Review: Quarrel(XBLA)

I don’t think there is a more perfect time to release Quarrel on XBLA than right now. Quarrel is essientially a war of words, much like the ongoing Republican primary debates here in the States. Fortunately that is the ONLY similarity between the two. Quarrel is a vibrant, cheerful and animated world. Most importantly, the words are all real/true. If you possess an iPhone or iPad you may have already known about Quarrel, available for $2.99 on the App Store. The XBLA release brings more modes of play and an all important online multiplayer mode.

In Quarrel you battle up to 3 other people to take over a map much akin to Risk. Instead of the luck of dice rolls, the two battling players are both given the same 8 letters to make a word out of. How many letters you are allowed to use is dependent on how populated your square was. Each letter tile has a score associated with it, much like Scrabble. Highest point total wins the battle.

The game has a few different single player modes with AI controlled opponents. Domination has you trying to win all 12 of the different maps. Showdowns consist of 1 on 1 matches against each of the games’ programmed AI. Speaking of AI, it becomes extremely punishing at later levels. The AI was to the point of pulling the best possible scoring word everytime in a second or two. Which means even if you tie them in points, odds are you’re going to lose the draw due to the speed of which the AI is operating. The different modes are all fine and dandy, but only the Challenge Mode seems to be doing anything different. Challenge modes sets a side task for you to complete during your march across the map.

After several losses in the single player, I decided to let out my frustration on random people over Xbox Live. I attempted to play just this past weekend between 6pm-12am just to give you an idea of what to expect during essientially peak hours for XBL. I played 5 games before I hit a wall where matchmaking couldn’t find a game at all. In each of those 5 games there was one person that quit before they were knocked out of the game. Sadly, I have come to expect that from random players over XBL. Unfortunately it seems the developers have never played a competitive game over the internet. If a person quits, no matter what time during the match, the game goes into sudden death mode. I would equate this travesty to a player standing up in the middle of a game of Risk and throwing the table on its side. This puts the remaining players into one big battle to determine the winner of the game. The points you score on the word for sudden death gets multiplied by the population on territories you currently control. This determines the winner. What the hell?! My first game we had a person quit within the first minute! Game over in 2min. I didn’t even get to my turn! I am not a game designer or anything, but that is unforgivable. I would hope for a separate battle for each of the territories that the quitting player left behind. At least let people enjoy the game even if there are a few rotten eggs out there.

On the other hand, Quarrel does a good job with combining Risk and Scrabble and introduces a few fine ideas; like a scrolling bar on the bottom that provides what the anagram for the 8 letters was and the definitions of the words that the players made. This helps avoid the awkwardness of calling someone out by asking them what does the word they just played actually mean. The animations of your populace are often amusing and altogether joyful but seem to take a tad bit too much time to go through. The novelty seemed to wear off on me after a few matches and I found myself looking for a button to skip all the hoopla in between turns to just get to the playing of the actual game.

The Good

Vibrant colors and overly simple interface

Characters you can’t help but smile at

Near perfect blend of Risk and Scrabble

It’s $5

The Bad

AI becomes abusive at later levels

No way to skip the animations

The nature in which an online multiplayer game ends upon one player quitting

The Final Word

Quarrel, for me, walks an uncomfortable line on the argument between price and quality. Should I ease up on a game because it is only $5? Or should I just review it for what it is? I chose to go with the latter and unless you can talk three other friends into biting on the 400MSP price tag of the game, it is hard to recommend Quarrel even at the budget pricing due to its flawed nature. If the multiplayer problem isn’t addressed, I have one 8 letter word to describe Quarrel: MEDIOCRE(15pts).

3/5

Copy of the game was provided for the purpose of review.