IGN's Random Thoughts, round 4

Alright, the 4th edition of IGN's Random Thoughts on Scribblenauts is up, so go check it out. Thankfully we got videos again this week. This time they decided to just mess around with the "x vs. y" template, facing off some animals against each other for our entertainment.

Let's check them out.

Scribblenauts at IGN.com

Here we see the IGN previewer showing his great hatred towards marsupials. The T-Rex, of course, eats them all. We also see that both kangaroo and wallaby both spawn the same thing. You know who is really angry at that revelation?



Better watch out, 5TH Cell!

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Alright, so here we see Disney's "Jungle Book" gone horribly wrong. All the animals very much hate each other and the fight is over pretty soon with the tiger making it on top. Maxwell then sheds the cloak and ends up running for his life. I liked how distinct the tiger and panther were, and how well the "brawl" ended up going down.

Scribblenauts at IGN.com

Next up we see three people getting their just desserts. A lawyer, a celebrity, and a...clown? Well, regardless, these three are fed to a hungry group of wild animals. The celebrity makes a mad dash for it and keeps on running long after the carnage is over. Everyone else? Well, not so lucky. Only the bear remains standing.

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Well then, these battles just don't seem fair now do they? This raptor just sits around and gets free seafood...that is, until a blob comes in and eats him alive. Eesh. Also, notice that "shark tank" brings up a tank, though it seems to be a different color than I remember. Hmm.

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Alright, last level, and this one is definitely a Pokemon battle if I've ever seen one.

Rhydon faces off against Dragonair and totally wrecks him. Dragonair then evolves into Dragonite...and gets his ass kicked again! Rhinos are pretty tough. To be fair, though, the dragon was simply trying to eat leftover komodo dragon...who could blame him?


Anyways, the article concludes with the following paragraph, which I found pretty funny.

This experience has been enlightening, and I played around with it a lot more and discovered a few other things. T-rexes fall asleep after eating bunnies. That same dragon that got killed by a rhino was able to defeat god. And your character can outrun a cheetah somehow.

IGN: Random thoughts on Scribblenauts ...volume 1?

IGN finally put their impressions up, and decided to do something a bit different. Instead of being like Gamespot and simply updating their impressions, they went the more non-traditional route and discussed in great detail their experiences and solutions to two different levels.

Thankfully they included videos of everything! You can find the article here, and I'll go over the two videos in my post, commenting on each solution they attempted. Indeed, I'll also take a different route here, and instead rate their solutions instead of simply discussing them.

Bazooka: I'm not sure why they thought this would work, but it was hilarious, and we got to see the power of the bazooka...which took out the cat, house, and a nearby tree. 4/10

Squirtgun: A really great and amazing idea that didn't seem to work. Cats hate water, right? This one either didn't mind it...or the angle of the shot meant he wasn't actually being hit by it. Hmm. I'm hoping for the latter, as out of all the complex and interesting interactions and reactions of objects...cats hating water is pretty simple. Even though it didn't work, it was a great idea. 8/10.

Pyro: Holy shit I couldn't stop laughing. Yes, ok, this is a GREAT way to solve the level. I'm damn impressed the cat KNEW the house was in trouble and jumped off almost immediately. You'll also notice the house didn't just get destroyed right off...it burned long enough for Maxwell to enjoy the blaze. Very creative, very hilarious, and you're lucky the pyro didn't kill everyone by burning them alive. It was entertaining! 10/10

Escalator: Pretty decent idea here. Better than simply "stairs" or "ladder", though not much more creative beyond that. I do like how Maxwell didn't have to do any work in climbing. I also laughed at how it's constantly going up, so Maxwell ended up having to jump off of it. Not bad. 8/10

Mouse: A very traditional solution, but an average one at best in terms of creativity. We all know cats love mice. Still, he gets a bumps in score because the cat ran off the house on her own without any interaction from Maxwell. That's pretty cool. 7/10

Baseball: Yawn. Yeah, it worked, but you had to throw it a couple of times and EVERYONE will try that one out. 2/10

Battleship: ...holy shit. I...I...what? I'm blown away by this idea. The previewer was quite creative here, as the level said "No weapons"...but the battleship is a vehicle, not a weapon. It just so happens to have a cannon on it which destroys the bottles, the stand, and itself, in one big explosion. But hey, he got the starite! 11/10

Kangaroo: Alright, I didn't think the above could be topped. But...it was. This is the single most fucking hilarious thing I've seen in a Scribblenauts video. Hands down. He attaches lettuce to a fishing rod, then the rod to the head of the kangaroo...the resulting "carrot on a stick" chase causes the 'roo to plow down the bottles. Incredible. Amazing. It took some REAL creativity to pull that off. 20/10

Phew, alright, now I'll take off my judging hat. Best part about all of this is that they plan on doing this all over again every Friday right up until the release of the game. Now this is a pretty good way to spoil the game for yourself, so if you're looking to avoid that then definitely stay away.

But for everyone else this serves as a GREAT way to show off the power of Scribblenauts. We see boring solutions, solutions that definitely don't work, and creative solutions, and hilariously entertaining and incredibly awesome solutions.

That IS the definition of Scribblenauts. Glad to see IGN understands, and I look forward to next Friday and hopefully two new videos!