When I reviewed Hasbro Family Game Night: Boggle, I was at a loss for words. It wasn't that the package was so shockingly good that I couldn't speak, just that it's hard to really write too much about Boggle without just rearranging the letters in words to make other words. It's Boggle, either you like it or you don't, and if you like it you buy it. There are 16 dice, each has a letter, and connecting letters can be made into words to get points. That's it. I suppose, if that's the most I can say, than it means the developer did their job with the iPhone version of the game, which is currently available on the App Store for $2.99.

It's a fairly standard port, with the accelerometer being used to allow for shaking of the dice and the touch screen used to make words and rotate the board. Classic Mode, Advanced Mode, and Self Score Mode are all available, giving Boggle fans different ways to play the exact same game. Classic (and Self Score Mode, for that matter), gives the, for lack of a better word, "classic" Boggle feel, while Advanced adds a bunch of unnecessary options  that do little but clutter up the time-tested gameplay.



Challenge Mode might be the most interesting tidbit in the package, and allows any player to challenge another with a specific board setup. It shoots the opponent an email, which contains a link that opens up Boggle and saves the challenge to play at any time. It might actually be better, in a way, than online multiplayer, since it doesn't require both people to be online at the same time and won't sap the crap out of the iPhone's battery. The lack of offline, pass-and-play or bluetooth multiplayer, however, is somewhat perplexing, and serves as the game's largest issue.

Music, visuals, they're all exactly as expected. EA has done a fine job at not messing up the Boggle formula, which is the ideal way of making a Boggle game. If they had gone crazy, added a story, characters, and more unnecessary modes, this would be a much angrier review. Or it would be Bookworm, and I wouldn't have been upset at all. Either way, they kept it simple, and it's portable Boggle for the iPhone, if you will have it.