Quarrel Xbox 360 Review

If, like me you are a fan of Risk (the war domination game) and also of the well known word game Scrabble, read on as we have the latest ported word war game from Denki. On its original release on iPHONE it was a smash hit but lacked a multiplayer facility which has now been added within this new Xbox Live version, read on to find out how we found Quarrel did it score well or did it flop?

In Quarrel players fight for dominance over 12 different island levels divided into even amounts of territories, each player (up to 4) has an equal amount of characters ready for Word War III using anagrams to battle and get the highest point scoring  words to win the ground that you are attacking.  Each character represents a letter you can use when battling your opponents whether they be one of the nine unique AI characters or Xbox Live players, you can have a maximum of 8 characters on any territory at once the more characters you have, the better as you are working with an 8 letter anagram so if you only have 1 character within the territory you are only allowed to make a word with 1 letter in it.

If you are in the position of having 8 characters on the territory you have a chance to solve the anagram which will give you maximum points. Every section of your territory has a go, whether its to move players or to battle it out with your opponent. There are several different modes that vary in gameplay style, but all focus around the concept of attack and defense.

Domination is a series of matches that range from one-one-one battles to four-player face-offs with the goal of dominating the islands of Quarrel.

Challenge is split into four different sections focusing on different aspects of the game like capturing four territories in a row or stealing a set number of prisoners.

Showdown is for those of you who want one-on-one action.  In this mode you will fight through the entire compliment of AI competitors from the lowest IQ word score Dwayne to the highest which is Kali, still not managed to beat Kali grrrrrrr.

As you get into battling you will notice that around your “Player icon” there is a ring that fills up each time you create a word, when this gets full you receive a chance to bring in reinforcements and you get chance to do this at the start of your go or at the start of the opponents go so the more points you get the more you can call in to help. When an opponent attacks you, if you beat them with a defense you “capture” the oppositions soldiers and use them to your advantage.

You get 3 chances to create a real words based on the Collins official Scrabble dictionary comprising over 110,000 words up to eight letters in length so there is plenty of scope to get that oddball word you may try to blag. Quarrel itself is frustrating and exciting – as you find yourself frantically searching for hidden words within the letters that are thrown at you, within the timed games this can get frantic when you get under so much pressure that your mind goes blank as you lose the plot.

The difficulty increases as you play on, with each new opponent bringing new levels of difficulty to each battle giving you a great overall gaming experience which has some great longevity, there are enough different game modes, challenge levels plus progressions in the single player to keep things entertaining. The levels are well designed with certain paths you can use to plan your attack and gain ground, the graphics are easy on the eye so nothing to detract you from solving the anagram apart from your own mind.

There were a couple of aspects I found frustrating within Quarrel if you and the opposition create a word of the same value, its all down to the speed of creation, 9 times out of 10 it will be the AI that creates the word first, also within the multiplayer matches there is no way of having a local game unless you have other people logged onto your Xbox through Xbox Live. This I found frustrating as both my wife and 8 year old son love to play this game so its turned into a great family activity but unless they have Xbox Live they cant play against me so we end up being on the same side. I suppose it may be for the best so I’m not trounced and out worded by my primary school child or my wife as I would probably never hear the end of it.

Within multiplayer your able to party up with your friends online which I found to be great fun as there is no replacement for human opponents, the 9 AI characters do a fantastic job but against other humans it raised the game to a whole new level, bringing a new aspect and excitement to the overall gaming experience.

In conclusion if your into word games and strategy and would enjoy some great wordplay battles you cant go wrong with this epic mashup of Risk and Scrabble from Denki, so what you waiting for? it can be downloaded from the Xbox store for a measly 400msp you will certainly get your monies worth out of this game as its the type of game the whole family will enjoy playing time and time again.

Overall Score 9/10 – an Epic Mashup of Risk & Scrabble that will do well on any Xbox 360 Dash.

Quarrel features:

· Online 1-4 Player Multiplayer

• · Nine diverse AI characters, with unique personalities and play styles
• · 12 different island maps and four gameplay modes to explore
• · Collins Official SCRABBLE Dictionary(2nd Edition 2007 © HarperCollins Publishers 2005, 2007)
  • · Xbox LIVE features including leaderboards, achievements, in-game messaging and voice chat
  • · Microsoft Avatar Support
  • · All-new Single Player Challenge Mode

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