For years the battle has raged on, debate has come up time and time again, and countless lives are given to the age old question: Pirates vs. Ninja's. Well folks I am here to tell you. Pirates. Yes, I do tend to side with pirates (way before the movies but they were good anyway) and while you might feel the urge to call me a ninja-hater, I simply am stating the scientific facts that I have found. You might ask your self what facts? Scribblenauts. Now you're probably just asking yourself wtf is Scribblenauts, and that's what I am here to talk about.
I have a friend who runs an amazing Nintendo fan site, found over at GoNintendo. This is where I first heard Scribblenauts. It was probably around E3, or a bit sooner that GoNintendo started talking about the game almost every other day. I knew nothing of it other than, it was by a company called 5th Cell, and it had something to do with drawing or writing. The most fun drawing on the DS was had at PAX or midnight movie showings, would be to jump into a Pictochat (err DICTOchat) room...and draw dicks. Like that scene in Superbad, dicks galore would flood the innocent chat rooms. Ahh what fun times! But moving on...
So again around E3 I started hearing the buzz, and finally got my first taste of the game. The first video to pop up jaw dropped me. No this game doesn't have stunning graphics or game play that makes you melt, but what I saw was FUN. Pure fun. The first video explained the game, how it works, and what the purpose of our main character Maxwell is supposed to be doing as he treks across the Scribblenauts universe. But before I go into the video itself, I will explain how the game works, so that the later explanation makes a bit more sense.
So each level has a goal (as most games do). The goal is simple, in hindsight. Get the star or "starite" as the game refers to it. Sounds simple enough right? And that is where the fun begins. On the first stage, you can see it. Sitting high atop a tree, waiting to be caught and brought to the next level. But as you look around you notice that that is all you see. The sole tree and the star. In the top right hand corner you'll notice a notepad. When you click on that notepad, you have just entered a very steep slope. From this point you can pretty much type ANYTHING YOU WANT. There is exceptions, no copyrighted items (things such as Playstation 3 the like) no proper names, no drugs/alcohol/sexual items. They did include internet meme stuff such as icanhazcheezburger cat and other shit like that. Other than those restrictions, anything that you can think of, you can spawn. You in turn use these items to help our main character Maxwell get the starite. Now not every level is just a star in a tree. As they go on the puzzle's get more complex and more fun. And that is pretty much the whole game. I will get into detail in part 2 of this review about how big the word data bank is (rough number 20,000 I have read), really this first part is just to set up the game, and my experience with it thus far.
With that, the first video we were treated to was simple. Creative designer Jeremiah Slaczka showed us a simple glimpse into what kind of fun you can have with this game. So the star is sitting on top of the tree, he types in something simple like "lumberjack." Instantly on screen a little lumberjack pops up and is grabbed by the stylus and placed on the ground near Maxwell. Next he typed in either axe or chainsaw, and explained how we shouldn't have to do it since we have a lumberjack here. He drags the item over the guy, he glows blue, and a second later is off hacking down the tree. Starite falls, Maxwell grabs it and all is well. I thought ok that was pretty cool, lets see what else you can do! What I saw next would make me laugh out loud at work, probably scaring the crap out of co-workers. In a sequence of events, Jeremiah spawns first the Cthulhu. This giant monster starts trouncing the level, taking aim at Maxwell ready to kill him dead. In quick response, Jeremiah spawns "God"...and he actually appears. I was like ok that is A.) fucking hilarious and B.) awesome. He proceeds to put God on a skateboard, give him a shotgun and send him into battle with the Cthulhu. Naturally he kills him. What does this have to do with getting the star? Well nothing, but it was hilarious. It really was just to show us what kind of depth this game could have.
Immediately my mind began racing. What can I make? What are they going to include? Can we make elaborate ways to get the stars down with tons of items in a Mouse Trap style contraption? He briefly explained that one person got the star down by spawning a Unicycle, board, ramp, hat and glue (glue is a cool item that I will get into later). He put the hat on, glue on the hat, glued the board to the hat, rode the unicycle up the ramp and head butted the star out the tree. Once again the endless possibilites that this game could offer danced in front of me so close, but so far out of reach thanks to a lengthy time between my first viewing and its release date.
The game would haunt me for a good while after that first taste. I kept seeing other videos, other commentaries on what people thought of the game. Was it too expansive? Was it to big for a single company to take on? Would the DS be able to harness the vastness of this game? Closer to its release it became more apparent that the guys at 5th Cell had a hit on their hands. The game won Overall Game of Show at E3, clearly showing up console games such as Mass Effect 2 and Uncharted 2. The stage was set to be huge. In both terms of its popularity and its data.
Thanks for reading folks!
-Nerdsbeware out
You should entitle part 2 "No, Poop Doesn't Work".
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