Drawn to Life

Given all the other things we've found ourselves doing with a stylus thanks to the DS - removing glass from a car crash victim's heart, tracing magical runes in the air, digging up dinosaur bones - it's a little bit amazing that we don't spend more time simply drawing with it. That's where this little side-scrolling action title comes in.

The premise of Drawn to Life is simple, but will offer huge appeal to some gamers: you can actually design, sketch, and paint several of the objects in the game, including the main character, his weapons, and many bits of the environment.

Thus, when it's time to start the game, the bottom screen gives you several empty boxes, into which you scribble/craft your main character's body, head, arms, and so on. There are plenty of templates from which to choose, ranging from a blue monkey to Santa Claus, so you could just draw frowny eyebrows on St. Nick and call it a day. Or, you could create your own character 100% from scratch, from a simple stick man to a detailed creation whose every individual pixel was chosen by your hand. We're serious - you can literally zoom in and edit one pixel at a time.

Eric Bratcher
I was the founding Executive Editor/Editor in Chief here at GR, charged with making sure we published great stories every day without burning down the building or getting sued. Which isn't nearly as easy as you might imagine. I don't work for GR any longer, but I still come here - why wouldn't I? It's awesome. I'm a fairly average person who has nursed an above average love of video games since I first played Pong just over 30 years ago. I entered the games journalism world as a freelancer and have since been on staff at the magazines Next Generation and PSM before coming over to GamesRadar. Outside of gaming, I also love music (especially classic metal and hard rock), my lovely wife, my pet pig Bacon, Japanese monster movies, and my dented, now dearly departed '89 Ranger pickup truck. I pray sincerely. I cheer for the Bears, Bulls, and White Sox. And behind Tyler Nagata, I am probably the GR staffer least likely to get arrested... again.