Scribblenauts Review

I’m not dead, and neither is the blog, though I have to go through hoops to log in lately. Why not kick off my (hopefully longer-lived) return to posting with a review of an almost unfathomably overhyped and crappy game?

Yeah, you heard me.

Plot Synopsis: Uhhhhh… hmmmm… wait, no, I got this… oh, wait, no. No plot whatsoever. Even arcade games had some semblance of a plot ever since we got more advanced than Pac-Man, but not this game.  No, why put so much effort into an excuse plot when you can be spending that time coding Longcat’s evil counterpart?

Pictured: A god damned waste of time.

I can give the premise, though, which is that you’re some kid with a hat resembling a rooster’s comb and a magic notebook, trying to collect these things called “starites” which are, I assume, in high demand by your home country for use in creating cloaking devices and sonic generators which frustrate your enemy into submission.  That’s, uh, pretty much it.  Usually you’re doing something nice to other people in the process, but it’s way more fun to be a dick.  More on that later.

Gameplay Score: 3/20

There are so many frigging problems with the gameplay that I’ll barely be able to scratch the surface, so I’ve decided to divide it into categories, and subdivide those.

• The Control Sucks

Movement is controlled by the stylus.  This makes picking up or using certain objects a monumental hassle.

• The Dictionary Sucks

The dictionary has over 22,000 words, but this actually is a lot less than you’d think, mainly because of how many damned synonyms there are. Go ahead, type in “DEVIL.”  Then try “INCUBUS”, “DEMON,” and the like.  That’s at least three words for the same thing, so now you know how they fit ‘em all in there.

The mechanics are also weird: regardless of the qualifiers, the game will more often than not only pay attention to the last block of text, unless it knows exactly what you want.  Thus, “SHRINK RAY” shrinks things; “GROWTH RAY” creates a god damned manta.  Bafflingly, “GOLEM” means the same as “ROBOT”– which SORTA makes sense, since they’re basically the same, but I would rather have a shambling mass of mud and rocks thank you very much– but “AUTOMATON” gets you some kind of doll thing.  Maybe it’s a voodoo doll?  Nope, that summons a different– but equally useless, object altogether.

Finally, about one-third of the objects are either totally useless or background scenery.  Why, of COURSE I wanted “BARRICADE” to make scenery that serves no purpose other than to get me a worse score!  God forbid any chance of my accidentally using it as, say, a god damned barricade!

• The Levels Suck

There are two kinds of levels in Scribblenauts: “Puzzle” levels, and “Action” levels, which are code for “Crappy” levels and “Crappier and Especially Frustrating” levels.  In theory, they follow a formula: in a Puzzle level you must fulfill a demand, which in turn produces the starite; in an Action level, you simply have to reach the starite.  However, the game quickly decides to abandon any semblance of order this provides by essentially cheating:  In one “puzzle” level, you have to lead a soldier to three heavily guarded crates; in one “action” level you have to think of a way to get a starite out of a tree.  How actiony.

Pictured: Another god damned waste of time. Also: OH MY GOD HOW AM I GONNA KNOCK THAT TREE DOWN MY ADRENALINE IS GOING NUTS

It’s been said that you can beat almost every level with just PTERANODON, ROPE and a weapon of your choice.  This is pretty much true, and often required.  Though the game hypothetically rewards ingenuity with extra points/currency, you don’t get very far before basically being forced to use the same object over and over again.  If you’re like me, you simply quit the level, and inevitably the game, in annoyance.

The only level I really enjoyed was the Halloween one, for one reason: You can win it with violence, which is arbitrarily limited on nearly every other level.  I beat it by spawning “CANNIBAL,” “CTHULHU,” and “(EVIL) MAXWELL” which were individually far more entertaining than all the other levels put together.

• The Level Editor Sucks

As much as I hate the levels, the level editor manages to be even worse.  Why?  Well, for one, you have an object limit just like the main game, so abandon all hope of creating any level even approaching the complexity of a game-packaged one. Screw scenery and large objects, you’ll just have to make do, Mr. Arty-Artist Greedenstein the Third. Furthermore, you have to use beaten levels as templates, so you better have patience if you want to actually make something good and long.

Oh, and you can’t script an opening cutscene, and I’m fairly sure that you can only do action levels.

INCREDIBLY ADVANCED MODDING TOOLS INCLUDED!

 

• The Reactions Suck

My biggest gripe with this game is that the objects don’t react how you’d expect them to.  One of the levels is a museum, where you have to snatch the starite without harming the guards. You’re basically forced to go up and around, since there’s a security camera which creates a barrier if you pass it.  What’s that?  You might try becoming invisible, or using an EMP device?  Hahaha, no way, asshole.  The developers decided it was Twoflower’s Magical +2 Camera of Railroading.

At another point you see a werewolf.  We all know that werewolves are generally unkillable by conventional means, right?  So naturally, you try dropping a lump of silver, its well-known weakness, on it.  Nothing happens.  You throw the silver at it.  Nope.  You try a sprig of wolfsbane, but when attempting to throw it the ass-backwards control makes you run straight into the werewolf, who massacres you.  Why have WOLFSBANE in the dictionary if it isn’t the frigging bane of wolves?!

The only ray of hope is that GORGON and COCKATRICE/BASILISK(CREATURE) can petrify you, which implies that if the designers spent a little less time with the in-jokes they might have made a half-decent game.

Tolerability Score: 2/10

The difficulty in the later levels stems merely from the assumption that you still have hope: you can get past almost all of them incredibly easily if you just give in to the rope.  Using rope, incidentally, gives you the “Roped In” merit– appropriately named, since the game is coercing you to give up and spawn it in every other puzzle.  God, though, the levels are annoying.  I’ve already mostly touched on why, but I’ll add one thing: nearly every level has the caveat that you can’t kill anyone.  The only level I really enjoyed was therefore the Halloween level, because anything that hurts the kids gets you the starite on the basis of a “trick,” meaning you can use a good half of your dictionary that is normally off-limits.

Plot Score: 0/10

God, guys.  Even retro throwback games have a semblance of a plot, mainly because nearly all games in the Atari 2600 era and beyond did too.  You didn’t even try.

Music Score: 1/5

Bland, generic, repetitive, and tinny.  It’s fairly varied between areas, but that doesn’t mitigate the crappiness much.

Graphics Score: 4/5

The graphics are the only part of the game I like: they’re charming and cute, and yet can capture a being of pure malevolence and anger quite well.

Scribblenauts' Cthulhu: Frightening and adorable at the same time.

Overall Score: 10/50

This game was incredibly terrible, but I will say one thing about it: I plan to buy any sequel.  This is for one reason: sequels have to have change, and with no plot, terrible music, and a dictionary that makes no sense half the time, the only way to go is up.  I think the main reason it didn’t work was because it was too high-concept.  Look at Spore: That took over a decade, and even then it was still slightly disappointing, so unless these guys had been working on this thing since 2000, they simply couldn’t perfect it.  Hopefully 5th Cell’s future efforts will be better.