Scribblenauts is a game that received immense hype, and for good reason. The game's a basic 2-D platform/puzzler, but with a gimmick that seemed like it could impact the future of video games- a dictionary full of objects at your disposal. Nearly any object that you think could help solve a puzzle can be created and used in-game. Needless to say, my friends and I all were pretty pumped to play some Scribblenauts when we first heard of it, but for a number of reasons I wasn't able to purchase it when it came out last fall. I remember my friends talking about the crazy things they had done in the game- strapping babies to rockets, forcing the devil and Cthulu to fight, whatever. It sounded like everyone was pleased, so when Christmas came around I naturally asked for Scribblenauts. Thing is, between the day I asked for the game and actually receiving it on Christmas Day (thanks to my brother Steve), I suddenly started hearing disappointing reviews- poor controls, didn't live up to the hype, hell even Trevor told me he'd give me his copy because he hated the game. The outlook wasn't good. When I first started the game up, I saw that there were 220 levels- not only not fun, but long as well? Well, it's hard to say Scribblenauts wasn't fun. I didn't really tool around and waste time like I thought I would, but pounding through the levels really wasn't hard. For the most part they went by pretty fast and were actually pretty clever as well- a few stinkers spread out here and there, but I can't complain when they make a small fraction of the 220. The controls were indeed pretty poor, and induced a few groans. Accidentally miss the small book icon with your stylus? Instead of creating an item, Maxwell just jumped into a bonfire. Oops. Anyway there's still potential here for a great sequel, as long as the number one priority is to fix the controls. And if more of the puzzles can't be solved with fire, water, wings, Pegasus, God, rope, bomb, gun, scuba, shovel, and sword- cause I can't really think of any others that were used more than a few times. At least the list of objects lived up to the hype- I can't recall Scribblenauts ever not having a common object, and most of the objects worked as expected. So yeah, while Scribblenauts may not have been the most fun I've had on the DS, credit is due to 5th Cell for following through on such an inspired idea.February 27, 2010
Scribblenauts
Scribblenauts is a game that received immense hype, and for good reason. The game's a basic 2-D platform/puzzler, but with a gimmick that seemed like it could impact the future of video games- a dictionary full of objects at your disposal. Nearly any object that you think could help solve a puzzle can be created and used in-game. Needless to say, my friends and I all were pretty pumped to play some Scribblenauts when we first heard of it, but for a number of reasons I wasn't able to purchase it when it came out last fall. I remember my friends talking about the crazy things they had done in the game- strapping babies to rockets, forcing the devil and Cthulu to fight, whatever. It sounded like everyone was pleased, so when Christmas came around I naturally asked for Scribblenauts. Thing is, between the day I asked for the game and actually receiving it on Christmas Day (thanks to my brother Steve), I suddenly started hearing disappointing reviews- poor controls, didn't live up to the hype, hell even Trevor told me he'd give me his copy because he hated the game. The outlook wasn't good. When I first started the game up, I saw that there were 220 levels- not only not fun, but long as well? Well, it's hard to say Scribblenauts wasn't fun. I didn't really tool around and waste time like I thought I would, but pounding through the levels really wasn't hard. For the most part they went by pretty fast and were actually pretty clever as well- a few stinkers spread out here and there, but I can't complain when they make a small fraction of the 220. The controls were indeed pretty poor, and induced a few groans. Accidentally miss the small book icon with your stylus? Instead of creating an item, Maxwell just jumped into a bonfire. Oops. Anyway there's still potential here for a great sequel, as long as the number one priority is to fix the controls. And if more of the puzzles can't be solved with fire, water, wings, Pegasus, God, rope, bomb, gun, scuba, shovel, and sword- cause I can't really think of any others that were used more than a few times. At least the list of objects lived up to the hype- I can't recall Scribblenauts ever not having a common object, and most of the objects worked as expected. So yeah, while Scribblenauts may not have been the most fun I've had on the DS, credit is due to 5th Cell for following through on such an inspired idea.
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Yeah, I may have said something about this in my review, but Scribblenauts was all about nouns while lacking verbs. Swim, jump, run, ride, give, pick up, attack... there just wasn't a whole lot to do, and the object interaction was totally minimal. Animate objects either liked or attacked other animate objects. And that was it. When shit burned, it disappeared - why no piles of ashes? And why no skeletons or corpses when people died? Oh well. Great concept, medium execution.
ReplyDeleteThis is a game to be left in the "Do-Not-Disturb" pile. Fuck it; it was terrible. Yeah, it was fun to have God battle a zombie for a while - so what? In the end I found it incredibly boring, despite the fact that I put it down halfway through. However, the one item you seem to be missing for your most frequently used tools list: Jetpack, baby! It seemed like a joke how quickly I could solve most of the puzzles by just zipping across any obstacle with a jetpack - another reason why I felt like I was wasting my time playing this game.
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