Having enjoyed the most recent batch of Xbox Live puzzle games like Buku Sudoku, I was looking to seeing what other puzzle games would soon grace the service, and I didn’t have to wait too long before Coffeetime Crosswords came along. The crossword has been around for a very long time, always there to help pass those long train journeys, though the Times offerings are usually well over my head, getting one if lucky. I’m more of the NME crossword fan myself.
Coffeetime Crosswords brings all of what you expect from a crossword straight to your Xbox hard-drive, the game offers 180 crosswords to choose from, ranging from easy to difficult. The clues are as cryptic as ever with a small problem that a lot of the answers though most are associated with USA rather than Europe which can us in the west wildly guessing at some answers.
For something as simple as a crossword you need a simple and quick interface, this game unfortunately falls at this point, as you move your cursor around the screen you will be shown on the bottom right of the screen the clue for across and down, to fill in the spaces you bring up an on screen dial similar to an old style telephone, letters are A-M, and then N-Z, meaning the you have to flick between each letter set, and if you have a long word this can get massively tedious. You move around the dial with the bumper buttons and select with the A button, even more annoying is that to switch to each dial you have to move the dial to the switch icon, then move to your desired letter, it just seems too laborious and saps what fun you have from this game.
That’s not the worst bit though, this game commits one of gaming’s most unforgivable sins, absolutely no midgame save file, so unlike normal crosswords where you can come and go as you please, if you have to pop out or have that pick up and play attitude then you are out of luck and will have to fill in each answer again if you leave mid game. This is totally inexcusable, especially for an Xbox Lve game that is supposed to be of a better quality.
To mix up the game you have a few styles, normal mode lets you play at a relaxed pace where the time attack makes you work hard to complete the whole crossword in time. You also have online co-op were you and a friend can solve the crosswords, but again I am unable to test this as there is no one online to play with.
Unfortunately I would find it very difficult to recommend Coffeetime Crosswords to anyone and instead I would say stick to pen and paper, it’s more portable and a lot cheaper as well as being more user friendly.
