For the uninitiated, the core concept behind Scribblenauts is, quite literally, nearly infinte. The game is comprised of 220 puzzles that are solved by your creativity, as solutions are created by placing useful objects into the game's environment. Type a concrete noun into the in-game text box, and that object will appear in the world. For the most part, you'll be able to produce just about anything you can imagine. Cool, huh?

Well as it turns out, that selling point isn't entirely accurate. Although the game recognizes well over 20,000 words, not all of them produce entirely unique objects. Although initial impressions seem to validate this concept, you'll eventually start to recognize patterns. Instead of storing an insane number of objects and their individual properties, Scribblenauts reuses a lot of assets. Type in "moon boots" and "spring shoes" and you'll end up with identical pieces of footwear.

But, it's important to note that these redundancies are not, by any means, a deal breaker. After all, the goal of the game is not to scour the depths of the dictionary in search of lapses in content. Rather, the objective is creative problem solving. It doesn't really matter if you'll receive identical items with different text inputs as long as you understand how to use the properties of those items to your advantage.

Because Scribblenauts provides an extremely open-ended venue for ingenuity, the game's puzzles tend to be relatively generalized. The 220 levels are divided evenly into two categories, and each group requires a different approach. While the ultimate goal in each arena is getting your hands on a Starite, the methods of achieving that goal contrast strongly with one another.

On one hand are the action levels, in which you're presented with an environment containing Maxwell, the game's main character, on one end and the Starite on the other. Your job is simply to get Maxwell to the Starite while avoiding any obstacles that stand in your path. This concept certainly sounds simple enough, and the early puzzles in the game reflect that elementary appearance. But as you progress, you're sure to find plenty of stages that frustrate you beyond belief and require plenty of trial and error before you finally arrive at a solution.

On the other end of the spectrum are the puzzle levels. Rather than presenting the player with a straightforward environment, these stages introduce a scenario that must be solved in order for the Starite to appear in the world. For example, a puzzle level may contain a lamp inside a dark room, and Maxwell must find a way to illuminate the light bulb for the Starite to appear. A solution to this level could be as simple as plugging the lamp into a wall socket and flipping the switch, causing the Starite to show its pretty little face. Just as with the action levels, the early puzzle stages require very little brainpower to produce a solution. However, as you progress the difficulty ramps up here, as well.

Remember how I said Scribblenauts is all about creativity? Well even though you'll encounter a relatively wide variety of challenges throughout the game, you'll also run across very similar obstacles along the way. Whether you're trying to get on top of a house or on top of a cliff, the endeavor remains the same. And because of this, you'll often find yourself utilizing the same four or five objects to tackle these tasks. After all, why test out a hypothesis involving a pogo stick and a trampoline when you already know that a ladder will do just fine? Even if you go into this game intent on remaining creative and original, you'll find yourself repeating the same tried and true tactics before you know it. It's a shame, really, because so much enjoyment can be had with Scribblenauts from simply staring at the screen and wondering what crazy solution you can concoct.

Of course, the folks over at 5^th Cell, the developers behind Scribblenauts, can't actually force players to be creative, right? Well as it turns out, they've mastered the fine art of Jedi mind tricks, so they can pretty much make you do whatever they want. What's that? Jedi mind tricks aren't actually real, you say? Then it's a good thing Advanced Mode was put into the game. After you beat a level for the first time, you can go back and play it again in its creativity-enforcing iteration. Here, in order to successfully complete the stage, you must reach a solution three separate times using different objects each time. While there are certainly ways to cheat the system (i.e. moon boots vs. spring shoes), Advanced Mode forces you to come up with solutions that don't necessarily utilize your favorite go-to objects.

The overall construction of Scribblenauts certainly creates an exceedingly enjoyable experience. But, it's not all ice cream and lollipops in Maxwell's world, as the game definitely has its fair share of problems. The most glaring issue, which you'll surely encounter within the first few stages, lies with the control of the main character. Rather than using the directional pad and the face buttons to move Maxwell around the environment, he's controlled via the stylus. Tap the location where you want him to stand, and he does his best to oblige. On level ground, this functions well enough. But attempt to move him over uneven terrain and Maxwell will jump about like a 6-year-old in a moon bounce.

Granted, there are certainly ways to minimize this nuisance. In the puzzle levels, it's fairly easy to create a solution that doesn't involve much movement on Maxwell's part. But in the action levels, in which he must make his way to the Starite, there are plenty of instances that require accurate control of the character. And sadly, the stylus just doesn't cut it. I can't even begin to count the number of times I had to switch off my DS because I couldn't get Maxwell to climb a ladder properly.

An additional source of frustration comes from the way certain objects interact with one another. There will be numerous occasions in which you'll create a genius solution to a given stage, only to have that solution fail miserably because something didn't go as you had planned. Seriously, since when are beekeepers afraid of bees? If you give a mechanic a wrench, shouldn't he try to fix something? Sure, the developers had to draw the line somewhere. With so many words in the game's lexicon and each object requiring its own set of properties, some things had to be left out. But that doesn't lessen the annoyance of seeing an interaction fail catastrophically when it seems so logical.

Overall, the biggest issue with Scribblenauts is that, when things go awry, it's often unclear who to blame for the excessive failure. Puzzle games are often all about a guess-and-test mentality. To be certain, you're going to fail plenty in these games. But by learning from your mistakes, you gradually earn an understanding of what it takes to solve any given predicament. But in Scribblenauts, there's often no learning involved. You'll often encounter circumstances in which something goes wrong in the middle of your Rube Goldberg-esque creation that would have otherwise solved the level. But instead of observing the situation and figuring out how to improve your solution, it will be plainly clear that the fault is not yours. Rather, the game didn't allow your setup to go off exactly as planned, and you just have to try the same approach over and over again until it miraculously functions as you had intended. We've all rolled our eyes at gamers who blame their failures on the games they play. But in this case, failure is often the result of unpredictable physics, lackluster controls, and seemingly empty object interactions. At times, it really just feels like the game is out to get you, and there's nothing you can do about it.

There I go with the gloom-and-doom approach again. Without a doubt, there is plenty to dislike about this game. But Scribblenauts is a game with such an amazing driving force behind it. Anything you can imagine, you can create. And to that end, the title comes pretty darn close to realizing this promise. It has the ability to foster unbelievable creativity over the course of 220 imaginative - and sometimes disheartening - puzzle and action levels. Yes, it has its fair share of faults, and they can easily make the game a big no-no for certain gamers. But if you're willing to approach Scribblenauts with a leisurely mindset and commit yourself to being inventive, there's no limit to the amount of fun that can be had. Granted, it's difficult to defend a game that requires an altered attitude, but the potential payoff for those with the right mentality is tremendous, and certainly well worth the effort.