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f13.net  |  f13.net General Forums  |  Gaming  |  But is it Fun?  |  Topic: Scribblenauts - 5th Cell - DS 0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.
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Author Topic: Scribblenauts - 5th Cell - DS  (Read 12015 times)
Cyrrex
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on: September 16, 2009, 09:43:00 AM

I knew I would buy this game the first time I heard some press on it back during the last E3.  The premise of being able to write out the word for a particular object and have it appear in your game world as an aid to solve puzzles is the kind of thing that immediately captures my imagination.  So, does it live up to the hype?

Yes...but maybe not entirely.  There is no doubt that this is a clever, and in at least one regard ambitious, little game.  It works pretty much as advertised.  You are presented with a scenario where you do in fact have to think up of objects you want to bring into your world to help solve the puzzle or complete the action (there are two different modes that are Puzzle and Action, but they aren't so different as to be worth splitting hairs over).  For example, in an early level I am presented with a scenario where a boy is sleeping upstairs in a house.  A girl is downstairs.  My goal is to wake the boy, and feed the girl.  The general idea is to do this using as few objects as possible, but you will get Style points depending on some arbitrary system measuring your cleverness.  You may have a Par 3, which means the game expects you to do it with 3 objects or less.  You can certainly use more if you need to, but there is also a hard cap of how many items you can have active in your scenario at any point.  Anyway, my particular approach for waking the boy was to summon a rooster and place it next to him.  That didn't work, so I thought maybe the rooster needed a sun to do his cockadoodledoo.  I summon a sun, but I can only place it outside the house (duh) and it doesn't help at all.  Then in a brilliant flash of inspiration, I take my rooster downstairs where the hungry girl needs to be fed.  There is an oven in the scene already, so I turn that on.  I place the rooster in the oven and it instantly freaks and issues a cockadoodledoo, waking up the boy!  A second later I pop it out of the oven and the hungry girl chows down.  Moments like these, even though it wasn't a terribly creative solution in the grand scheme, are the brilliant side of Scribblenauts.

The less than brilliant side is that the baked rooster was not enough food to satisfy the girl and complete the puzzle.  I had to feed her a taco and slice of pizza before I dinged and completed the level.  In a nutshell, this is the scenario describes both the brilliance and stupidity of this game.  It really does allow you to bring in all kinds of crazy stuff to solve puzzles...but it doesn't always work as you expect it to.  If I bring in a ninja to chop down a tree (I know, pretty stupid), I don't want him to go off and attack the lumberjack.  When things like this happen, you're torn between thinking it hilarious, and frustrated that it doesn't do exactly what you want it to do.  I don't expect my ninja to actually cut down the tree, but I do expect him to try, gods dammit.

The dictionary of included words/objects so far appears to be pretty comprehensive, though there are limitations.  If you type "sword" or "samurai sword" you're still going to get the same basic object.  This is true of many things, and is probably a pretty reasonable limitation.  Occasionally you'll type a word and the resulting object will be something you cannot identify.  Summoning a "tranquilizer" for a dog I wanted to put to sleep made a strange looking can appear.  The dog then attacked me and I died.  The objects generally act realistically.  A gun will shoot.  You can throw a ball.  You can summon glue and use it to bond things together.  You can summon a grappling hook and use it to scale walls.  A jetpack or a trampoline will help you reach greater heights.  And so on.  Obvious things like real people's names, vulgarities and trademarked stuff cannot be used.  So you won't have Britney Spears eating dog shit and washing it down with a Pepsi.  Even so, you can see the potential for fun.

I have only managed a few hours, and some of the early levels are too easy to really be much fun.  I'm hoping they'll gradually get harder, forcing me to find more clever (and hopefully hilarious) solutions.  There is a lot of potential fun here, and if nothing else this is a pretty good way to blow an hour.  Ultimately, the game probably does not live up to the hype that I created in my own dumb head, but I think it was a safe purchase nonetheless.

If you've heard a few things about this game and were interested in the basic premise, Buy It.  You won't be blown away, but you'll probably enjoy it anyway.
« Last Edit: September 16, 2009, 09:44:54 AM by Cyrrex »

"...maybe if you cleaned the piss out of the sunny d bottles under your desks and returned em, you could upgrade you vid cards, fucken lusers.." - Grunk
schild
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Reply #1 on: September 16, 2009, 10:12:34 AM

I didn't see it in bold, but I'd like to point out that the controls are amazingly bad. Way too finicky and somehow way too imprecise.
Cyrrex
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Reply #2 on: September 16, 2009, 10:20:03 AM

Yeah, they are less than great.  It will frustrate, but not enough for me to not still recommend the game.

"...maybe if you cleaned the piss out of the sunny d bottles under your desks and returned em, you could upgrade you vid cards, fucken lusers.." - Grunk
Lantyssa
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Reply #3 on: September 16, 2009, 11:20:46 AM

Several old memes are included.  Longcat and such.

Hahahaha!  I'm really good at this!
MisterNoisy
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Reply #4 on: September 16, 2009, 10:00:48 PM

I'm enjoying this game quite a lot, janky controls and all - I've killed a fair amount of time just dorking around at the start screen.  Every now and then the game locks up my DS, which is a little off-putting.

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Morfiend
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wants a greif tittle


Reply #5 on: September 20, 2009, 10:41:07 PM

My friend told me you can summon C'thulu. Win.
Cyrrex
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Reply #6 on: September 21, 2009, 06:50:27 AM

Not surprisingly, my 7 year-old also thinks it is an absolute riot.  Any kid with a basic ability to spell is going to love this game.

"...maybe if you cleaned the piss out of the sunny d bottles under your desks and returned em, you could upgrade you vid cards, fucken lusers.." - Grunk
sidereal
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Reply #7 on: September 21, 2009, 11:45:19 AM

My kid has had his face stuffed in his DS playing this for like 3 days straight.

So I guess it's good.  I don't know.  I can't see through his head.

Also, apparently you can enter 'Sambo' FOR GREAT CONTROVERSY. 

THIS IS THE MOST I HAVE EVERY WANTED TO GET IN TO A BETA
ahoythematey
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Reply #8 on: September 21, 2009, 08:22:25 PM

When the game is in it's moments, I'm able to deal with the controls.  When the game isn't having one of those moments, the controls make me want to twist and break the DS until only debris remains, and then stick my dick into molten steel as a reminder to myself that not everything in life is as bad as that fucking horrid control scheme.
Khaldun
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Reply #9 on: September 30, 2009, 07:55:39 PM

The controls are really goddamn the shit because they often keep you from knowing whether you have a good solution or whether the game is simply not going to allow you to do it.

But.

On the other hand, when this game works, it is the fucking win in a way that almost no other recent game has been for me.

Like...the daughter and I were just getting started and we get the "catch the fly, clean up the park" puzzle. I discover that you can just actually catch the fly and clean all but the thing in the tree. She says, understandably, get something to climb in the tree or wings or something. I say, no, let's do something more exotic.

Attempt #1, summon God. Fine, but he doesn't actually do anything, just walks around. Ok, let's get rid of God, I says, so we summon Satan. God kills Satan. Fine, I say, let's kill God. I get a bazooka and shoot God. He doesn't die but he's not happy with me and kills me.

Attempt #2, write Apocalypse. Nuclear weapon appears. I activate, everything dies, *starite appears*. I can't claim it because I'm dead. Variation #2: bomb shelter then apocalypse. Bomb shelter falls through the ground after the explosion.

Attempt #3. Catch fly, clean up garbage, summon flamethrower. Burn tree, garbage falls to ground, burn garbage, burn rest of park, claim starite. FUCKING AWESOME. I just cleaned up a park by incinerating it.
SurfD
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Reply #10 on: October 01, 2009, 02:18:25 AM

Attempt #1, summon God. Fine, but he doesn't actually do anything, just walks around. Ok, let's get rid of God, I says, so we summon Satan. God kills Satan. Fine, I say, let's kill God. I get a bazooka and shoot God. He doesn't die but he's not happy with me and kills me. WESOME. I just cleaned up a park by incinerating it.
Should re do that scenario, but Summon Nietzsche instead of Satan, and see what happens.

Darwinism is the Gateway Science.
Valmorian
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Reply #11 on: October 01, 2009, 08:44:33 AM

Attempt #1, summon God. Fine, but he doesn't actually do anything, just walks around. Ok, let's get rid of God, I says, so we summon Satan. God kills Satan. Fine, I say, let's kill God. I get a bazooka and shoot God. He doesn't die but he's not happy with me and kills me. WESOME. I just cleaned up a park by incinerating it.
Should re do that scenario, but Summon Nietzsche instead of Satan, and see what happens.

Philosophers (and Atheists) just run away from God.
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