Review: Little Big Planet

When I first got my Playstation 3 … this was the big game to talk about. This was considered the unofficial mascot of the PS3 … and still is. When you think of Sackboy and get past the perverted thoughts, you think of this game. So, when it came out I wanted to give it a shot. It was also a game where I bypassed my normal “rent on Thursday night” rule and just grab it if I found it – only because the rental store I went to only had one copy of it.

So, having played it and eventually buying it … is it safe to say that this is the savior of the PS3? Is it as revolutionary as it was made out to be and will forever impact the gaming industry?

Probably not.

I will say this – one of the best things I like about the game is the lack of serious content. This game doesn’t try to be serious, this game just tries to be fun. All these big-production games these days try to be incredibly serious. Everything has to have a back-story and has to have a high-production value to let us know that this is a serious game we’re playing. Little Big Planet barely does any of that. You’re not given a story except for a smaller one that develops near the end of the game. BUT, if you want to tell a story, the game offers you that chance through level creation.

The game isn’t meant to be taken serious … if it were – then SackBoy wouldn’t burst into confetti when you “killed yourself” or we’d get pissed when people you play the game with smacks your character with a pan that’s held in their character’s hand. Or I’d get pissed when someone would place an object on my character that completely blocks the visual of my character. Or, your directional pad wouldn’t do something as simple as changing the facial expressions of your character. But, in all reality, the game gives off a sense of just having a fun, relaxing time doing whatever you want.

The game’s ability to change themes is pretty amazing considering that they use the same tools that we do … the only difference is that they probably do it all on a PC while we do it on the PS3. When learning how to create levels, everything kind of makes sense when you play the levels that Media Molecule built. After awhile, you realize that the tools they used to create these elaborate levels is available to you … you are just at more of a hinderance at doing it on a PS3 rather than a PC. And while their level creation system can be considered a first … it definitely needs work but it’s not bad as a first try. And some of the levels I play online shows me that there are some pretty neat stuff you can do if you put enough time into it.

At the same time, that is a letdown as well. The game offers you a couple dozen of levels to play through but once that’s done you’re thrown to the online content … and after that … there’s no real reason to continue playing. The game does offer replayability by challenging you to get all of the prize bubbles of the game, many which requires another player to get, but the problem is that you rarely join in on another players game … and you rarely have people join in unless you choose to wait for a very long time. So you are either forced into waiting for 2 or 3 people or you need to do local multiplayer, which is the better way to go because when you add another person, the game can get laggy depending on your connection … and for some reason LBP seems to have a high demand of data to transmit and send (a problem that will apparently be patched soon).

So this is a game that doesn’t have a terrible amount of depth in its single-player mode and directly leans on online mode to survive … whereas games like Resistance 2 and Grand Theft Auto 4 offer multiplayer as more of a sidekick. Those game can be played with single-player but LBP’s longevity revolves around the online community.

The level creation system, as I’ve commented on, can be real fun … and is real fun up until you’re debugging it. There are some things that you do that just don’t make sense. For example, when attaching a portion of the level to one giant background so that it all sticks … detaching one item seems to detach everything so that everything in that section will need to be stuck to it again. A very frustrating and angering problem. Another big problem is that the best way to test out the level is to play through it. Media Molecule apparently didn’t think about the fact that many times you’ll be testing things at the very end of the level. So you have to play through the entire level each time you need to test something out. So unless there’s something I didn’t figure out … those elaborate levels that people create require the creator to play through the entire thing just to test out an object near the end. I’m actually shocked this feature hasn’t been added yet.

The game really is a mixed bag. The game can be incredibly fun and relaxing, but there are many times I sit and wonder if I want to play it because I’m not necessarily going to want to play some custom-created level that will have a design flaw in it and will prevent me from going further.

Media Molecule has released two level packs since the release … but most of the offerings are merely costume upgrades. I was kind of hoping that there would be more considering levels I have downloaded are actually very small in size. I was hoping for more downloadable story/single-player modes that can keep the longevity of the game going. But when you want to play a level that isn’t a video-game knockoff, a level that isn’t thought out well enough to prevent you from continuing forward, or the pointless levels that just ask you to heart the creator, there may not be a terrible amount of replayability.

I may be painting the game to look bad … I just think the way MM planned things could have been planned better. This game also has an incredible music soundtrack … one of the best I’ve heard in years. Almost every song is catchy in some form and some of the songs have been stuck in my brain for days. The sound effects also stand out. I really with this game had a OST that came with it or even sold separately. Almost all of the music is taken from various artists … so it’s not directly from Media Molecule. My two personal favorites are Get it Together and Volver A Comenzar – two songs where it’s very hard not to get in a good mood when listening to it, despite the fact that the video for Volver A Comenzar has a guy who ends up in a hospital and almost dies.

The graphics are also very interesting … they go along with the “just have fun” mentality that the game has because there’s nothing that gives off a serious vibe … everything is still meant to have fun … that’s why the Collector (the main bad guy in the game) is only a little bit bigger than Sackboy.

The controls definitely take some getting used to … the hardest will be adjusting to the way Sackboy jumps and the jumping back and forth on the planes. When jumping, you automatically jump to the furtherst plane in the back that you can, but you have to manually move to a plane in the front – if that makes sense. But once you get used to it, you can fly by levels. Your rear shoulder buttons control your Sackboys hand movements and the control pad controls the facial expressions of your Sackboy. Are they needed? Nope … but those are just other small things to make the game a bit more fun. Is another player dragging you around? A simple flick of you analog stick while holding your hand down will smack them to the ground.

Overall, this game is a nice change of pace from the serious games that have been shoved in our faces for the past few years. I don’t think it’s false to say that as we entered the 3D gaming genre … games seem to need to become more serious and lifelike to be fun and Little Big Planet is a nice jump away from that. You don’t need to strive for the best accuracy or be the one to get the most kills … the only competition lies in getting the most points out of your friends that you’re playing with. Maybe I’m over exaggerating … but I can’t think of many games in the past 10 years that don’t try to be serious. It’s a nice change of pace from the way things have been for a long time and I hope people kind of follow in its footsteps … which it looks like is happening with the recent releases of Flower and Noby Noby Boy.

And on that note … let’s wrap up the review.

Graphics (10 pts.)
The game doesn’t try to be realistic, so the graphics follow suit. Everything has some form of comic-esque look to it. A nice shift in graphics that we don’t see too often. No video sequences or in-game video sequences. 7/10.

Music & Sound Effects (10 pts.)
The music and sound effects are exceptional – especially the music. Much of the music is catchy and addictive. Songs are – for the most part – not done by Media Molecule and are done by actual artists. But, if there were a soundtrack … I’d buy it. 10/10.

Gameplay & Controls (25 pts.)
The game gets quick and to the point. No title screen or anything – you just hop right in and begin Navigation is done by cycling through your planet – you also have a stat moon and level creation moon. Initial load times are kind of long with additional load times for each level loaded. Game will also lag during online play with someone else but this issue will hopefully be fixed in an upcoming patch. Controls are also a bit frustrating at first, but later on come naturally. Once you get a feel for the game, you can run through the levels pretty easily. It’s also very difficult to find people to join your games through the internet, so you’re stuck when you need to do anything that requires more than one person. 15/25.

Story and Presentation (20 pts.)
The presentation is done quite nicely, but the story overall is weak. Infact, there barely is one … but level creation give you the option to create your own story. So the game can essentially have tons of stories, or no stories at all. For the most part – it’s up to the creator of whatever level you are playing. Unfortunately, most people don’t create stories behind their levels … so that leaves us with what Media Molecule created – which isn’t a very strong storyline. 10/20.

Fun Factor (25 pts.)
The whole feel of the game makes it fun. They don’t try to be serious and always seem to keep things running in a rather humorous way which only adds to the enjoyment. Many people who I’ve talked to who have played the game say that the game is fun and relaxing … it’s just very hard to get upset at the game even when you die over and over again. More games need to have this mentality when creating games. 25/25.

Replayability (10 pts.)
The game offers a ton of replayability by letting everyone create a level and play if you wanted to. Taking this into consideration, the replayability is endless … but, for me at least, I’d like more from Media Molecule. There’s only so many Mario-Clones that I can play and there are many levels that aren’t fool-proof and many times I find myself playing levels where I’m stuck with no way to move forward. A few level packs have been released from Media Molecule but other than that I’ve been playing online levels. It’s a smart idea, yet I haven’t really played the game in a few days. 8/10

Total Score is 75 pts., giving this game 4/5 invaders.