POSTED 1/12/12


SCRIBBLENAUTS UNLIMITED

WB Games
Wii U (also on PC, 3DS)

Alrighty. Silver hammer at the ready... Let’s go!

Yes, Maxwell’s back, and fans of The Beatles can do the obvious. If you’re unfamiliar with the rooster-hatted one’s CV, he has a remarkably funktacular notebook in which he can draw most anything and it springs to availability. This availability’s required to solve puzzles while tromping through the game’s plethora of worlds.

In this case, he and Lily, his only sister (although he has 41 brothers – holy dominant male gene, Batman), find a famished old bloke and, thinking it a cack, hand him a rotten apple. He justifiably cracks the shits majorly and starts turning little sis to stone. Bummer. So, Maxwell has to toddle off, make happy people and collect ‘starites’ to bring her back to non-stoniness.

Unlike past Maxwellian expeditions, this starite gathering allows an overarching map to offer randomly-enterable levels opened up upon it – a dreadfully-worded sentence, but you probably get what we mean. You may flit from hospital to haunted mansion, museum to underwater sewers, continually helping others like a super-creative Salvo. Fisherman devoid of fish? Create some – or challenge him with sharks. Insects proving painful? You could spray them, or just use that great adjective ‘gone’ and fuck them right off from existence. Choices abound, and it means fun and creativity. Some historical knowledge also helps, such as when facing Medusa...

That being typed, we were surprised at how many words weren’t recognised. There’s ‘yummy’, but no ‘yucky’ (although ‘icky’ works). Then there’s this needing no TV, despite being a console game. Yep, it may look stunning up there all HDtacularish, but you’ll spend your time hunched over, bathing in the GamePad’s glow. An alternate, big screen control method would have been giant peachy.

Scribblenauts Unlimited isn’t unlimited. Still, it’s so refreshing to play something that requires some braininess. Ooh, we haven’t tried ‘shoe phone’...

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