Customer Reviews

Scrabble Complete

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(16)
3 star:		(9)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(38)

 

 

This is essentially the crystal box game (Scrabble 2) made compatible with Windows XP. It will not freeze up and works smoothly on my machine. (Some of the people below who have experienced freeze up under Windows XP are probably using Scrabble 2, not this version. They need to double-check.) There are no improvements, however, that I can see, and the claim on the package that it "Includes Merriam-Webster's Official SCRABBLE Player's Dictionary, 3rd Edition" is not quite correct since the program continues to disallow many words that are actually in that dictionary, including the frequently used "da." Use "da" in a play and Maven will dissolve it, spin your letters back into your rack, and take her turn!

Of course this is a disappointment. Also disappointing is the new music, which is as bad as the old music. Fortunately it can be turned off. Maven's annoying chortles after scoring are gone, so I suppose there is some improvement! But basically infogames or Hasbro or whoever is responsible for the software missed an opportunity to make this into an outstanding program.

Still it is a very good program and a lot of fun to play. It automatically saves all your games and under the Mini Games menu allows you to retrieve each one and have Professor Maven critique your play (and her play as well, actually). The four basic comments she makes are, "xxx is probably best," "xxxx is one of the best moves," "xxxx is a good move," and "xxxx was played." She follows the latter three comments with the question "Can you find a play at (e.g.) 8H"? or something similar.

Well, I could find the better play now that you mention it, Maven, if the board displayed the coordinates! (Squares on the 15 x15 Scrabble board are identified by "A" through "O" across the top and 1 through 15 vertically. Thus 8H is the center square while 1A is the square in the upper left corner.) Plays that go across are identified as starting at the square beginning with the number, e.g., 8H while the beginning square of plays going down begin with the letter, e.g., H8.

Anyway, you can click on "Next" and Maven will reveal what is probably a better play. And then she gives an analysis of that play, your play, and other plays comparing the points scored and the value of the letters left in your rack. This "value" is NOT how many points the letter is worth when played, but how valuable it is to have in your rack on an average basis. Thus playing "orang" is not as good as playing "along" as an opening word because, although they both score the same, if you play "along" you keep the "r" which is considered more valuable than the "l."

It would help if the program displayed these average values, but it doesn't. Incidentally, when Maven gives a play in her analysis she gives a complete identity to the play. For example, "LIMITED (5E,20,O)." The characters in the parens stand for where the word started and which direction it went (5E: across), how many points were scored (20), and which letters were left in the rack after the play (an O).

Another nice feature is that Maven gives you a National Association Scrabble rating for your play in the last ten games. Go to Mini Games menu and click on Professor Maven, and there it is. This is not the same as your rating against Maven, which is displayed on what the program calls your "Player Card" as you set up a game along with your best single play, your highest scoring game, and the number of games you have won. Maven will keep these stats for your spouse and kids as well. Of course these stats can be fudged by quitting games you are losing before they are completed, which will keep your rating higher than it would otherwise be.

A couple more points: You have to have the CD inserted in order to the play the game. Bad! Also the game works only as a full-screen game. This is also bad, but you can actually get to some other computer task while keeping the game by hitting the flying Windows key on your keyboard. Scrabble Complete will then be a minimized icon at the bottom of your screen which you can click to resume play.

One more point: you can make Maven go first by passing. Sometimes however she will just exchange some letters and you might have to pass again, which would be VERY dangerous, since after Maven exchanges letters she is increasingly likely to score a BINGO! which is very annoying. Best strategy in my opinion is to play what you can on the first play, being careful to arrange your play so that Maven cannot get a double-word score by adding an "s" (or "r" or "d," etc.) to your play. If you have an "s" you don't use it of course (unless you are going BINGO! yourself or otherwise scoring a monster). Instead you save it and align your opening play so that you can use your "s" to advantage--that is, if Maven doesn't get there first! Your having an "s" cuts down on her chances somewhat.

By the way, Scrabble Complete includes a Boggle CD-ROM game that I haven't had a chance to look at.

I wasn't sure what an electronic version of Scrabble could offer me that I couldn't get sitting around a table with friends. I was pleasantly surprised to discover that not only is the Scrabble game itself very fun and well presented, but the game "extras" are comprehensive instructional tools!

The many "mini games" offer opportunities to expand your word knowledge, practice making good plays on the board, improve your anagramming skills, and much more. Each mini-game breaks down a facet of Scrabble into an enjoyable practice session. There's even a very impressive "professor" tool that provides a move-by-move analysis of your past games. It can analyze your moves over successive games and offer specific suggestions for improvement, then guide you through a series of mini-games structured around your growth areas.

These features offer more than just playing the game and enjoying it, and if you would like to improve your Scrabble game, or just increase your word knowledge, this is an incredible program!

I had no technical problems with the software, and I find that I am playing two Scrabble games a day followed by several mini-game sessions. As a result, my Scabble scores have risen from an average of 200 points a game to 350 points a game in a very short time, and I'm encouraged to keep getting better.

The only major complaint I have about the game is the astoundingly shmaltzy background music, but once I turned that off, all was fine!

If you're a casual Scrabble player who wants to be a better player, or someone who loves word games, I highly recommend this software! It's thoroughly enjoyable and surprisingly instructional.

I have read many reviews stating the program gives a black screen and you need to do a hard-boot. I have found this to happen if the user has a limited account in XP. I installed and played the game as administrator and it worked fine. My wife tried the game under her "limited" account profile, it froze up after trying to write a registry key. This indicated to me that it may have to do with her user rights. So, I changed her account to administrator and voila, it runs Scrabble no problem. I went back and forth a couple of times to see if any thing changed. Sure enough, everytime I tried to run the game on a limited account, it didn't work. There was another review about the game playing itself using the human's name. This happened right after installation of the program, but went away after I restarted the computer. It appears that you must restart after installing the software, but the instructions don't tell you to do so.

My wife and her friend who lives 100 miles away play scrabble continuously when they are together. I decided to download the trial version to my XP computer to check it out before I bought it for her computer which runs Win 98. The downloaded version ends after 20 minutes and you have to buy it. So I did and opened it on my computer. It works great. The license allows you to install it on up to five computers that you own so I installed it on her computer, did the on-line registration and the first time I tried to start the game it locked up with the black screen. I'm a Certified Microsoft System Engineer so one would think I would be able to figure it out but nothing I tried seemed to work. Thought it might be the firewall, disabled that but it actually made it worse. At first even with the black screen I could do a CTRL/ALT/DEL and then hit an Enter even though I couldn't see the screen and it killed the program and got me back to desktop. But after disabling Zone Alarm Firewall even that didn't work and had to hard boot. Tried calling their tech support and got disconected several times. Then e-mailed them and four days later got a response that was absolutely worthless. Tried installing it on another Win 98 SE machine I have and it did the same thing. So for now it only is running on my business XP machine and my wife is driving me nuts because she now thinks she should have access to my computer any time she wants to play. This game is ruining my life... (well, not really, but it is frustrating) I cannot recommend this game as the software has some serious flaws and the company seems to not stand behind it.

As several people have mentioned, I got the infamous black screen problem, and after searching the FAQ at the cosmi.com site, I found what the problem is: the program requires that you allow it to pass the internet firewall in order to operate correctly.

Doesn't say that on the box, doesn't say it during the installation- but it's a requirement. The installation also puts (w/o any option to decline) one of those "Free! One month of NetZero" icons (wow, I hate those!), including an executable file that you have to search out, since deleting the program won't remove it.

I find this sort of requirement objectionable (not to mention the advert) on something I paid for, especially when it's not on the box, and not in the installation documentation. It's especially irritating when it's on a game that kids play, and when the advert for NetZero is slipped in. I'm returning the game to where I bought it.

Thumbs down.

I have never written a review before on Amazon but I am compelled to write this negative review. If and when you can get this game to play it's great. But here is the problem; IF AND WHEN YOU CAN GET THIS GAME TO PLAY.
You will only ever get this game to play under an Admin account with Windows XP.
So forget about letting your family using this program under a User or Power-User account. Microsoft doesn't recommend ANYONE use XP as an administrator!!
Running under administrator is a security risk and should only be used for very short periods of time if and only if required.
Since windows XP Service Pack 2 the program won't work using the "run as" either. I know XP SP2 installs a firewall, but disabling that doesn't fix the problem either. This problem existed before SP2 but at least "run as" worked then. If you are the only person using your PC and don't mind the high risk of running Windows XP as an administrator (which Microsoft doesn't recommend) then it should work OK for you. I was able to return my software only after demonstrating this problem to the store manager. My gripe against this company is they seem to be marketing a product that is 4 or 5 years behind operating system compatability. Maybe because the original company seems to be gone. It's Atari now, it was Infogames, it was Hasbro Interactive before that. This is very short-sighted by these companies. It's Scrabble for Gods sake!! A great American game!!
I would also pay $50 (as a previous reviewer stated) for a good bug free Scrabble game with operating system compatibility.

After being frustrated because I couldn't get my beloved Scrabble 2 to load on my new Windows XP machine, I was thrilled to hear that Scrabble Complete was XP compatible. But, after what seemed like a flawless installation and registration, all I can get is a black screen and giant cursor arrow. I have to do a hard shutdown and restart to get back to my desktop. I have uninstalled and reinstalled. I have played with the Compatibility Mode. I have reset my screen resolution and color depth. Nothing works. Until a patch is produced, XP users will be Scrabble-less. Now what do I do? You can't return opened software. HELP US, INFOGRAMES!

I'd give this game a -10 if Amazon had an option for it. I've played Scrabble on-line and at home for years and absolutely love the game. Atari has taken the game and ruined it for me. Don't bother buying Scrabble Complete if you are running Windows XP. It will lock up and IF you should get into the game it will run so slow you'll want to scream. I had an old copy of Scrab Complete. I thought it was a scratched CD so I bought a new copy. In the mean time, I bought a new computer and when I installed the new copy it didn't run on my new puter. I emailed Attari tech support and got the usual run around. Try this, try that, send a copy of a file, blah, blah. Here's an idea Atari, try installing a copy on an XP computer, then come up with a fix. I'm serious people, save your money and hope Hasbro buys back the rights to Scrabble.

I'm unimpressed with this new version of Scrabble. It looks nearly exactly like v2.0 (and only has one additional mini-game). More problematically, the game still runs full screen -- why can't I buy a Scrabble game that lets me play in a reasonably-sized window?? Also, like previous versions, you have to have the CD in your drive to play -- annoying for those of us who want to play on our notebook computers.

This product sucks. On my Windows XP machine I can only run this program with my firewall disabled, no other programs running, and the CD in the drive. And no wonder: I bought it from Amazon in 7/06 and it hasn't been updated since 2002. It's ancient & antiquated.

Aside from the technical problems, it's just a shoddy game. The visuals are blurry, if the "referee" disallows a play where you've formed more than one word, it doesn't tell you which word is not allowed, it's slow, it's "hint" facility is ridiculous, and it uses multiple screens to accomplish simple set up tasks.

Whoever owns the "Scrabble" name should be ashamed to have it on this game. It's particularly sad because a few years ago there was at least one excellent crossword game (Crosswise) that the company that owns Scrabble (Hasbro at the time, I think) ran out of business by threatening to sue them. Too bad they didn't buy out Crosswise and use it as the basis for electronic Scrabble.

What a waste!