conclusion that my brain is somewhat slower than I had previously assumed. I got creamed—and good.
The gameplay is a simple one: you form words by connecting letters on the board. Different letters are worth different amounts of points, so it’s well worth racking your brain for all the words you know containing J’s or Q’s as these letters are often worth 10 points each.
Mega Words is a real time multiplayer game, which means it’s not something you can play by yourself (sorry guys, I know that 'multiplayer' is a completely self explanatory term to many of you, but we do sometimes get comments by confused newbie users, so best to make things clear from the get-go). You send a challenge to a friend (from your contacts) or an opponent selected at random amongst the registered users and wait for them to reply. In sending a challenge, you can select which board size you wish to play. There are five to choose from: 4x4, 5x5, 6x6, 7x7, 8x8.
Once an opponent has accepted your challenge you begin playing. The number of turns you will have depends on the board size you have selected, but you and your opponent will always have an equal amount of turns.
The game is currently only available in English, though according to the developers 'Dutch, Swedish, French and Spanish versions are in the works'.
There is the option to resign games, but it costs you 80 points to do so.
What I like about Mega Words - Word Game: If you’re into word games and you like a bit of a challenge, you’re in for a fun surprise. The game is well conceived and put into practice, controls are quite good save for a few hiccups (more details in the next section) and on most occasions I found opponents to play against within minutes, sometimes even seconds. I also like that while the vocabulary used in the game is by no means dirty, it is not ultra strictly censored, either (hello ‘turd’ and ‘lustre’!). You can invite your friends to play with you, and hence you can agree upon whether you'd like to play a fast- or slow paced round.
What I don’t like about Mega Words - Word Game: I found that touch screen controls were not always 100% accurate, especially when playing an 8x8 set.
The biggest drawback with playing against live opponents rather than AI is that they are, well, real people, and sometimes it takes them a while before they respond. I played an 8x8 round against a certain Chefbtw, and at one point was waiting for over 20 minutes for him to make his move. This is all fine and dandy if you’re doing other things on the side, but not if you are looking to play a fast ‘n’ intense round. That said, there is an option for shooting an opponent a message, so if you are feeling like braving the opaque seas of anonymous internet communication you can always politely ask your opponent if they are still playing. In the case of Chefbtw, I sent a message after having waited for him to make his move for a good 20 minutes, but never got a response.
Lastly, I noticed that my opponent’s word scores were listed incorrectly in the display at the top left of the screen alongside the word for which points were awarded. Luckily the end results – displayed at the bottom right of the screen – were always correct.
Bottom line:
Mega Words - Word Game is bound to be a hit with people who enjoy Scrabble, Boggle or hybrids and clones thereof. It’s easy to play, it’s fun and the fact that you’re playing against a real opponent adds an extra little something-something.
The developers are helpful and approachable and tend to respond to messages quite quickly.
The game’s biggest downfall for players looking to concentrate on playing a fast-paced round – rather than playing whilst doing other things on the side – is that there’s no guarantee for how long it will take for your opponent to make their next move, or even if they will respond at all and not simply disappear mid-game. A possible solution to this scenario is making an appointment with an actual friend who uses this app, and then playing hard-core rounds against each other. That said, if you are looking to play a slow round of Mega Words, chiming in every few hours or even days this app may be just what the doctor ordered.
NB: Please note that all user names were changed for legal reasons.
helen pinnock
Brilliant game! Would definately pay for it to get rid of adverts! How about a quick game option cos this game is making me late for work!