Well, here it goes.
This is a fairly new game, so please keep in mind that this review WILL have spoilers, read at your own risk
After being voted best in show at E3 2009 by a half-dozen different gaming magazines and blogs, I finally got the chance to sit down with 5th Cell's darling, Scribblenauts. Released for the Nintendo DS earlier this month, I doubt any DS game has attracted this much attention from both gamers, and the internet in general. I've had some time to play with it, and, well, attempt to break it as much as possible. So here I am.
The game concerns a young man named Maxwell, whose fantastic hat means that he has no choice but to become the stalwart hero of the land. This pretty much involves collecting 'starites', which have no purpose other than to be something to collect. This is pretty much the start and finish of story within the game, but I don't seem to have any problem with that, because if you're playing this for the story, I'm sure Katamari Damacy would've made more sense if they'd spent more time writing a story instead of catchy songs, but... well, I think you get my point.
So here you are, attempting to collect macguffins by way of touchscreen controls, but what's the fun in that? Why didn't they just make it a platformer? This is where Scribblenauts stops being just a game, and evolves into a high-octane meme-generator. The game allows you to type a word, and if it exists in the built-in dictionary, will create a character or object related to that word. And when I say 'word', I mean anything. Cthulu? Sure, Beavers? Why not? Rick Astley? Well, he dies after a few seconds, but absolutely. What's telling is that the game won't actually let you finish a puzzle the same way more than twice in a row. They want you to use your imagination, and think out of the box. Way out of it.
The levels are nice and varied, with a whole bunch of different puzzles to solve, from fetch quests to escort missions, each with their own parameters that have to be fulfilled before you can win. there are 10 worlds, each with 11 levels. Each level has two versions: Puzzle, in which you have to solve a puzzle to make your Starite appear, and Action, which has you reaching your starite by any means possible. While the former has much more variation when it comes to the levels themselves, the latter is where you can really make your imagination work. Need to get your starite from the top of a tree? You could attach a rope and climb it, or bend the tree down to ground level. Why don't you attack it with a chainsaw or axe? Or give them to a lumberjack so you don't have to lift a finger? Why don't you spawn a termite to eat the tree? Or a Beaver? Or a Woodpecker? The possibilities are only limited by your brain and the game's dictionary.
Speaking of the dictionary, it's both a blessing and a curse. In order to keep their PG (E10+ in the US) rating, they chose to omit all dirty words, and alchohol/drug related words. As well - for obvious reasons - there are no brand names allowed in the game, although that for the most part doesn't really stop you, as most generic names are allowed. However, the dictionary isn't as complete as it could be: Often when you're asking for a specific item, such as a '(something) gun', if it doesn't have that exact string, it will spawn a generic 'gun'. Not a huge problem, and I've yet to stump it for anything important.
As I said above, the levels are nice and varied, including the difficulty curve, ranging from 'oh yeah', to 'kill me now'. There's an oddly steep difficulty spike as soon as you reach world 3, which I found rather jarring, and it only got worse from there, I found myself at points becoming incredibly frustrated at how little opportunities there were to solve a puzzle, especially when you have a time limit (something of a dick move on the developers' parts). However, not all levels need to be completed to move on to the next, with worlds being 'bought' by the points you earn throughout the levels, which can be played infinitely for more points (or "Ollars").
And then... And then we get to the cathartic potential. Why bother collecting macguffins when you can pit a Kraken Against Cthulu and God wielding a flamethrower? It's pretty obvious every single person at 5 Cell are a bunch of internet denizens, because words like "LOLCat", "FTW" "All Your Base Are Belong To Us" and "Giant Enemy Crab" are all present: If you type in "crab", you get a crab, if you type in "Giant Crab", you get a big Crab. If you type in "Enemy Crab", you get another standard crab. However, type in "Giant Enemy Crab" and you get a humoungous crab that kills Maxwel in a few hits. Now that's fun.
There is a whole bunch of Achievements or "Merits" that can be earned throughout the game, most of which you'll pick up just by playing for long enough, they don't add anything extra, but it's nice to get that 'No weapons used' badge at the end of a particularly gruelling level.
There are a bunch of avatars you can buy using your earned Ollars, including zombies, robots, and more. Again, they add nothing except a fun new look. What you can buy that adds new things are songs, most of which are catchy earworms that you can instantly recognise if you hear them again, something which seems to be a pre-requisite in any casual or indy game in the current generation. Not that I'm complaining. As long as they don't have a version of 'Still Alive'.
There are a few bugs regarding certain rarely-used words, but nothing game breaking so far. The hype surrounding Scribblenauts meant that many of the bugs that might have gone missed were picked up by the visitors to E3 that went batshit on the engine. One of my personal favourites is if you spawned two rabbits, they would breed more until the screen filled and the game crashed, thankfully fixed.
Finally, if you're into games that go somewhere, don't buy this. If you found Katamari Damacy to be one of the greatest experiences of your life, definitely buy this. There's no end to the fun that can be had, and honestly, the more people shouting out things to spawn, the better. Several dozen heads are better than one, in this case. It's puzzle solving fun, and you won't find a better reason to keep your DS dust free and charged-up.
This is a fairly new game, so please keep in mind that this review WILL have spoilers, read at your own risk
After being voted best in show at E3 2009 by a half-dozen different gaming magazines and blogs, I finally got the chance to sit down with 5th Cell's darling, Scribblenauts. Released for the Nintendo DS earlier this month, I doubt any DS game has attracted this much attention from both gamers, and the internet in general. I've had some time to play with it, and, well, attempt to break it as much as possible. So here I am.
The game concerns a young man named Maxwell, whose fantastic hat means that he has no choice but to become the stalwart hero of the land. This pretty much involves collecting 'starites', which have no purpose other than to be something to collect. This is pretty much the start and finish of story within the game, but I don't seem to have any problem with that, because if you're playing this for the story, I'm sure Katamari Damacy would've made more sense if they'd spent more time writing a story instead of catchy songs, but... well, I think you get my point.
So here you are, attempting to collect macguffins by way of touchscreen controls, but what's the fun in that? Why didn't they just make it a platformer? This is where Scribblenauts stops being just a game, and evolves into a high-octane meme-generator. The game allows you to type a word, and if it exists in the built-in dictionary, will create a character or object related to that word. And when I say 'word', I mean anything. Cthulu? Sure, Beavers? Why not? Rick Astley? Well, he dies after a few seconds, but absolutely. What's telling is that the game won't actually let you finish a puzzle the same way more than twice in a row. They want you to use your imagination, and think out of the box. Way out of it.
The levels are nice and varied, with a whole bunch of different puzzles to solve, from fetch quests to escort missions, each with their own parameters that have to be fulfilled before you can win. there are 10 worlds, each with 11 levels. Each level has two versions: Puzzle, in which you have to solve a puzzle to make your Starite appear, and Action, which has you reaching your starite by any means possible. While the former has much more variation when it comes to the levels themselves, the latter is where you can really make your imagination work. Need to get your starite from the top of a tree? You could attach a rope and climb it, or bend the tree down to ground level. Why don't you attack it with a chainsaw or axe? Or give them to a lumberjack so you don't have to lift a finger? Why don't you spawn a termite to eat the tree? Or a Beaver? Or a Woodpecker? The possibilities are only limited by your brain and the game's dictionary.
Speaking of the dictionary, it's both a blessing and a curse. In order to keep their PG (E10+ in the US) rating, they chose to omit all dirty words, and alchohol/drug related words. As well - for obvious reasons - there are no brand names allowed in the game, although that for the most part doesn't really stop you, as most generic names are allowed. However, the dictionary isn't as complete as it could be: Often when you're asking for a specific item, such as a '(something) gun', if it doesn't have that exact string, it will spawn a generic 'gun'. Not a huge problem, and I've yet to stump it for anything important.
As I said above, the levels are nice and varied, including the difficulty curve, ranging from 'oh yeah', to 'kill me now'. There's an oddly steep difficulty spike as soon as you reach world 3, which I found rather jarring, and it only got worse from there, I found myself at points becoming incredibly frustrated at how little opportunities there were to solve a puzzle, especially when you have a time limit (something of a dick move on the developers' parts). However, not all levels need to be completed to move on to the next, with worlds being 'bought' by the points you earn throughout the levels, which can be played infinitely for more points (or "Ollars").
And then... And then we get to the cathartic potential. Why bother collecting macguffins when you can pit a Kraken Against Cthulu and God wielding a flamethrower? It's pretty obvious every single person at 5 Cell are a bunch of internet denizens, because words like "LOLCat", "FTW" "All Your Base Are Belong To Us" and "Giant Enemy Crab" are all present: If you type in "crab", you get a crab, if you type in "Giant Crab", you get a big Crab. If you type in "Enemy Crab", you get another standard crab. However, type in "Giant Enemy Crab" and you get a humoungous crab that kills Maxwel in a few hits. Now that's fun.
There is a whole bunch of Achievements or "Merits" that can be earned throughout the game, most of which you'll pick up just by playing for long enough, they don't add anything extra, but it's nice to get that 'No weapons used' badge at the end of a particularly gruelling level.
There are a bunch of avatars you can buy using your earned Ollars, including zombies, robots, and more. Again, they add nothing except a fun new look. What you can buy that adds new things are songs, most of which are catchy earworms that you can instantly recognise if you hear them again, something which seems to be a pre-requisite in any casual or indy game in the current generation. Not that I'm complaining. As long as they don't have a version of 'Still Alive'.
There are a few bugs regarding certain rarely-used words, but nothing game breaking so far. The hype surrounding Scribblenauts meant that many of the bugs that might have gone missed were picked up by the visitors to E3 that went batshit on the engine. One of my personal favourites is if you spawned two rabbits, they would breed more until the screen filled and the game crashed, thankfully fixed.
Finally, if you're into games that go somewhere, don't buy this. If you found Katamari Damacy to be one of the greatest experiences of your life, definitely buy this. There's no end to the fun that can be had, and honestly, the more people shouting out things to spawn, the better. Several dozen heads are better than one, in this case. It's puzzle solving fun, and you won't find a better reason to keep your DS dust free and charged-up.
