Haste Review

There's no shortage of word games out there that offer asynchronous multiplayer. It's easy enough to find a competition where players take it in turns. How about a word game where players compete in real-time and at speed, though? That's what Haste offers and it does a good job of it, although it could do with some small tweaks.

Quick to set up, players can choose to dive into playing against friends or random opponents. A game board opens up presenting players with a series of letter tiles and plenty of freedom. All that's required is to connect those letters to create words, all done through swipes of one's finger. There's a 90 second time limit, meaning players have to move fast. More importantly though, words can't be repeated so there's a steady battle to find better words before the other player gets in there.

It's fast-paced indeed, but entertainingly so. Some tiles offer bonuses such as double letter points or triple word scores, but Haste is a fairly pure experience more focused on spelling out words quickly. Simple to look at, it works well too, being an easy game to dive into whenever you want a few minutes of fun.

Haste could do with some refinement, though. There's no way to chat to your opponent afterwards or quickly set up a rematch. Being able to view statistics relating to past games would be a sweet touch too, but it's not there other than straight after finishing a game.

Still, those are all refinements that will simply make a great concept even better. As it stands, Haste is an excellent word game for those who want a faster experience than usual.