Little Big Planet Review

Platform: PlayStation 3
ESRB: E for everyone
Genre: Platforming
Number of players: 1-4
Publisher: SCEE (Sony Computer Entertainment Europe)
Release Date: October 28th 2008
[url=http://littlebigplanet.us.playstation.com/]Official Website[/url]
Writer: KagoMegan

Rating: 9.3
Buy

LittleAwesomePlanet

After hearing about this game for months and missing out on the beta test, I was very excited to pick it up and test it out. Despite a delay in the release due to the lines from the Qu’ran which are sung in one of the game’s amazing music tracks, a few stores broke street date and sold the copies that they had in their possession. I rushed out to pick it up anyway because there was no way I was going to be forced to wait any longer to play this game (not that I condone stores breaking street dates in any way). My heart sank as I popped in LittleBigPlanet and the first thing that happened was an automatic install, but it wasn’t more than a minute or so which is much less than any PS3 game I have played so far. The first time started up the disk, I missed the incredibly interesting opening sequence. If you do miss it, make sure you go back to watch it at least once. It is so worth it. It’s a brilliant and unique opening to an amazing experience.

Graphics:
The graphics are refreshing to a gamer’s soul. The level of detail and creativity that is applied to each and every aspect of the stages is amazing. Not so much in the traditional sense where everything is as real looking as possible, but more in an abstract sense. There is a high level of detailed texture on absolutely everything. Every texture and decoration in the stage can be unlocked in sticker form and be applied to your Sackperson’s physique. This leads to a nearly limitless character customization potential. Understandably however, there is a limit on the number of stickers that can be applied to your person at one time. Not to worry though, you can always wash yourself clean in the “Poppit” menu and start anew. You are able to take the stickers from around the stage, grow or shrink them if you wish and apply them to another part of the stage if you like. You can even use the unlimited supply found in your inventory. You can also unlock many parts and materials to use in the stage-builder mode through the developer challenges (story mode) or by taking on some of the tutorials found in the stage-builder. There is not a single thing that is used in the story mode that they excluded from the stage-building mode. Anything and everything you see in the developer challenges can be utilized for stage creation, which makes for an incredible amount of possibilities for the game, within the complexity restraints of course.

Sound:
The narrator in your Sackboy’s adventure will be a nice, sassy British gentleman (also known as popular British actor, Stephen Fry). His voice is soothing on the ears and he has some incredibly amusing things to say throughout the course of the game. All of the songs in the game are amazingly fitting of the stages and situations. Each set of stages has a sort of theme and some songs to match. When they update the game, I’m hoping they don’t completely remove the song responsible for the delay as it is actually quite good. There are numerous strange sounds that the “creator curators” (the story mode’s “level designers” and sort of overseers of each world) will spout. One of the overseers of the timed races sounds like a babbling baby, which will seem kind of strangely placed. It’s weird, but interesting. Every time you collect a little, purple, smoke-filled bubble, you get a certain amount of points in the game. If you collect enough at one time, you will obtain a multiplier for the set of bubbles you pop in succession. The sounds that the collectables make when touched are extremely satisfying. The little escalating “pops” that the point bubbles make when grabbed let you know roughly how hugh your point multiplier is.

Controls:
The first level you will play is the opening credits, a nice, unique change from the norm. It gives you a chance to get accustomed to the controls while making sure you know your development team. Plus the fact that it takes some of the boredom out of the opening credits sequence. Media Molecule did an amazing job on every aspect of the controls. They are quite simple, but also very unique. Your main buttons are jump, grab, your menu (or Poppit as they call it) and some weird action that lets you control each of your arms separately with the joysticks. The d-pad is a nifty set of facial expressions, which along with the arm controls, allow you and perhaps a few of your friends to properly celebrate after completing a stage. Your little Sack-person can move in three levels of dimension in each stage: foreground, middle, and background. Occasionally… only occasionally… you will have some dimension issues with the stages. This will happen when you think that you are on one plane, but you are actually on another, possibly causing you to fall and die needlessly and unfairly. However, the directional controls feel very loose and fit very well with the light, fun designs of each stage.

Flow:
Each stage follows a unique story for the setting. The “Little Big Planet” itslef looks a lot like a stitched fabric Earth and the setting theme for each stage is determined loosely by the continent that they are located on. In the beginning, the stages are pretty straight forward and simple and get progressively harder as the game moves on. At the end of each set of stages, the creator curator for that stage will not-so-subtley make the story transition for the next set of stages. In the beginning of each new set, you’ll usually end up in a vehicle or contraption from the last stage of the previous set of challenges. This continues up until you reach all seven of the continents and end up at a set of boss challenges where the story of the game comes to a climax.

Fun Factor:
The only thing that might bring this game down a notch is the fact that there are certain unlockables that can only be reached by 2 or more characters playing at the same time. This is assuming that you have more than one control for your PS3. At times you even need the maximum of 4 players. So they expect you to have $200 worth of controls for their system. Kind of ridiculous. The up-side of this is that if you DO in fact have more than one controller, any other person who uses your PS3 can use his or her registered Sackperson from their saved game’s file, or create a new one and use it in the future as long as they’re registered an ID with the PS3 to help you in your game. Other than this fact, the game is darn near flawless. I can’t explain the feeling of freedom and joy that this game supplies.

Female Aspect:
Since your Sack-person is ambiguously gendered, you have the freedom to be male or female. There are also some unlockable content and features available that are specifically geared to females, such as the downloadable content for the Nariko (Heavenly Sword) costume and the Medusa from God of War. There are numerous pink cloths, a few dresses and one set of pretty lashful eyes for you to equip to your Sackperson. The point of LittleBigPlanet’s character creation system is to be able to create any kind of person you could possible want and I think they’ve pretty much succeeded in that aspect.

Replay Value:
The replay potential in this game is very high, due to the high number of collectables and unlockables. There is content available to unlock for completing the stages without dying, and some hard to reach ones that you might not catch the first time through. There are also keys that you can find along with collectables that enable special challenges to be unlocked through the course of the game. The keys usually unlock races or small endurance challenges associated with each stage. These enable you to compete for points with the other local players on your PS3. The stage-builder adds limitless reply value and the user-created content is sure to have people talking about this game for a long time to come. I can see people playing this game until (if and when) they release a sequel. This game has a huge possibility for having an overload of downloadable content through the PS3 store. There is an endless amount of remodeling that can be done to your home or “Pod,” your in-game safe house. It’s apparent how much effort the developer took in creating this game to be a long running phenomenon.

Last thoughts on the game:
There are numerous features connected with PS3 online that are not yet available due to the delay in release, such as any kind of multiplayer online play or downloadable content. The game also can get a bit glitchy if you try to stay online with it at this point, since it constantly will disconnect you from the internet. The menus are a bit jumpy. There was a time when I was trying to access the last world and it kept jumping around to the first. When your screen is crowded with levels to select, you had better make sure you are pushing the joystick in the proper direction. A few flimsy faults are overshadowed by the intense creativity, expansiveness and unique breed of fun that LittleBigPlanet brings to the PS3 console. If there is one game for the PS3 that you pick up for the rest of this year, make sure it’s this one!