Customer Reviews

USA Today Crosswords

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I'm a fan of USAToday's crosswords, both in print and online. Their difficulty tends to fall between more generic crosswords and those of the New York Times; I can often work an entire puzzle without getting completely stumped, but I also do have to think about the answers and not just fill in the puzzle as quickly as I can write.

This game provides those crossword puzzles... but wow, the interface is so poor that it really, really hurts the game overall, making it in my opinion almost unplayable.

First, the whole puzzle can't be viewed at once; fine, any large enough puzzle isn't going to fit on the DS screen. But navigating around the puzzle is fairly tough; for example, I often found myself wanting to scroll a block of the puzzle into view with no easy way to do so.

Second, navigation is a bit weird. You use the "L" and "R" buttons on the DS to move through the puzzle (alternately, you can tap in a particular box to move to that answer). Going through the "across" clues, that's fine; you progress left-to-right, top-down, through the puzzle, just like if you were scanning through the numbered "across" clues in a printed puzzle. But, for no understanable reason, when you go through the "down" clues, the movement is top-down, THEN left-right; on a printed puzzle, this would mean going from clue 1-down to 15-down to 24-down then to 2-down, etc. It's simply not a natural way through the puzzle, either for solvers familiar with paper puzzles nor for quickly solving blocks of the puzzle (where once you've solved an "across" clue, it can help a lot to go through each "down" clue it affected).

The handwriting recognition is poor, too. It "takes" letters so quickly that I often found myself trying to complete a letter like an "T" or an "E" and having it cut me off before I could complete the cross-stroke on the letter. For what it's worth, it works on both upper- and lowercase letters, so I found myself using some of each based on which were easier to write and have the game recognize reliably. The QWERTY layout, as others have said, is in a poor font--I'm a touch typist, so I know the layout very well, but I often found myself hunting for a particular letter.

Visually, the puzzles could be laid out better; the blue blocks showing unused squares is a bit jarring and should have been black like in most printed (and online) puzzles.

The sound effects and music are annoying; you can turn the music off, but you have to turn the DS volume down to eliminate the noises it makes as you write or page through the puzzle.

Finally, the "completion" feature was annoying to use; I knew the last letter for the puzzle, yet the poor handwriting recognition kept recording it as the wrong letter--which would immediately take me to a "FAILED!" screen, where I had to go back and try correcting the letter to go forward.

All-in-all, I can't recommend this as a portable crossword game. The puzzles are ones I like (USA Today), but the interface just kills the game--and it shows in completion time; I can typically work a paper USA Today puzzle in 15-30 minutes, but the DS version took well over an hour per puzzle due to the poor interface.

Pros:
-You get the familiar crossword puzzles from USA Today. If you are a fan of that newspaper's puzzles, then that is the kind of questions and material you will get.

Cons:
-Interface is horrible. Definitely needs some improvement.
-The pad for handwriting recognition system is very small to write on.
-The QWERTY interface is also difficult to use. The font used are hard to recognize.

I found this product to be acceptable but not exceptional. The puzzles are better than Crosswords DS which I found too easy, but they are not as difficult as the New York Times overall. The only problem I have with it is ease of use. There are some settings which are not easily understandable - pencil versus pen - and it's sometimes not easy to go back and change letters. Overall I am enjoying it but I sometimes get frustrated with it.

I picked this up as one of my first few games when I bought my Nintendo DS XL. I have always enjoyed crosswords, so this seemed an obvious pick for me. It is exactly what I expected. A simple interface is utilized to to solve crossword puzzles in the same format as is typical in the newspaper.

I also own two other crossword DS games. Crosswords DS and New York Times Crosswords. USA Today Crossword Challenge falls in the middle as far as difficulty. Nintendo crosswords includes very easy to complete puzzles. The New York times puzzles are more difficult than USA Today. If I had to recommend one crossword game it would be this one.

This is a new game for me and quite enjoyable. I would recommend it as the quality is very good.

The previous reviews say it all. The concept of the game is great, but the interface is awful. Silly me had to buy it anyway, figuring I would adapt to the controls. Don't even bother with the handwriting entry. The only advantage to that feature is that you can see more of the puzzle. If you have OCD for crossword puzzles, and you have played all your other games, then this can be your "last resort" fix.

I was really excited about getting the game. I really enjoy crossword puzzles...The game is hard to get used to.

The whole puzzle doesn't fit on the screen, so you are constantly going back and forth from different sections...

The grid isn't numbered making it difficult to know exactly where you are at in the puzzle...

To me, it is more stressful than relaxing, personally I would stick to the puzzles in newspapers and books...