When 5th Cell released the Scribblenauts, it was an almost revolutionary moment in DS game development. Imagine solving puzzles using just that - your imagination. The concept alone was a step ahead of most casual puzzle games on the market. In Scribblenauts, gamers were given a scenario and had to come up with an item to solve that scenario. Typically, puzzle games would restrict gamers to using objects already on screen or objects in your tool kit. Scribblenauts made your brain the toolkit. Whatever object you typed into your digital notepad would magically appear onscreen. Super Scribblenauts from WB Games brings home a more robust scribbling game filled with adjectives and better controls. Those wild developers at 5th Cell have officially penned themselves another winner using their imagination.

Super Scribblenauts features Maxwell, a plucky little space explorer who travels the universe with his trusty pencil in search of Starites. He's the cool version of Spongebob. When you first power on the game, before jumping into the main menu, you will be able to enter a free draw mode. Here you can match wits with the game's dictionary and see if its vocabulary is up to par. The free play mode features nine different playgrounds that you can draw in. As you become familiar with the game, you will also want to try out creating your own custom playgrounds.

The single-player mode is much like the original Scribblenauts: there's no real story just several fun puzzles to solve. At the end of each level, you will be given a Starite. Once you collect all the Starites in a constellation pattern, the game will reveal the hidden image for that constellation. The game employs a three-tier hint system for every puzzle. The first hint sets up the puzzle, while the second and third hints must be purchased. If you wait long enough, the hints will eventually be free of charge, but you will lose out on added time bonuses. In addition to the standard levels there are also special bonus boards that have more action involved and even some light platforming.

The big addition in Super Scribblenauts is the use of adjectives. There are several puzzles that will require an additional level of creativity to solve. For instance, instead of just using a ladder, you may have to use a giant ladder or a blue ladder. As the game progresses, coming up with what adjective becomes easier to figure out. However, there are a few tricky puzzles that involve ore difficult adjectives than simply varied color or size. The best puzzles are the multi-tiered puzzles. In these situations, you won't simply have to solve for one puzzle, but instead solve one puzzle that rolls into another puzzle. For instance, you may have to help an archaelogist find an area to excavate. Then, naturally, you will actually have to help him excavate that area and assemble the pieces of the find.

This game really encourages you to think creatively and one of the joys in playing is replaying past levels. You'll always want to test the limits of the dictionary and see what other solutions you can come up with to solve the same problem. There's also a robust Merit system that works like a standard achievement system. It encourages you to create new objects as well as combine objects to make new and exciting scribble creations. As a bi-product, it also gives you some direction in solving the puzzles. Since you can scan the Merits at any time, you'll be surprised at how much this can help your mind to think of new ways to solve puzzles.

There are moments when the puzzles appear contrived, forcing you to answer with a certain adjective or object. This happens a lot in the "fill in the box" puzzles where you have to come up with similarities between two or more objects. At the same time other puzzles have a lot more freedom and variations in the way they can be solved. One joy is just going back through solved puzzles and coming up with other methods of solving them.

Super Scribblenauts is an excellent puzzle game that will delight gamers of all ages. Incorporating adjectives does wonders to boost the creative bounds of your imagination. Oh, by the way, the record scratching sound when you open and close your DS is absolutely worth revving your sound up to the max.

Final Grade: A-