Austin360 blogs > Digital Savant > Archives > 2008 > October > 02 > Entry
First impressions: ‘Little Big Planet’
Here’s a first look at Sony’s ambitious new project, “Little Big Planet” by our intern Hudson Lockett. “LBP” is due out Oct. 21. — Omar
More social than “Spore” and more sandbox than “Crackdown,” “LittleBigPlanet” is a gamer’s playground.
I had a chance to play with the beta for a few hours, and while I could easily just write “SO AWESOME” and walk away with a clear conscience, it’s more fun to share — a theme “LittleBigPlanet” takes to new heights.
The centerpiece of “LBP” is the Sackboy. Specifically, your Sackboy. More adorable than a Mii and less generic than Sony’s upcoming Home avatars, Sackboy (or Sackgirl) shows a lot of his personality through the controls the game has devoted to personal expression. Holding down the left or right triggers on the PS3 controller gives you control over your Sackboy’s respective arms. You can wave, point, and with enough force even deliver a good smack to one of your friends.
The motion controls of the Sixaxis are put to unobtrusive use here, directing the head of your idling Sackboy via tilt. You can click in the left stick to make the tilt correspond to his body instead, making for hilariously suggestive dance moves. Mapped to the D-pad are four expressions: up for happy, down for sad, left for nervous and right for angry.
Part of the fun is playing with other people, and I played with two other people in the room. The balance between cooperative play and competition is expertly handled — more than once I found myself helping a friend swing over a deadly pit one moment and competing for shiny point orbs the next. The winner gets a special nod at the end of each level, but you can always give them a good-natured smack during the celebrations.
Included in the beta were three levels from the game’s developer, Media Molecule, to show players the ropes and reward them with new costume pieces and items to use in the much-touted level creator.
Tutorials, narrated by Stephen Fry, help you get a grasp on the basics of making your own levels before setting you loose. From there you’re free to create, or check out the levels others have already uploaded to the “LBP” servers.
Though level creation in the beta isn’t anywhere near the full scope of the final product in terms of variety, the depth of possibilities was already impressive. It could probably support a healthy community of gamers for a long time as it is.
The levels I played ranged from basic platformer fare to a multi-part, tongue in cheek rendition of robbing a bank replete with a plot and in-stage dialogue. You can even mark levels after playing with provided tags that make it easy to find worthwhile levels while browsing.
After playing someone else’s level you can download it use the best bits in your own levels. That rocket car that sent you careening into a wall? Yours. That strangely stable duckmobile? Also yours. If you can see it, it’s yours to play with.
It’s a brave new creative playground, and when “LittleBigPlanet” launches in late October, it’s only going to get better.
“Little Big Planet”
$60
For PlayStation 3
Due out Oct. 21
Permalink | Comments (3) | Post your comment Categories: Videogames
Comments
Click here to report comment abuse.
By Jerry
October 4, 2008 8:40 AM | Link to this
I got lucky enough to get a beta code from g4tv.com to try LBP out. This is potentially the most original game I have played in years. Just an awesome game. Can't wait to buy it in a couple weeks.
By cell989
October 3, 2008 12:07 PM | Link to this
I cant wait for this one, I went through hell and under, but I was not able to acquire a damn beta code.
By kit ramsey
October 2, 2008 7:38 PM | Link to this
wow!
sounds like a great game for all ages.
when i grow up, i want to be a sackboy!