Scribblenauts Review

I was very excited for this game when it was released. The concept of this game is "Imagination is the Answer". Write down an object of any kind and it will appear in the game.



Story-N/A
Well, if you consider collecting Starites the story then... thats the story. You play as Maxwell equiped with the best weapon of all time, a notebook. This notebook creates objects from words Maxwell writes in there. There's nothing for the story.



Gameplay-8/10
Remember when you were against a dragon, and all you had was a sword. Well what other weapons would you choose? What other creatures would you create to fight the dragon? These questions are up to you and your imagination. Scribblenauts is broken into 2 parts: Action and Puzzle. The Puzzle part requires for you to think of objects that best fits the situation. For example, there is a whale stuck on land that needs to be back in the sea. You can create a bulldozer and push the whale back into the sea. Or, you can create a helicopter with a rope attached to it and carry the whale into the sea. The options are endless. After you complete the required objective, the starite appears for your taking. The Action part requires Maxwell to go and retrieve the starite. For example, the starite is under the sea and Maxwell is on an island. You can make a submarine and ride in it to get the Starite. Or, you can make a Loch Ness Monster and ride on the monster to get the starite. Besides the Action and Puzzles, there is a sandbox level before you enter the menu screen. This sandbox level allows you to make anything you want. You can make a showdown of a knight fighting a Yeti, or ride a dragon while fighting three giants.

What lowers the score for the gameplay is the controls. You can only move Maxwell with the stylus. If you tried to select an object and miss-tapped the screen, it can send Maxwell off a cliff or into lava. The camera is a bug problem too. If you wanted to make two creatures fight, Maxwell must be away from the fight to not disturpt it. Because Maxwell is away, and the camera is focused on the fight, if there is no activity from Maxwell or the camera movement, the camera will move itself from the fight and back to Maxwell. These flaws angered a lot of fans, but the developers were nice enough to change the flaws for the next game.



Presentation-7/10
With over a thousand words, your would think that every word would have a different sprite, right? Wrong. There are many words that have the same sprites, which lowers the score. However, the sprites were well drawn out and designed. Every "living" sprite had a reaction to other sprites. If you made a robber and a cop, the cop would chase the robber, or if you made a bee and a flower, the bee would fly around the flower.



The Good:
-Very innovative
-The use of imagination to solve puzzles
-The sandbox level to try out objects

The Bad:
-The controls and the camera flawed the game
-The use of same sprites with different words

Total Score: 8/10