Boggle/Upwords/Hangman Word Hunter Collection Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)I usually shy away from Valuesoft, but what a pleasant surprise here! No problems installing the collection on my XP system, no noticeable bugs, thoughtful options... and some great games! For this price, you can't go wrong if you like word games.
In my opinion, Upwords is the clear pick of the litter. Extremely addictive! While the game can be played the classic way, several options allow you to spice it up: unlimited tile stacking (instead of the usual 5-tile high), colored tiles (where letter tiles are of different colors, and forming words in the same color doubles your points), time limit, etc. I found the AI to be a decent opponent, even though I didn't know some of the words it used. Another nice touch is that the game displays your current word(s) score before you commit to it -- and if one of the words shown has a score of zero, it means it's not in the game's dictionary.
Boggle is fun too. You can play it solitaire, or with AI player(s), and with or without a time limit. The board can be the classic 4x4 cubes, the Big 5x5 cubes board, or the Mega board with 6x6 cubes. Here again, several options allow you to modify the standard play to spice things up (multi-use letters, disallow "s" plurals, minimum word length, and more).
Word Hunter is similar to a game called Super Text Twist. Your are given 8 letters forming an anagram, and a certain amount of words to find between 3 to 8 letters. I found the game quite entertaining. Perfect for a quick game if you don't have time for something more meaty.
Hangman didn't hold my attention very long, but maybe younger players would enjoy it. One option lets you change the classic hangman character into a spider -- with 8 legs, it allows for more wrong guesses. Other options allows you to make the game more difficult, for instance by disallowing vowel guesses.
Pros:
- Infinite replay value.
- Single player, multiplayer hotseat/network/LAN (haven't tried any multiplayer games yet)
- Adjustable AI players difficulty.
- Music and/or sound effects can be turned off.
- Can be played without the CD in the drive.
- According to my CD, it's compatible with Windows Vista too.
Cons:
- Can't save a game in progress (not a big deal, although it would have been nice for Upwords).
- Can't edit the dictionary used by the game (Upwords refused the word "zen" for instance, which I found irritating).
- None of the games save high scores.
All in all, a great value for very entertaining games (Upwords alone is worth it!)

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