atari2600land's Blog - Crosswords DS review

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It seemed like a good idea at the time. Players fill in crossword puzzles using the stylus on the DS. But there seems to be a flaw in the writing recognition: Make a line straight down the pad. You get the letter I, right? No, it says that's an L. Apparently it doesn't matter that all the other letters switch to a default UPPERCASE font once written in the square. So, you either have to put lines above and below it, or make a small line with a dot on top of it. Apart from the occasional miscues it sometimes makes, I guess it works OK. The puzzles themselves are very easy if you're a pro like me. You must unlock the harder ones, which seems stupid because if you buy a book, the harder pages aren't glued shut. And the clues are sometimes stupid. Take the word 'ewe' for example. A good clue would be 'female sheep,' right? Not in Crosswords DS. Their clue is "J _ _ _ ler, person who deals with rocks", or something to that effect. And another thing in the minus category: It grades how good you did on it. Since I'm a pro, I get 'A's all the time, because I don't use the 'other clues', which the game calls 'clues'. And most of the crosswords in the easy and medium categories are too small for my taste, ranging from a very simple 4x4 type to a measly 11x11 (most crosswords in the paper are 13x13 if not 15x15.) Also, there's a timer, which is really kind of minor but still annoying because most people don't time themselves when working these. I don't know whether the timer factors into the grading system or not, but given the game's flaws, I wouldn't be surprised if it did. Apart from these flaws, there's still a few good things to say about this title. #1 is there's over 1,000 crosswords in here. #2 is that the game also has word finds and an anagram game. But all-in-all, it's kind of a so-so title, but it is good that it's only $20 most places.

 

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