Pac-Man eats Mario’s mushrooms.

Pac-Man’s ghosts eat Mario’s clothes.

Mario moons Pac-Man after working the pole.

In Russian.

Enjoy!

At E3, Natal was the big hit of the show. But there was also some surprising technology going on over in the DS section. I’m talking about Scribblenauts, a new action puzzle game with a twist. When you reach an obstacle, you write a word on the DS screen, any word, and the thing you wrote manifests itself in the game world, as usuable in the game as it would be in real life. Check it out:

The guy said no copyrighted or vulgar words, but you can be sure that everyone will try to get it to draw a wang right off the bat. But once that novelty wears off, you will discover the thousands upon thousands of words that materialize, whether they have a purpose in your particular puzzle or not. With 220 levels, it will be interesting to see the creative YouTube videos that come out of solving puzzles in incredibly weird ways. In the video, the hero encountered two different dinosaurs. One, he fed a salad. The other, he hit with a crowbar. I want to hit it with “evolution” and make it turn into a man so it can be my sidekick. That would be super awesome.

A few game sites noticed Scribblenauts, but not nearly as many as it looks to deserve. If it works, (Big if? Maybe a medium if.) it will be the coolest game/thing to ever hit the DS. Its simplistic nature combined with an incredible amount of replay value will have many gamers hitting the dictionary in an attempt to stump it. It even has “plumbob.” Hope I can go Kiss-style and equip the guy with a guitar and huge amp and slay dinosaurs with the power of rock! I’m giddy already. Please do everything you promise, Scribblenauts!

On a whim, I fired up Braid today for the first time in many months. I had never been able to beat the game, and I am trying by bestest to never have to resort to YouTube to find solutions to the puzzles. Unfortuately, there was no save file left on my Xbox (weak) so I got to experience the whole game for the first time all over again.

Braid is beautiful.

It is a masterpiece of aesthetics, and music, and interesting, simple, clever gameplay. The story is told in snippets of books between levels, and the wording is such that it evokes an incredible emotional response in just a few lines of text. You connect with the hero, Tim, even though he doesn’t say a single word. The game is only a few hours long, but there are so many “A-ha!” moments when you solve a puzzle all by yourself after 30 minutes of struggling. You actually feel proud of yourself for outsmarting this simple, sophisticated game – no – this experience.

On my first playthrough, there were always a few puzzle pieces I could never seem to reach. This second time, I felt much more self-assured. I already understood the mechanics of the game; I just needed to master it, to complete it. This time, I got closer. I completed level 4 and earned a nice, shiny, new achievement. But there are still a few puzzle pieces left… I am still stumped. I can’t earn the beautiful Ico-esque ending I’ve read about in so many magazines, and heard about all over the Internet. I want so badly to know what happens myself, without reading spoilers, and without having to resort to finding solutions to the game on the Internet. Will this be another of life’s great mysteries? Or will my searching mind stumble upon a solution in my sleep? I hope the latter. Maybe I just need to take a break from it for a few months again… but I can’t. I’m hooked in its beautiful claws, and I don’t want to be free again until I learn the truth.