Scribblenauts (Nintendo DS) - Review by Andrew

Introduction

It is difficult to think of another DS game that has created such a positive critical and public reaction as Scribblenauts has since its unveiling at this year's E3. The game's concept appeared to be hopelessly ambitious to even the most open minded of gamers. Solving puzzles using just about anything you could think of typing seemed like an impossible game to actually create. It's months later now and the excitement surrounding this 5th Cell developed game has hardly diminished but is the final product even close to the technical demo viewed all way back in May?

Gameplay

If, for some unknown reason, you haven't got a clue what Scribblenauts is all about here goes: You control Maxwell, an inhabitant of a rather oddly drawn world where problems seem to lurk around every corner. You must perform a variety of tasks in order to earn Starites but, rather than simply using random objects lying around, Scribblenauts allows you to conjure them up by typing them in a console. Solving puzzles also rewards you with Ollars (the game's currency) and this can be used to unlock more levels and goodies.

The sheer volume of things you can wish for is only limited by your imagination so the puzzles have multiple answers and therefore multiple outcomes. Things start out simple enough so if you want to kill something, type in 'gun' whilst 'ladders' are useful for reaching out of reach objects. Want to go higher get some 'wings' a 'balloon' or even a 'jetpack'. The list is endless and it needs to be too because as you progress though the game the puzzle's Par rating (the number of objects you should be using) increases as the puzzles themselves become more complicated. Most games of this type require some degree of logic but Scribblenauts does away with most of that and you'll generally discover you get much further with a more abstract line of thinking.

That's the good stuff but as with all ambitious projects, Scribblenauts is not without its problems but some of the puzzles are far too simple and lack any real challenge. The main problem though is due to the complete open-endedness of the puzzles themselves as, because you can always summon up just what you want, any difficult terrain can just be flown over with a balloon or plane. The other problem is typing in just the right thing and if you want to catch a butterfly in a net you must decide what type of net you want although I'm not about to spoil things by telling you what that is.

Controls

Your traditional controls are used for scrolling around the levels, which can occasionally be very useful to see what's going on. Shame they didn't allow an option for Maxwell to be controlled in this manner.

Graphics

While the visuals look like someone just completing their High School graphics project has created them; they are so full of charm and personality that it's difficult not to like them. In fact, everything here looks like it's been knocked up for a Drama School play with the sun hanging from a string and the trees and other objects appearing as cardboard cut-outs. This style has clearly been adopted to allow for a huge number of scenarios to take place all with the same or similar props and, given how ambitious all this is, it does for the most part work very well indeed.

Sound

While the sound effects and music are far from ground breaking, they do perfectly match the on-screen action.

Dual screen

While the developers have gone with the touch screen for both inputting information and moving Maxwell around, it's not without its problems. Summoning an object is as enough and typing just about anything into the console will have it magically appearing above your head ready for you to interact with it. Unfortunately you move Maxwell around the screen with the stylus too and while this is fine when there's nothing around, it does leave you defenseless when enemies attack and getting close to an object or body of water is almost impossible.

Final comments

There's a great deal to celebrate about Scribblenauts and the majority of the ambitious concept has made it into the final game. It's great fun to play too and some of the puzzles will have you racking your brains in order to pull your thoughts away from the logical solution. Unfortunately the rather awkward control system prevents it from being an absolute classic. Still, you have to admire the sheer amount of work that has gone into producing this title, and even when it's over you'll still be typing things into the console just to see if they actually appear.

Pro: Incredibly ambitious project, which does for the most part work very well.
Con: Problematic Controls
Final score: 8.3

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