Little Big Planet™ - Day One Impressions

To set the stage - like most on this site, I grew up on side-scrolling platfformers.  From Super Mario Bros. to Castlevania to Ghouls N Ghosts to Metroid, I played them all into the wee hours of the morning, long after my parents through I was sound asleep.  Granted, they were "the" thing back on the consoles of the day, but still were and are a whole lot of fun.  In fact, lets trace back to the platformers origin - Pitfall anyone?  I think, at least in my too-early-and-not-enough-coffee mental state right now, that might be the first platforming game made.  Please correct me if I'm wrong tho', and I'm sure I played whatever came before it. 

Anyways, as you're probably aware, through the employment of the "you don't get anything if you don't ask" adage, a developer from Media Molecule hooked me up with a handful of beta keys for the upcoming smash hit - yeah, not going out too far on that limb there really - for the PlayStation 3 Little Big Planet™ (LBP).  For those without the evil 2nd or 3rd console, depending on your situtation, LBP is part side-scroller game, part adventure/collection game, and part creator/God game.  You play the game as either a Sackboy or Sackgirl who is exactly that, a puppet built from a burlap sack.  However, that lasts for all of 2 minutes, as you're immediately given a handful of different ways to customize your character with promises (both of what I've seen in game and on the web) of thousands if not tens of thousands of different combonations to make your character truly unique.  You can animate your character on the fly, from facial expressions via the D-pad directions, to arm and body movement through a combonation of the shoulder buttons, dual analog sticks, and the six-axis motion of the controller.  All in all, it's very impressive how much you truly are the puppeteer!

The game itself has two distinct modes - story mode and build mode.  In the former (which was all I got into last night), you run through either pre-packaged levels or user levels trying to collect as many treasures (in the form of costume pieces, stickers, decorations, etc) through the level, or just racking up the highest score through a combonation of collection and time.  The controls are tight, and the physics engine behind the game is really cool.  No, actually, the physics engine is really frigging cool!  From how blocks move and react as you drag them around or climb over them, to your flight path as you launch yourself willy-nilly off spinning ferris wheels, it feels right.  Graphics are very well done as well, with a unique style to them that I don't think we've seen really as strongly since World of Warcraft hit the scene.  It feels like you're playing right in the middle of a cartoon, a well scripted, well drawn, and well designed cartoon.  Level design, from the three I saw, was diverse and enjoyable even though the levels were made solely as tutorials.  It does take a bit of time to comprehend that there is depth in the sidescroller, but after your mind grasps there are three levels in and out of the screen, it adds a whole level of complexity to the game and what a builder can do.

All in all, this beta is really the last thing I needed.  I was hyped over the game and its launch on October 21st.  Now the time between the 12th, when the beta ends, and that date will just be all the longer.  But I'll endure, and will be dreaming up those levels to create and publish for all of 2o2p (or at least 2o2resist) to game on.

B.