Naut buying this 'nauty game is naut idyllic. Think: you want for 'naut...do you naut?
Written: Sep 26 '09 (Updated Oct 02 '09)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Your only limit is your imagination...
Cons: ...and the designer's prohibited restrictions that come with it.
The Bottom Line: Truly, Scribblenauts is an awesome idea, which could have worked better if only ceratin elements weren't as cock-eyed. Starting with the constrictive qualities for one, and those screwy control issues....
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| ChromeKiller's Full Review: Scribblenauts for DS |
Gaming is in an age where the concept well hasn't run dry but it has run into reoccurrences. One video game maker envisions a unique notion that's so amazing that others hone all of their energies around that particular tool, sometimes tweaking it for the better and sometimes for the worse. One company's outlet store is another company's mall. One company's carriage is another company's Porsche. One company's rock is another company's boulder, or pebble, or whatever you can imagine. There is a lot of me-too going on in the industry, especially around age-old concepts that may handle greatly but may already have an equal. Warner Bros. Interactive and developer 5th Cell have at last entered the fray with a single thought that may have been right in front of our faces all of this time but has never been used before: "Write anything. Solve everything." Unsheathe your brain and start channeling it for the summer's most highly original action-oriented puzzler: Scribblenauts.
Who the f'ing h' is Maxwell?! He's nobody. Well, not nobody - he's you! This rooster-masked boy is the representation of the player, your player, in the world of Scribblenauts. Where there's no story to follow our protagonist, Scribblenauts is a game that pegs its players with multiple objectives. Upon entering into the game, a lengthened (and tedious) tutorial unfolds, presenting just about anyone with a vision for how to approach the game. Educated on your abilities to click on the samples of interactive objects that you'll see throughout a level, educated on the process of attaching objects with one another, educated on examples for how to proceed across an action or a puzzle-oriented stage and the starite-obtaining goal that comes with each task’s completion, and even being taught the control layout - from how you'll maneuver Maxwell with the sliding of the stylus to panning the camera with the d-pad - it shouldn't take too long to recognize what you'll need to do in Scribblenauts, what your reason for being here is. And what is that? Grabbin' starites and making 'ollars from it, my man!
Scribblenauts is a sidescrolling game where you're given the option outright to either choose to play through puzzle or more action-based scenarios. Either way, you can switch back and forth between the two any time. Either way, you'll be handed a set of levels that are separated from one another per categorical assembly. Okay, try to wrap this around your head: there exists 10 levels in all per section (action/puzzle). If you feel the need to, you'll buy each and every level. With the budget amount of 'ollars that you'll receive from the very start, you'll be able to purchase one level or another just so long as you have racked up the correct amount for this purpose. Each level isn't just a single play through - these levels are in fact containers that consist of nine stages that compose the entirety of each numbered level's interior. Playing through one designated stage, the goal will always remain constant: solve the stage's riddle to nab the starite (or in other words, a piece of star) and try your best to obtain 'ollars by whatever method is quickest and most stylish. Other interests in the game may revolve around the ability to play through a single stage for up to three additional times consecutively to grab even more 'ollars and more unlockable merits, to the process of materializing custom stages through the game’s editor function where you can share brain busting scenarios with players over the DS‘s Wi-Fi utility.
Returning focus on the game's preexisting staged formula, let's use a puzzler as an example. You'll find yourself in a classroom, with an automated introduction following the departure of two students as they stroll away from the teacher. The game asks you to give something that the teacher doesn't already have on hand. She has desks. She has a chalkboard. She doesn't have any students, though. How do you conjure up an organic life form from out of thin air, though? No, the game doesn't let you have sexual relations, but it does do you one better. Located at the top right of your HUD display, just by clicking on the pencil icon with one touch of the stylus illustrates a pop-up keyboard. Punching in the word 'student' is easy as it sounds. Instantaneously, a humanoid student is revealed as a useable object on your game window. Dragging and in turn handing it over to the teacher will then net you a starite, thus granting you the award for a successful completion on this one assignment. Action comes into play as well. Sometimes you feel like a nut (expediting action scenarios), and sometimes you don't (undergoing a mental workout). Evidence of action can be found in the former mind-straddling situation; only with action scenarios will levels throw in a bigger helping of adversaries and a bigger number of dangerous tides to cross. Whether you're trying to worm your way toward the starite past a continuous flock of bombs flowing in from multiple entrances into the level or you're thinking about having to pull levers through inaccessible walls to reach the starite that's over a bed of lava that you'll need to cross, there is elevated reaches of hazards and ones where there is fewer throughout Scribblenauts.
Imaginative as the concept of picturing anything to blast through all, this does however present problems. Each of the game's levels will grade players on certain attributes, including the number of items that it took to complete a stage (the fewer the better), how well thought out the items are in question (the more clever the better), and how quickly you accomplished your starite-retrieving goal (speed is your friend). This isn't so much of an issue until you digest Scribblenauts' smallish range. When you think about it, how exactly would you take out a breakable chunk of rock that stands in your way? You might think that a bomb would do the trick, only what the game is programmed to do each time that you write the word "bomb," it will end up producing an unlit bomb. Draw a match, and you could have something... only this ends up tampering with the rule of item limitation, in which you do want to earn more 'ollars, don't you? Another thing to think about is that not every single item that comes to mind will actually be all that useful, or available. You would think that by writing the word "bridge" this would erect mass that can be crossed anywhere. Instead, Scribblenauts' version of a “bridge” is a tiny wooden arch that would fit over miniscule gaps instead of the longer ones that the game has drawn out more often over the course of its many stages. If you're in need of a means for getting yourself and a lamb that you're trying to drag back to the herder, then you'll need to write down "bridge ladder," or something else that's very specific that is serviced throughout Scribblenauts' very precise logic. An enormous dragon hasn’t the room to squeeze inside of a narrow tunnel to finish off those samurai warriors, just as you'll need to play through the game to be able to read which of the game's predetermined items work best for its own situations. In other words, the game gives you the room to create what you want, but more so it would rather you to create what it already has provided.
There is a tool in the game that can help you to identify certain objects, knowing what these items are used for to help guide you to their usage at later points. Across from your display's writing tool is a magnifying glass, which with one click initiates the scan mode. Through here you’re not in play mode; basically, you're pausing the gameplay in a way so as to click on whichever objects that are a mystery to you so that you can know whether they're made of rock/wood/metal/etc. (and in turn if that means that they're destructible), or whether you figure, "Hey, you know what? This object looks proportionate enough to serve as the kind of climbable object that I'll need for that other impassable stage from earlier on." Remembering the name, you can reuse these items. Although, the game does reward players better if they were to conjure unused tools that you haven't yet thought of - so, it's a bit of a double-edged sword where you may want to not repeat the process for item management fabrication.
Chiming in with another major complication is that Scribblenauts may not be that difficult to learn, but it is a trying game to play. Maxwell and the items that you bring to life are fully guided with the stylus. Clicking on the space next to Maxwell will tell him to move to wherever it is that you're pointing. Point to a ladder, and he'll climb up. Click on a bed of water and he'll jump in. Click on the item that you've just drawn, drag it onto Maxwell, and if he can carry it then he can most likely throw it, shoot it, attack with it, or tug at it. You can link items with one other, such as attaching one end of a chain to an animal and the other to a wall, for instance. But, the dilemma here is that with all of this clicking, sometimes clicking turns into chaos. It should be easy enough for Maxwell to jump over a gap in the level, which it is. See that small bed of water? Point to the opposite side and Maxwell can leap over there, so to guide the knight back to his mistress, so to have him slay the bestial figure that is over yonder while keeping the witch out of harm's way. What happens? The knight, who is out of your control, doesn't jump as well as Maxwell. He'll fall in the water, leading you to create a bridge. If he terminates the monster, then you'll have to think up a way to bring him to the land up above the two of you. But before then you'll need to hide the witch, which can be difficult if you're racking your brain for what items this witch (who is in motion) will stay still for and not be able to push out of the way, to knock over in the process of reaching the princess that's up ahead. All the while, you and the knight will both be required to climb on whatever objects that you're filling in the blanks with, as the knight only moves when and where that Maxwell does. Even Maxwell has trouble with hopping out of watery patches, or losing items because you accidentally dragged the item into the hands of a person that was standing behind Maxwell instead of onto Maxwell. The full stylus control can be fairly irritating, but the game can also be fun, if for only short spurts of time at the most.
"Stellar!" "Unbelievable!" "Provocative!" Couldn't 5th Cell have chosen these words to portray its game that's all about envisioning almost whatever you want it to? Couldn't they have beautified Scribblenauts to a point of significant pleasantry? Possibly. Not that it matters, though, because after all the game retains its charm even in the wake of being a slightly unattractive morsel. Scribblenauts applies the kind of visual status that won't have its observes howling madly at the moon. "ArrrrooooooooGAH!" Each 2D stage is composed of colorful nouns, consisting of things to people and creatures. Every stage is also closed off, so you'll find a singular depiction of penciled-in imagery to browse through (albeit, boards that are always diversified). With their bold outer lines and colors on the inside, characters stretching from Maxwell's red and lumpy rooster-like cap, to his beady dotted eyes, and to stenciled orange dragons or variations of persons in their respective uniforms each have a limited reach of motion and aren't visions to boot either. Whether human-like or monstrous, these sorts of beings either stand their ground, pace to and fro, or engage in an attack against Maxwell or others by swiping their melee weapon, clawing, firing a pistol, or something else to that end which usually results in the colored emoticon bubble overheard going on the fritz. Similarly, stages keep things simple: and as said before, they change stage by stage. Embracing one, you may step into an orange-reddish lava-filled window that rests below the grayish stone paths and blocks in between that you can stand on starting off. In another area, molded blocks of green and brown underneath constitute the grass/dirt grounds that are surrounded by light blue water that you can use to step upon. Snowy, medieval, island, contemporary, and multiple other themes make up for quite a bit to see within Scribblenauts. What you should keep in mind is that even though the game's appearance isn't extravagantly developed, the game does let you create a whole mess of items - from television sets to a Xerox machine. Thinking about that, the maker had to figure out some way to be able to accept everything that you want it to - and to this end, they do a decent job for embracing that kind of an accomplishment.
Narrative games often enable talkative characters. Games that don't carry this quality, on the other hand, are without. Scribblenauts is one such game that lacks character feedback, outside of a murmuring introduction from one male or female AI, and of course the distinctive growling/screeching from people, animals, and other when battling rumbles ensue between the two. Audio is on display whenever a motorized car hums, or you have Maxwell swing a baseball bat into a clanking steel object. Dive into the water and listen to the splashing swoosh effect. Fire a pistol and notice the small poofing effect it churns out. And don't forget to hear a light array of music filling into the holes between action-puzzling spaces. These mixed tunes that shift around using instrumental keyboards and some DJ scratching keep a calm, simpler tone that positions Scribblenauts as on the cheerful end. All in all, Scribblenauts is by no means a genius according to its sound design, nor is it ineffectively poor. Your ears won't mind the audio, but your ears still won't find a reason to fall in love.
Dare to do better, or dare to do different. Some developers just don't get it. There are probably dozens, maybe even hundreds of untapped hypothesis’ out there that have yet to be established. Naturally, it's better to play it safe than to be sorry. Game companies stick to this mantra like it‘s their fuel, and sometimes act the fool for doing so. But, taking risks does have its rewards for those who are fearless. It's with 5th Cell that such a shining example of this kind of uncharted stardom heads in. Unfortunately for them, they haven’t crafted the exact welcoming mat that they could have or perhaps should have been able to land on. Certainly, Scribblenauts is by no means a failed attempt at individuality. A good game at heart, a faulty game in practice, Scribblenauts does try to make the best at being alone - and that it does do well. The potential for such a noble attempt to pioneer the path for future games of this sort is set now. As can be foretold, this first-of-its-kind project may not set up everything correctly, but it does well enough not to leave players afraid for the potential of a future in line of this very same conceptualization.
Recommended:
Yes
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