Ever since my first glimpse at Scribblenauts back at E3, the game has been at the forefront of my mind. Summoning almost anything you can think of to solve a puzzle or reach a Starite is pure genius. While the premise of the game is terrific and the core gameplay is great, some parts of the game just don’t live up the enormous amount of hype.

Scribblenauts is only as good as you make it. To solve each puzzle or reach each Starite in the Action levels, you write out the name of an object and it appears on screen for your use. You can summon wings and jet packs to reach higher levels, use almost any weapon you can think of, or summon dinosaurs just for the hell of it. The game’s main menu is a free-for-all where you can test out any item, which comes in handy as each level has a limit on the number of items you can use to get the best score. With tens of thousands of items in the game’s dictionary, it’s unlikely you’ll run out of things to use in Scribblenauts, even if a large number of those items are pretty useless.

The biggest problem with the game, one which will frustrate you, is the control scheme. You tap the DS screen for almost every action, be it using an item, moving around the screen, grabbing a Starite, etc. There will be plenty of times when you are trying to grab an item, but end up moving Maxwell, potentially falling off a cliff and dying. Going in with this knowledge helps, but it’s still a frustration when the developers could have worked out a better solution.

Aside from the control issues, Scribblenauts is an absolute blast. Coming up with inventive ways to solve each puzzle and collect each Starite will keep you coming back for more. There are hundreds of levels to complete in the game, making this is great value for $29.99. Every DS owner owes it to themselves to check out Scribblenauts.