Game of Show: Scribblenauts

This may look silly, but Scribblenauts is seriously impressive. Pretty much any non-vulgar word you can think of is fair game as a puzzle-solving tool in this Nintendo DS title. Need to get underwater? Type the word “submarine” and — after answering whether you wanted the vehicle or the food — put your character inside and send him off. Fending off zombies? Spell out “brains” to create a mushy distraction or ask for some kind of weapon, such as a machete, for hacking away. Creative Director Jeremiah Slaczka of 5thCell said his team basically programmed the contents of a dictionary to make almost anything possible. I did not want to cede the DS to the next person in line.