Not terribly long ago, I reviewed the original Scribblenauts here on the Neko Random blog, and that got me curious about the later games in the series. So I bought a $4 two-pack that includes Scribblenauts Unlimited, which I played and thoroughly enjoyed, and Scribblenauts Unmasked, which features characters from DC Comics such as Superman, Batman, Flash, Green Lantern, and Wonder Woman herself. I took a break and finally came back to the sequel, and boy, was I disappointed.

The game directly references Scribblenauts Unlimited, with Maxwell and Lily continuing their imagination adventures. The story is built around comic books and DC Comics, with both of them dreaming up scenarios starring the best of the Justice League. The potential here seemed as limitless as Superman when nerds hypothetically imagine him battling Goku.

Mechanically, this game plays very much like Scribblenauts Unlimited, though I did notice that the menu had changed colors. Other than that, there’s really no difference, aside from the fact that you can now conjure up almost anything from the DC Comics universe. Previously, almost all copyrighted content was off-limits, but Warner Bros. owned the studio that developed this game, so there’s no need to fret about getting sued because they can’t sue themselves.

One thing this game does well is throw DC heroes and villains at you constantly. Not even minutes into the game, you can spot Batman, the Joker, Lobo, Superman, and all kinds of DC references everywhere. Batman gets the spotlight at first, but you can quickly move on to different worlds, all based in DC Comics, of course. But Scribblenauts Unmasked: A DC Comics Story does one thing horribly wrong that I believe ruins the game. This time around, it forces you into a very narrow way of thinking when completing tasks and missions. It even punishes you for using the same solution over and over again, despite giving you some more open-ended choices. The whole concept of Scribblenauts was imagination and creativity, and this one takes a Batarang to the knee in that department.

I got maybe an hour into the game before finding it far more frustrating and boring to complete these tasks. I was hoping to at least land in the Amazonian jungle and meet the beautiful Wonder Woman, but alas, Maxwell never got to interact with her during my playthrough. Technically, I only paid $2 for this game, so I won’t consider it a huge loss. However, I’ve heard the next game was even worse and effectively ended the future of Scribblenauts entirely. That’s a shame, because the first two games were so brilliant, but it looks like corporate greed finally got the best of the series.