Mega Words Review - Screenshot 1 of 2

If it's simple word puzzles you want, then by golly, it's simple word puzzles you'll get with Mega Words. It'll put your vocabulary to the test across its three game types, sure, but in the most basic way possible.

Anagrams plunks down a handful of tiles and asks you to create at least six words to advance, whereas in Scramble you're only tasked with spelling one pre-determined word on a timer with the given tiles. Hangman, well, it's hangman; you try to guess a word one letter at a time that is sorted into categories like entertainment or geography. The most notable thing about it is the morbid impending doom animation as the noose inches its way towards the professor to squeeze his neck until the pain slips out of his body, dangling in his library into the cold darkness. Certainly tamer than the shenanigans of Extreme Hangman, but slightly unsettling nonetheless.

If you do lose in Scramble or Hangman then you're left clueless as to what the word was supposed to be – the game just ends. Speaking of clueless, there is no hint system either, so when you're stuck, you're stuck, an occurrence that is all-too frequent as the game throws a jumble of seemingly unrelated tiles at you. It's something of a balance issue, in that there is no balance; Mega Words seems to have a big pool of both common and obscure words and pulls indiscriminately from it.

Mega Words Review - Screenshot 2 of 2

The presentation is also a big loser. Everything, from the font to the tiles, is so pixelated that looks like it was all drawn slapdash in MS Paint, which cheapens the game's impression so much that you wonder how someone could possibly charge 500 Points for this when for the same price you can get something like Bookworm. The menu music is catchy in a playful-mad-scientist kind of way, but in-puzzle it switches over to something much more quiet and pondering.

Conclusion

As far as word puzzles go, Mega Words is a pretty bland experience. It does what it sets out to do, but it doesn't particularly excel or do anything new or otherwise noteworthy. Hardcore word puzzle fans only need apply.