Oh, My Word! 2

When you think about words of a certain length, the most common grouping that comes to mind are those earthy Anglo-Saxon words of the four-letter variety. Or maybe that's just me.

Five letter words are less prominent in the lexicon.

Still, when it comes to the foundation of Oh, My Word! 2 - a cross between hangman and coloured peg guessing game Mastermind - five-letter words are exactly what you're after.
Guess right The game provides you with one five-letter word as a starting point and another as the ending point. Between these two dictionary tent poles is the mystery five-letter word you're trying to guess.

For example, kicking off with CHIEF and EBONY (everything's in caps, by the way), you might try DEATH. Enter this and you find that DEATH swaps places with CHIEF, and now the limits of your guesses are the words between DEATH to EBONY. You try DONUT, and so on. In fact, continuing the process of elimination, in this example the answer was DEEDS.

Once you've guessed correctly, you're provided with another pair of words. In Classic mode, you have to get as many correct answers as you can using 50 guesses.

Assisting you is a 'hint' option to uncover a couple of letters. It's limited to three reveals of any of the final three letters of a word. You can use up all three hints on one word or spread them across three as you wish.

Other modes include Time Attack and Survival, although these have to be unlocked by completing a Classic game. Plus+ Network support brings awards, as well as the ability to post your scores on various leaderboards.

Even for those of us who spend our days tinkering with words, Oh, My Word! 2 feels lightweight. The presentation in terms of graphics, user interface, and sound effects is good, but as you play on you're not provided with many reasons to get excited.

For instance, guessing a word correctly merely triggers another mystery word for you to guess with little of the celebration that such a success would be greeted with in a game like Peggle. Similarly, there are few nods to gaming flourishes such as power-ups, boss levels, or mini-games, which could potentially add a bit of flash, while options such as whole word passes would reduce frustration.

The strict limitation of gameplay to five-letter words also feels restrictive, although no doubt it was chosen for logical reasons.

The result is a game that feels more like an update that rounds out a first attempt than a true sequel which expands the concept. Oh, My Word! 2 is a pleasant experience for word fiends, then, but more SOLID than SUPER.