Installing Scrabble is pretty standard. Pop in the CD, launch the installer, and install. Although nearly 600 items are installed onto the hard drive, it only takes a few minutes to complete, with no restart required.

Playing Scrabble is very easy. By simply dragging the tiles, you can form the words that make up the majority of the game. Plus, to activate anything and everything, all that is needed is a mouse click. Very simple, yet very advanced.

Once you get used to the interface, it's time to start playing. You can play any one of the 11 mini games, or the full Scrabble experience. When playing Scrabble, you can play alone, against other human players (on the same computer, over a LAN, or over the internet), or against Maven, the computer AI. Playing mini games will greatly increase you vocabulary, but will also be lonely as they cannot be played with others.

For the full experience, you play just like you would play Scrabble. Players take turns placing letters on a grid to form words, and accumulate points. since you will be penalized for using incorrect words, I suggest using the dictionary and word listers to help you score more points. Especially with an AI like Maven. Even on the easiest difficulty rating, Maven is still a pro that will take you down if you aren't careful.

If you aren't up to the challenge of playing against Maven, take on some of your friends. Not only will you have a better chance of winning, but you can also harass your opponents, and try to get them to mess up. If you don't have any friends, take to the internet with the popular utility Game Ranger. With this you will be able to find opponents all of the world, waiting to test your vocabulary.

Well, maybe you can't find any one online, don't have friends, and can't stand losing another game to Maven. In that case, you can play the Mini games all by yourself. Ranging from 2 letter words to Anagrams to any one of the nine other mini games, you can have a ton of fun. Not only are these games challenging, but they are also great learning tools, and a good way to waste time.

But that's not all. Some of the more minor points to Scrabble, really make the game what it is. For instance, the wonderful graphics, customization, aural effects, and player stats. MacSoft definitely spent time on these graphics. Everything from the backdrop, to the board, to the tiles looks great. Same thing with the sounds. The background music complements the game very well, and the sound effects work wonders.

As for customization, you can't get much more than this. Board type, tile type, music, sounds, backdrop, rules, hints, guides, custom dictionaries, tournament or classic, everything you need to play the way you want. That goes for statistics as well. Scrabble keeps a running total of such things as games won, player rank, top score, etc. that you can use to compare yourself to others.

And finally, a Mac only feature. The Mac version of Scrabble not only comes with wonderful background sounds, but it will also allow you to play your own MP3's as the music. Just drop the mp3 files into a folder, and select them in the play list. It's about time game developers bring features to us that PC users only wish they could have. Problems:

I did experience a few freezes while playing Scrabble. They were very random, except that they always happened when the CD-ROM was spinning up. Luckily, the developers threw in an auto save feature which saves the last play moved. This really makes it easy to pick up where you left off, and makes the crash seem less harmful.

This is the perfect game for those people who don't like blood and guts. Almost everyone knows how to play scrabble, so even children and seniors alike will enjoy this game. Plus, it can be great fun at parties, alone against the computer, or online against people the world over.

Pros	Cons
Very intelligent computer player 12 variations of Scrabble Multiplayer support Built in dictionary for challenges and vocabulary increasing Wonderful hint system Auto save feature Built in mp3 player	Manual is very small System requirements are somewhat steep Most names are not recognized Random freezes
9/10 stars