Guess The News (iPhone) Review

Costas Stephanides’s Review

Topical quiz powered by the mighty web

There are plenty of apps on the App Store that make use of RSS feeds. Most just regurgitate the information into an iDevice friendly format for quicker access and reading. The guys behind Guess The News have decided to turn things round a little and create a word jumble game.

The graphics and control mechanics work well and the package is well put together. It's just a shame that my US knowledge isn't that great. The game was recently launched on the US App Store but plans to take it global are in place. With only a pinch of US topical news in place, we ventured forward.

The game is split into a number of categories from Sport, Entertainment, Technology and so on. The questions are downloaded on the fly from various RSS feeds of major US websites (CNN, MTV, Engadget, etc). The game itself is a bit of a mix between Scrabble and wheel of fortune. A blank news headline is shown at the top of the screen. All the letters that make up the words are scattered underneath. It's simply a case of guessing which letters go where and scoring enough points to complete the puzzle. Tapping on a hidden word will highlight the corresponding scattered letters. Depending on the difficulty level, a number of tiles might already be filled in or there can be clues as to which spaces need vowels. There's also a handy descriptive clue at the bottom which can usually helps with a couple of the words at the least.

Since I first started writing the review, there has since been a major update which now includes RSS feeds for a host of countries including UK. Needless to say, I quickly switched to the UK version and the game is much easier to play. I also found it as an easy way to stay on top of the latest news. Simply load up the app and let it download the news feed and after a few moments you can be finding out the latest MOBO winner to the losers of the FTSE.

After solving each puzzle you get the chance to read the article in full before moving onto the next one. Medals are available for completing five puzzles in a row. The whole system works really well and thanks the prolific use of RSS feeds there are always new puzzles.