A few days ago I had the pleasure of downloading WordUs2 onto my iPhone. Developed by an unknown indie studio, Binary Dawn Interactive, I knew I was in for a treat when I heard an old school dial-up modem going off as the game loaded.
As a massive fan of word games (I currently have 6 different word game apps on my iPhone, not including the recently added WordUs2), I can say I honestly didn’t know what to expect since I had no prior knowledge of the game or the dev studio. Once I passed the lovely modem intro, I was greeted with a nice, polished, and easy to navigate menu. Those who are short on time can opt for a Quick Start game where you’re thrown into a game, or you can choose to customize your game with four different game modes and the actual length of the words.
Out of the four game modes, I preferred the Calm & Collected one simply because I didn’t find myself getting stressed out like I normally do when playing my other word apps. There was no clock counting down, no flashing lights with sirens, nor did I have to worry about the number of turns/guesses I had left. Of course if you want to increase the difficulty, the other game modes are Every Guess Counts, Think Fast, and Six Minute Sprint. I also found that I preferred to keep the words at 5 letters long, rather than going for 6, 7, or 8 letter words.
The point of the game is to figure out what the word in question is. You’ll always start off with the first letter, but then you have to guess using different words to figure out the other letters. If a letter is in the correct spot, the square will appear orange. If the letter is in the word yet in the wrong place, the letter itself will be surrounded in a yellow circle. All other letters that don’t belong in the word appear on a blue tile. It’s a very simple, yet effective, way of letting the player know if they are on the right track to figuring out the word. Figuring out each word is worth 250 points, but if you ask for a hint, that costs 500 points, so use your hints wisely. I did like how the game allows you to go in the negative should you require more hints, and not feel like you’re stuck.
Something that blew me away was the fact that WordUs2 is one of the cleanest, well designed word apps that I’ve ever played. I never had the app crash on me, I never had any lag, nor did I have any bugs pop up. It was so nice because I can’t even begin to tell you all how many times apps, from well known devs, have crashed. The sounds were spot on and enhanced the gameplay, and I never got sick of hearing my fingers tap away at the keyboard. The addition of Open Feint was a nice touch because who doesn’t love achievements?
There was one thing though that was a negative for me, however it is something that can easily be fixed in an update, and that was that I wanted the game to recognize more of the words I entered. There were many times where I’d enter in something basic like MILES and the game would tell me that the word didn’t exist, but then when I’d go into another puzzle that started with an M, MILES would be an acceptable submission. Again, it was minor, and a simple update could fix it, so it was in no way a deal breaker.
For only $0.99, WordUs2 is a bargain, and can be downloaded for the iPod Touch and iPad as well. I highly recommend going to the iTunes Store and downloading WordUs2 right this second, and I’ll definitely be keeping my eye on Binary Dawn Interactive!
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