The Final Word game review

Wordtris -- Spectrum Holobyte

The newest in a generation of Tetris style games, Wordtris has made its debut on the SNES. Players must arrange falling letters to spell words. The longer the word spelled, the more points its worth. Players must think fast, however, before too many tiles fall onto the screen and the game is over. Circus backgrounds and music accent this challenging puzzle title.

Ferrari Man
AHHHH... Remember the good old days before Tetris was around, sitting around the table playing Scrabble? Well then came Tetris and away went the Scrabble board. Now you can have the best of both worlds. Mindful of both Tetris and Scrabble, Wordtris was a success. It is not often you see a video game that encourages reading. If you wish to succeed at Wordtris, you must. Occasionally I would get a word I didn't recognize, and checking with my handy dictionary I found indeed it was there... A fun game that you can always tell your parents, your playing is studying. All this and cool digitized graphics and sound. Bravo!

????
A suitable sequel to the first mind boggling game, I really like the idea of making words from the blocks. The digitized backgrounds are pretty cool and worth seeing. The music changes with every few puzzles so it doesn't get annoying. There is no real game control and nor is it necessary. Longevity is pretty high because the word choices are so broad that you can make words you've never heard of. Pretty good game. It should at least be rented if not bought.

R.I.P.
I couldn't get enough of this cart. In fact, I'd have to say that I prefer this incarnation of Tetris over all the others. This game, for one, has a huge vocabulary it refers to--so even if you only place a few letters purposefully, you can still get words by accident on the first few levels. This means that even players with slow dexterity can still enjoy some distance of play. Also, it's got an extra challenge of spelling a five or more letter word written at the top of the screen--this is not as easy as you would think.

Salamander
It's very mindful of Scrabble, but the pieces keep moving; sort of like trying to play the board game standing on a centrifuge. I personally enjoyed the game immensely (I am, admittedly, a puzzle fan). I was very impressed with the number of words in its dictionary--the game was accepting so many words that I had never heard of, that I began to wonder if it was simply searching for certain types of letter combinations. After looking up the unknown words in my home dictionary, I found that they were actual words. The game even accepts old English. Playing Wordtris can't help but increase your SAT score. The digitized backgrounds were beautiful, although it could have used a few more. Wordtris is not for the impatient however. This title can be quite challenging and does require levels of concentration some gamers may not be interested in. Overall, however, an excellent title.

>>>>> 80.0/100 <<<<<		Ferrari Man	????	R.I.P.	Salamander
Graphics		4.0	4.0	3.5	3.5
Sound		4.0	3.5	3.0	4.0
Gameplay/Control		3.5	3.0	4.5	3.0
Longevity/Playability		5.0	5.0	5.0	5.0
Overall		4.5	4.0	4.0	4.0
Total		21.0	19.5	20.0	19.5

Originally appeared Vol 1, Iss 4 (10-11/92)