If you are a football fan, this is a good time for you. We bare witness to some really cool matches (Liverpool beating Chelsea at Stamford Bridge), and some uber-slick goals (Berbatov/Ronaldo against West Ham 'nuff said). Others want to join in and make the most out of this football season and hence we see a string of events, merchandise as well as games based on Football. We recently covered FIFA 09 and came back very impressed, this around we check out a different game, one that is more mental than physical. The game is called "Manchester United Word It" and as you may have guessed, it's a word based game.

Word It is a simple game, the design and gameplay clearly focus around casual gameplay. Most cell phones games that I have played are short and simple, ideal for passing time while traveling. Jump Games the developers of Word It have taken that factor into consideration and made Word It, easy to get in and get out. As the screenshots will tell you the core gameplay revolves around locating words from an alphabet grid. These are words related to Manchester United like player names and basic football terms.

There are 5 different levels or modes called Training Ground, Player's Lounge, Changing Room, Player's Tunnel and The Pitch, each of these modes have up to 15 puzzles which need to be complete within a set time frame. The words to be located appear in a ticker on the bottom of the screen, in case you don't have patience to sit and wait for the missing words to appear, you can always access the list of words. The words have to be located on the grid and they can be present horizontally, vertically or diagonally. The puzzles get harder at later levels but what's the point of a game that doesn't pose a challenge. The limited time frame can add some pressure when looking for more challenging words but its good fun and would make most Manchester United fans happy. Coming back to the Manchester Branding, this game is one of many to come via Jump Games. A few months back Jump Games signed a deal with Manchester United to exclusively to develop and publish games for the club, so expect many more from them. FYI: Jump Games is a part of Reliance Big Entertainment.

The game is good fun to play and since it is word based, almost anybody can play the game. The first two levels are a breeze, but later on it takes a few tries to win. As you play the game you will unlock many goodies like caps and t-shirts belonging to the club, its a neat touch, although not very compelling. You can exit the game in an instant and join back anytime, continuing from where you left off. The game also records all your stats and tells you exactly how good or bad you are.

Simply put the gameplay is fun, but you won't find yourself finishing this off in one sitting, this is something that you will play for a while and then come back again later. I have had my share of mobile gaming (not the kind you play on the PSP or DS) and I have to say this is one of the few games that I didn't stop playing after the first 10 min.

Although the game's menu music is so horrible Dwight Schrute wouldn't be caught listing to it. The game isn't without it's flaws, I believe they could have added a more rich interface, the transitions got boring very soon, I would have liked to see player photographs or other football related pics instead of a boring fade-in/fade-out effect. This is a game that a football lover should try, its fun, its simple and its not a bad way to kill some time.

The game is available across all major GSM and CDMA operators in the country. Currently, the game is priced at Rs 50-100 for one-time download and Rs. 10 for a pay-per-play session on various operators. Going forward, the game will also be available for Blackberry and other smartphones.