Draw Something

This used to be a good game and most of my friends and family would play it fairly regularly, it was often a good way to keep in touch with people who werent around as often as we may like.

Simple premise. The game gives you three words, you pick one and draw something that will let the other person guess the word. When they guess (or fail) its their turn to draw something and it becomes your turn to guess their word.

There are a few monetary bonuses for those wanting to waste their money, but seriously dont. Its not needed. Initially, its a fun little game between friends.

Then, adverts.

Lots and lots and lots of adverts. If you only play one friend, then the adverts might be less intrusive. Some ads are able to be skipped, others run their full course. They come on blaring sounds so playing quietly isnt an option. There is a mute button for the most part, but by then the ad for orcs wars or whatever is being pushed has already woken everyone up and its too late. If you are playing multiple people and you play all your turns in one session, you will still be assailed with multiple adverts, often every single time you play a move.

This game is a prime example of advertising overload and a sign of their greed as they push ad after ad in a short space of time.

Imagine playing draughts (checkers to our American readers). After EVERY move you make you get an advert that ranges from ten seconds (the ones you can skip) or up to a minute or more for those you cant skip. This is what draw something has turned into, a real ad fest.

I was playing it on IOS. But it was finally deleted just before writing this review. I should add that there were very few of us left playing and it was solely because of the intrusive adverts. You will be hard pressed to find a game that forces so many adverts onto you in such a short space of playtime. I tried ignoring them, looking away, putting the iphone down, but it is beyond reasonable to have so much advertising forced onto you while trying to play this game.

Without ads? It would get a four star rating, it is good fun at the core. With the rotten aspect if more ads than gameplay? It gets one star, and in truth deserves less. It used to be good when it started, but time and ever more ads have crippled the game. Do yourself a favour. Play it for ten adverts worth of play and decide then if its taking the mickey or not with forced ads. Then delete it and never look back.

Without the ads it would be an addictive little game, in the review centre ratings there is a tick box for just that. But the ads remove that addiction aspect almost entirely as playing it eventually becomes a chore for those ads geting in the way. I settled on the idea of never ever buying anything that the game advertised as a kind or reverse advert theory, but even that is a small consolation for how much of your life you waste with the ads in this game. If there was a paid version it would be different, but all you get for your money in this game is an ad free period of grace before they come stomping back in on you after the grace period runs out.

At first I didn't want to get drawn into (no pun intended) another game and thought it couldn't be as good as Pictionary (which I am exceedingly good at). But since it cost only a tiny 64 pence on Android I caved in and have been playing it everyday since. It's fairly simple for those of you who don't know what it is. You create a game between you and a friend or a ramdon then proceed to pick an item to draw for them to guess. Depending on the difficulty of the item you get rewarded either one, two or three coins (which can be used to buy letter bombs or more colours).

Recently they have added comments which is great if you're playing with friends - you can insult their drawings or praise their artistic flair.

It's a nice little diversion and can lead to some odd looking drawings and frustrated shouts of "what the hell is that??!!"

If you've got an iPad or Galaxy Note you'll wow your friends with your drawings.