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If you've played the previous games in the franchise (only available on Nintendo DS), then you know (mostly) what this is about. If you haven't, here's the rundown:
Maxwell, the protagonist, has a magic notebook. Anything you type on the notebook becomes real. Consider this a pretty good representation of what being a Green Lantern would feel like. Want to make a zombie? Type "zombie" and one appears. Want to make a dinosaur? Type "dinosaur" and one will show up. Want to make a robot? Simply write "robot" and you'll be presented with one. Want to make a zombie robot dinosaur? Yes, if you type that, one will appear. They're not kidding when they say "Unlimited".
Well, more or less. For obvious reasons there are some things you can't make. You can't write profanity and such, so don't expect to be able to attack enemies with a giant phallus (this game is supposed to be able to be played by children). You can't make copyrighted characters or objects either, even though you can make generic ones. For instance, you can't make a Pepsi, but you can make a soda. This is a good thing, otherwise people would solve every puzzle in the game by simply summoning Batman every time.
Oh, yeah, there are puzzles. Even though just writing stuff to make it appear and maybe watch your different creations fight each other is a lot of fun, that's not the gist of the game. Your objective is to collect Starites (unlike previous games in the franchise, there's a clear reason here why you need them). Starites appear whenever a person, animal or even object becomes happy, How do you make them happy? By helping them solve their problems. How do you solve their problems? Pretty much ANY WAY YOU CAN IMAGINE. There's something new in this game that wasn't in the previous ones: not only you can create objects, you can modify existing ones by adding adjectives.
Let's say, for instance, you need to help a little boy reunite with his pet dog, who's on the other side of a bridge, which is guarded by a vicious tiger. How do you help him? You can, for instance:
- Summon a jetpack, fly over the tiger and get the dog.
- Make an invisibility cloak, slip unnoticed beneath the tiger, and get the dog. Turn the dog invisible and bring it back.
- Create a sleeping pill and feed the tiger with it. Then you can easily get the dog.
- Make a gun and shoot the tiger. Problem solved.
- Summon a dragon. Mount it and make it attack and kill the tiger. While the tiger can fight back, he won't be able to kill the dragon. Then you can bring the dog flying in your awesome dragon.
- Modify the tiger to make him small and coward and the dog to make him big and ferocious. The roles have been reversed.
- Etc, etc.
Besides the game's missions, there are "hidden" (as in, you can access the menu to look at them any time you want) objectives that bring you more Starite pieces. These can be done any time in the game, and include things like making an egg hatch a chick or creating a cat attached to a toast with butter. Remember the old joke that said toasts always fall on the butter side while cats always fall on their feet and what would happen if you tied those together? Well, do this here and it will create a paradox so powerful it will summon a black hole. Yes, the game has all kinds of humor, and it's a treat to look for all those details.
About the PC version, some people seem to be discontent with it, because they say the game doesn't work and because it requires Steam. I assume (but I firmly believe myself to be true in this respect) this is because these are console players, who know the franchise from previous iterations and they're not used to PC gaming, which means they don't have gaming PCs and they're not familiar with Steam. The game is not at fault in this respect. Not only it works great in relatively old PCs, but the fact that it's included in Steam's Workshop is a blessing. You can make content for the game and share it or download content made by other users, which helps the game's subtitle become even more accurate. This game is indeed Unlimited.
Also, the controls are very good for this type of game. Much better than they'd be on consoles, since this game's main gameplay feature is writing, and you don't have keyboards on consoles. You can combine mouse and keyboard and change the key binds at your leisure.
If you're not familiar with Steam, give it a chance. It's no different from, say the Nintendo eShop, and it's acually quite more convenient than that one. If you don't have a good PC and intend to play a PC game, you need to make some changes. Don't assume that because a game is in 2D is not going to have big requirements. Specially for a game of this ilk.
In any case, this is a fantastic game and everyone should play it. And with this kind of versatility, everyone can.
Customer reviews
4.3 out of 5
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