Zynga's Words With Friends 2 is like Words With Friends Classic -- only better, with a beautiful, more streamlined design. You can still challenge friends to word games, but now you can also take part in themed Solo Challenge events against the app, or join a real-life team and compete in the timed Lightning Round. Words With Friends 2 is free to play, but you can pay for boosts and power-ups or to remove ads.

Pros

Easier than Scrabble: The classic Scrabble board game can be loads of fun, but it's not always the easiest game, if you don't have the best vocabulary in the world. Words With Friends 2 is made easier because you can easily test out potential letter combinations and have the app tell you whether they create actual words and whether they're the highest-scoring words to play. What's more, unlike the board game, you don't even need an opponent to play against.

Play against friends, strangers, or even solo: Words With Friends 2 is fun to play with friends -- especially when you beat them! But if you have no friends to play against, then Words With Friends 2 can suggest strangers to play against via Smart Match. If that's not your cup of tea, you can play alone against the game's AI.

Themed Solo Challenges: The Solo Challenges, which pit you against the game's AI in 10 exceedingly difficult contests, are kept fresh with topical characters. So in March, for example, your opponents are historical female figures in honor of Women's History Month.

Lightning Rounds: Have the need for speed? Beat the clock with Lightning Rounds, which pit you and four random teammates against another five-person team in a game that's won by the first team to earn 750 points.

Boosts and Power-ups: For real money or coins that you earn in the game, you can gain an advantage over your opponent by purchasing Word Radar, which tells you where on the board to play; Tile Swap+, which enables you to switch out your tiles for new ones; and Hindsight, which tells you which word you should have played (after you take your turn, of course).

Cons

Easier to find contacts if you're on Facebook: If you're on Facebook, then it's easy to find your friends on Words With Friends 2. If you're not, it's more difficult, even if you know their screen names.

Lag time: The game only goes as fast as you and your friend go. So if you are playing a friend that takes days to make their next move, then you'll be forced to wait. The upside, however, is that the app enables you to nudge them along and to play multiple games at once, so you can stay busy. And if your opponent doesn't play after a set number of days, the game auto-resigns them from your match.

Bottom Line

Words With Friends was our favorite mobile word game on the App Store -- till Words With Friends 2 came along, that is.