Word Search by POWGI is exactly what you’d expect. It’s offers your classic back-of-the-newspaper word search. Now don’t get me wrong. I love a good word search as much as anyone else. It’s relaxing in short amounts, and is fun to complete if you have a few spare minutes to kill. But the last place I want to complete a word search is on my Wii U.
Having to boot up my Wii U just to play a few word search puzzles seems excessive, as this is as no-frills as you can get. Word Search by POWGI offers players over 300 different puzzles to work their way through. One can be picked at random, or players can search through various categories to find a puzzle they want to complete. There is value for money here, and if you like word searches than you’re a kid in a candy store.
Gameplay is simple enough. They player on the gamepad uses the stylus to highlight letters. As each word is found, it is crossed off the list. Words are placed forwards, backwards, up, down, left, right and diagonally, and some of the smaller ones can be hard to find. Up to five players can participate at any one time on the Wii U version, the other four using Wiimotes. The number of words found by each player are tallied up, so if you want to compete to see who has the best eyes there is a bit of competitive value there.
Presentation is incredibly simple, and for a game of this nature it would be shocking if otherwise. Players are greeted with a quick play option or the option to pick categories, which then both lead into their respective modes.
Word Search by POWGI is a functional word search game. It looks fine and plays flawlessly, but there is one issue that I find with the game. It’s on the Wii U. There is a 3DS version as well, so it may have been a case of the developer finding it easy to port to the system, and there very may well be the audience for word search games on Nintendo systems. But I can’t see why people would sit in front of a TV to play a word search game. Aside from the addition of multiplayer, what’s the incentive to boot up your gaming console, when you can get the same experience from a newspaper, a $1 puzzle book, or printed off the Internet for the cost of a piece of paper (or simply completed on the Internet – there are enough free word search sites out there)?
– Sam M.
Contributor
