Scribblenauts First Impressions

Probably one of the most anticipated original titles on the Nintendo DS this year has finally been released. The game finally arrived in the mail for me to finally get my hands on and play through a couple levels and jot down thoug hts and experiences.

Let me get two things out of the way first, the game is as creative as everyone claims it to be. There are over 22,500 words to write and play around with in the game, the possibilities are unlimited. Second of all, the controls are as bad as you may also hear using only the stylus for movement can be quite frustrating at times but if you stick with it and get used to it it's not so bad.

I've played up to world 4, each world consists of 11 puzzle levels and 11 action levels, in which the game gives you specific scenarios such as, "help the logger complete his job," so therefore the obvious route would be to write, "axe" and give it to him so he can cut down the nearby tree. You can get more style points the more creative you get with it, try giving him a grenade to use on the tree or maybe a katana, the choice is yours. You are also rated on the fewer items you use to complete the puzzle and the time it took for you to complete it. Each item has it's own properties such as weapon, tool, vehicle and animals, people, even dinosaurs have their own properties like attacking anything nearby or defending if attacked. As you progress through the levels obviously it gets harder to solve than just, "give this person something" puzzles, though those can be really enjoyable. As you complete each puzzle you earn, "ollars" (currency) to spend on opening up new worlds to play on if you get stuck on any previous puzzles, you can also buy new avatars to play as or new songs to play for your own created puzzles.

Other than the puzzles you can create your own puzzles to share with your friends so they can try to solve. You can use any item in the game and any puzzle level you've encountered for use on your own created level.

The game is a great puzzle game and it's easy to pick up and play for awhile, don't be discouraged by reviews harping on the controls because it is possible to get used to them. Scribblenauts is a game that can be enjoyed by anyone with a creative mind.

Pteradactyl + Rope = win