Scribblenauts was going to be the game for DS owners. The little handheld title walked away from E3 with all kinds of accolades from all kinds of media outlets. Hell, it even won Game of the Show for some big name places. And here we are. Those that were dying for Scribblenauts already have it in their hands. And, honestly, it’s not as good as it was supposed to be.
Oh, no, sorry… hold on. It’s not bad either. Scribblenauts is a complicated game to review. There’s so much here to grapple with that painting the whole picture is sort of daunting.
So let’s start with the premise. You play Maxwell, a dude with a weird helmet on the hunt for Starites. Why do you want Starites? No real answer is given, but I like to think you want them because of the way they make you feel… inside. You get Starites by either overcoming obstacles in the Action mode or by satisfying NPCs in the Puzzle mode.
Maxwell has a notepad that allows him to summon anything by writing its name. Sure, there’s a catch, nothing profane, racial, sexual, no proper names and nothing with a copyright. Each object Maxwell summons is powered by the Objectnaut engine that 5th Cell came up with: is it burnable?, is it organic?, does it breathe?, is it angry?, does it hold something?, etc. These principles define the parameters that each object can operate within.
