I have always hated Scrabble. Now don't get me wrong, and if you are a fan I don't mean any disrespect or harm, it is just my personal opinion and up until yesterday I was stickin' to it. :)
My wife apparently like Scrabble as a kid, now while I was a kid it was a world of games like Axis and Allies or D&D, not 'Scrabble'... I had played it a few times and remember it being long and boring, not my style.
Well the other day we went to Barnes and Noble, and while my wife wandered off to look for some celebrity gossip magazines and I took a gander at some things I was interested in, she came back to me carrying a huge dark box, I had no clue what she was carrying until I saw the words and muttered to myself "oh crap, scrabble!"
Well, apparently this Onyx Edition was some high end deluxe game, and it was marked down to $20 on clearance, so I couldn't refuse. Thinking of all the games I've bought in the last few years, there is no way I'd say no to her for a $20 game, so we went home with it... (NOTE: The image at the top of this blog is NOT the Onyx Edition, this is the Parker Bros. image of the "Deluxe" Scrabble, which is almost identical except for the color scheme).
Last night it came out and ended up coming to my parents house for dinner. After dinner we broke out the game and my Mom, Dad, Wife and myself all began to play. Now also keep in mind, I can honestly say I never remember playing a single board game with either of my parents in my entire life (and I'm rapidly approaching 40)...
Now, I don't know if this is a special rule only in the Onyx Edition, but there is a variant to draw and use 9 tiles in the game instead of 7, and let me tell you this, the 9 tile draw is a blessing, it made this horrible, boring game that I was dreading into a fast paced and fun game that lasted maybe 30 minutes on average (for 4 players), for the most part words were pretty easy to make, it became more of a strategy to see who could make the longest words or hit those triple word score areas... Actually, if you use 7 or more tiles in a word, you also get a bonus 50 points according to these new rules (again, I am not sure if these are new to Onyx or not).
In any case, we ended up playing 4 games. I won the first game and took second place in the next three. My wife took 3rd in every game and my Dad took last in every game. My Mom was the overall winner... How my Dad took last in every game is a mystery, he had some sweet words with Q's and Z's and what not. Hmm... now that I think about it, my Mom kept score each game...
Anyhow, My childhood horrors of this game have been shattered, I had a lot of fun and am actually looking forward to playing it again, it was nice to spend some family time with my wife and my parents and this game seemed to make everyone happy.
I do think that if we only used 7 tiles, the game would have been slower and harder and I probably wouldn't have liked it as much, and while this game is certainly no Axis and Allies or War of the Ring, it was a nice change from my normal gaming routines.
This is more of a session report than a review, so I'll post it as such, but I would like to take a moment to let you know my thoughts on the game itself... It was very nice compared to the fold out board I remember as a kid, the tiles each had a little 'slot' they fit into on the board so they wouldn't slide around, and the board itself spun around so each player at the table could look at it in the correct direction, they included a nice pad of score sheets and a little sand timer for keeping track of turn time (which we didn't need to use). My only complaint is the little holders for the tiles were made for 7 tiles, and while 9 did fit on it, they did not leave any room to 'shuffle' them around while trying to make words before your turn, that was a little annoying.
No comments:
Post a Comment