The Charge:
Write anything, solve anything.
Opening Statement:
Rumored, whispered about, discussed and debated—rarely does a Nintendo DS game see so much speculation. Enter Scribblenauts, developed by 5th Cell, winner of “Best of Show” at E3 2009, the first portable game ever to do so. From its earliest teaser trailers and first-hand reports, people knew this was going to be something significant, a game with endless possibilities and creative applications.
Well, kinda. Now that the game is in hand, hindsight tells us it was almost impossible for it to live up to everyone’s expectations. In many ways, Scribblenauts is exactly as advertised—you can write anything into it, and it appears. The possibilities and combinations of items are seriously impressive, and you will be stunned at how much time and energy has gone into predicting every weird object you could possibly think to conjure. On the other hand, something had to give… and where things go tepid are the gameplay elements.
I bought Professor Layton and the Curious Village when it came out back in February of ’08. It’s one of my favorite games on the DS, and I can’t wait for the sequel to (hopefully) be released later this year. I’m thrilled that Nintendo has made the puzzler the focus of a recent ad campaign, with Lisa Kudrow and a pal solving a couple of the game’s brainteasers together. The commercial seems to be working. A few weeks back, Layton actually edged out the newest Pokemon game in the sales charts—no mean feat for what is essentially a collection of logic and math puzzles. Maybe, though, the commercials are working too well.
Fresh from GDC via