Big Kahuna Words

If you ever whiled away the hours with a game of Peggle or enjoy a spot of Countdown (even with its strange new hosts), you'll know how addictive word forming games can be. They supply most basic of pleasures - take a bunch of mixed up letters and spend brow-furrowing time trying to use those letters to form words. The longer, the better.

This is Big Kahuna Words's basic premise. It gives you a grid of said jumbled letters and invites you to make words. The rules are simple: you can link together any adjacent letter horizontally, vertically or diagonally. You can even switch the positions of any two letters if you need to - but only once for each word.

There are other rules and extras too - and lots of them. Primarily, the key to completing a level isn't in finding a certain number of words or scoring points. It's in wiping out a number of stone squares in the grid.

Once you've destroyed them all, by using the letter etched on them as part of a word, the level ends and you can move onto the next one (of 150).

Since three letter words are allowed, this isn't such a tough task. However, there are plenty of incentives to form those longer words - the most central of which is the bizarrely named Tiki Totem.

This totem is shown on the right of the screen and grows higher with each word you get. The longer the word, the higher it goes. Get it all the way to the top and you're rewarded with three Wild Cards to use however you like.

The way this totem gauge works varies depending on which game types you're playing - yes, there's more than one. The first is Relaxed and the second Action.

The former, as you might imagine, gives you all the time in the world to create long words, while the latter pits you against the clock. Two in fact. Not only does an overall time limit press you to rid the level of stone blocks before it ticks down, but the Tiki Totem also resets to 0 if you haven't formed a word within 18 seconds of your last one.

It's still the same game in both modes, but it's completely different to play. It's just shame you can't have one game of each on the go at once so you can choose depending on your mood - the game only allows you one save.

Adding further excitement to what would otherwise be a big game of wordsearch are the Wild Cards. These green stars appear randomly on your grid and can be used in a word as any letter.

However, you can also upgrade these Wild Cards by creating long words. Create a six letter word and you'll get a Wild Card containing a stick of dynamite which, once used, will blow up surrounding tiles.

Creating an even longer word gradually ups how powerful the dynamite blast will be, right up to the coveted 15 letter word which delivers a massive level-ending nuke.

And there's more. Every level contains a bonus word shown at the bottom of the screen. Manage to make it on your grid and you're awarded 400 points. Make it a second time and you're given a Wild Card bomb. Then there are gold tiles, which can't be swapped and must be used as the first letter in a word.

Finally, there are the fish. Yes, as if making words and working your way through an assortment of differently shaped grids wasn't enough, you're also awarded fish for your troubles.

Visit the reef in between games and you can then watch all your unlocked clownfish and cardinals. It's nice to be given this extra, but it's doubtful many will want to spend considerable time watching fish swimming around their mobile screen.

Despite this plentitude of content, though, Big Kahuna Words doesn't make a massive impact. Its visuals are simple and soundtrack non-existent. The game itself meanwhile might offer the cerebral challenge of an unlimited wordsearch, but that's about it, because the extras don't add an awful lot to the gameplay.