THE GOOD:- So Much Choice and Creativity
- A Staggering online community
- Newer and better levels
- The music is widely varied and enjoyable
- Neat little touches like the face emotions
THE BAD:
- Creating a decent level can take ages
- After seeing the amazing story and online levels, it feels hard to create your own at first
SUMMARY:
Little Big Planet demands patience, creativity, a decent grasp of physics and the steady hand of a brain surgeon. But the results can be stunning. Absolutely stunning.
For proof look no further then the games story mode. It's an incredible feat of design that looks, sounds and plays like a dream. At heart its a complex 2D platformer with an emphasis on physics dressed in next gen finery, but the sense of gob-smacking wonder a mere 5 minutes play time will produce is staggering.
Here is a handmade world of weird and wobbly invention, stuffed to the brim with bizarre and, collectible doodads and clever platforming challenges. Even the ordinary is extraordinary with familiar platform cliches like mine carts, lava rivers and collapsing platforms managed with such flair they feel entirely new.
And then sackboy loaded up Create mode and collapsed in a heap. However could you reproduce the wonders we've just witnessed? I fiddled about for a bit and felt angry and disheartened. I started to disbelieve that Story mode was created using the level editor at all. So I gave up and played through again, and started to notice little telltale signs that for every event, big or small, there's a switch or mechanism visible. That's when Little Big Planet comes into it's own genius; all of its workings are on show for those who care to look. Its happy to share its secrets, and encourages you to do better.
Feeling confident again, I reloaded create mode and began working through the tutorials. Even these are astounding. Voiced by Stephen Fry they are some of the funniest, imaginative in-game tutorials ever to grace a console. They make the whole learning process fun and enjoyable. Even for the more hardcore gamers who usually loathe tutorials.
Now, the only limit to what you can create is your imagination. You can select from a staggering range of materials, and select a shape that you like. You can then begin to add even more shapes, sticking them together from string to motor bolts. If things aren't going as you planned, open the 'Pop-it' cursor and tweak them until they do. There are also a staggering amount of switches to choose from. Take for instance the little house me and a friend created. First we built a door, attached with a winch and hooked it up to a two-way switch. No, too simple. So we also hooked the switch to some explosives. Entertaining, yes, but still not enough. Then we decided to swap the switch to a sensor, and added a few sounds as well. Then, when our little sackboy's got close to the door, bombs went off, the crowd cheered, and we could continue on our journey.
Seriously, every night I've gone to bed dreaming up new contraptions, constructions and creatures to create. And every morning I've booted up the PS3 and tried them out. There is truly tremendous scope to this game, and I haven't even scratched the surface of it.
It's not flawless. At times the create mode mode feels so intricate its overwhelming. It can also be very fiddly. The game is 2D but there are several planes in which you can place objects. Learning to master these layers is the key to success, but making mistakes is a big part of the learning process. Get ready to mess up, get frustrated, scrap things and start again. It's frustrating at first but later you'll understand what works and doesn't (Its all to do with physics) and it will become easier to make things work as intended.
Even if you don't like the whole creative side of things, and prefer to go in and kick some levels ass, don't worry. Should you choose, you can sit back with your feet up and wait for new levels to appear online. After all, one of the best things about this game is that will spawn a vibrant online community, itching to share their latest masterwork with fellow sackboys and sackgirls.
With such a massive emphasis on user-generated content, we have to hope that what the public create will be up to scratch. But judging by some of the levels I've seen already, such as levels re-creating Shadow of the Colossus and even Tetris, I know there will always be some talented creators creating truly outstanding levels. Now get out there and play something or make something absolutely stunning.
forums
