Gadgets Blog

On September 15th, 2009, Nintendo and 5th Cell released their newest partnership product, Scribblenauts, described as an “emergent puzzle action video game”. In Scribblenauts, you play as Avatar Maxwell (but can customize your avatar if you wish; I personally find his rooster hat pretty cute, yet inexplicable) and you must solve puzzles by calling upon whatever solution (object-driven) you can think of.

Need to climb a wall? Type “helicopter” into the query box and you don’t need to waste the sweat. Need to break a child’s pinata at a birthday party? You can always use the pistol, but you’ll lose points for using a violent method to solve your puzzle. Imagination is key, of course, but often it is the simplest solutions which do the best (the helicopter can be a bit unwieldy at times, for example, so I often call upon the “ladder” instead, but feel horribly boring and dull).

Scribblenaut’s has had a very successful first month of sale. Despite common belief, Scribblenauts is not as children friendly as you might think: if you think “pistol” as a solution for a puzzle was edgy, there is also the options of Jesus, God, and a Hadron Collidor. Try explaining any of those solutions to a 6-10 year old.

Buy Scribblenauts today, available for the Nintendo DS and DSi.

The new Nintendo gaming system, Nintendo DSi, is only a few hopeful months away from being the perfect portable blogging and twittering device. With two cameras, a built-in Internet connection, music storage, sound recording capabilities and gaming system and graphics on top of that, the system already makes for some pretty creative and ingenious gameplay. In the past two weeks I’ve played the games…

…Professor Layton and the Curious Village a mystery game that involves over 150 puzzles to complete the story, and Rhythm Heaven, a series of mini- music playing challenges.

I’m not that big into RPGs, fighting games, or dark plots. I grew up nurturing Pokemon to adulthood and spent more time tending Zelda’s gardens than actually solving the game. I was a game evader, so to speak, but after a decade of higher education and some serious gaming breakthroughs, I’m happy to say that the DSi’s offered games and technologies, among other things, are perfectly at my speed and actually fulfill needs of a college student. Do I need to check my e-mail incessantly? Yeah, actually, and the DSi can fulfill this role PLUS let me directly upload pictures I take on the DSi to facebook (a new, free update posted by Nintendo last night. Updates come frequently and are advertised directly on the DSi, not in an annoying way, but in a nice, conscientious kind of way).

So, here’s my suggestion: If you’re 16+, planning on going to college, have your own website or blog, or are already in college and want to invest in a gaming system but are a little guilty about spending money on something that’s purely for entertainment, consider buying a Nintendo DSi. It fulfills so many more roles than just a gaming system, the games are extremely intelligent (Professor Layton’s puzzles, for example, engage the same reasoning skills as the LSAT!) and the updates are just going to make the product sweeter and sweeter.

Find at Smarter.com:  Shop for an affordable Nintendo DSi and accessories.