LittleBigPlanet Preview
Wednesday, October 8, 2008 – by Jereme Puik, Staff Writer

Imagine a world where you can create, design and bring to life any kind of level you have ever wanted to play in a game. Couple that with countless designs for your character, or Sackboy in this case. LittleBigPlanet offers a place for your imagination to run wild and rampant throughout. Whatever your mind can come up with there is a tool for you to use in LittleBigPlanet. LittleBigPlanet is currently in its beta stage and will continue until the launch of the title on October 21st. Game Plasma was given the chance to enter the beta and give you some impressions.

No Sackboys were hurt in the creation of the game

If there was one title the Playstation 3 needed right now to give itself an edge over its competition, LittleBigPlanet is an excellent start. The beta gives players the chance to jump right into LittleBigPlanet. With as much customization as LBP has, we’ll be hearing about this game for quite a while.

Players use the PS controller to move their Sackboy in a variety of ways. Besides using the analog sticks to move him around, you’ll have a set of emotions to bring your Sackboy to the realistic side of life. Using the d-pad gives you the option to make your Sackboy smile, frown, mad or nervous. These emotions aren’t necessary for any level, at least to my knowledge.

When you enter LittleBigPlanet, you’ll be greeted to the tutorial which gives you the basic workings of your Sackboy. Each section of this level features various computer screens that’ll showcase a video teaching you the basics of Sackboy’s movements and how you can control him. Once you reach the end of the level, this is where you’re story can begin. At this point, you can customize your Sackboy and give him color and his own wardrobe. There aren’t many options to begin with, but once you get deeper into the game you’ll unlock more items to use and to make your Sackboy your own.

With the trendy music, it’s hard not to get lost in the beautiful level design and content surrounding the game. Once you get deeper into the story mode, you’ll unlock concept art and stickers to decorate your launch pod with. What I found interesting was the inclusion of your very own playstation controller in your pod. Whatever you do or click on your controller is imitated on the pod by the Sackboy and it was a pretty ingenious move to see that in there.

The many different levels that inhabit LittleBigPlanet all have their own quirks and tricks for you to learn. These will be helpful when creating your own level and help to ensure that master your level making abilities. Creativity will be a big help here and should give you something to do on those boring weekends or just to pass the time.

LittleBigPlanet is a big step up for this industry. There have been many games in the past that have concentrated solely on user-generated content and even the sharing of it over the internet. Media Molecule is giving gamers at home a chance to showcase their true creative skill. Using a ready built avatar in which the only customization you will need for this Sackboy is a change of a clothes and color, players can easily move into the world of LittleBigPlanet. The User-Created worlds that LBP has to offer are quite extensive. It is only a few weeks into the beta build and there are hundreds of levels to choose from. You could spend hours just frolicking throughout every pop-culture reference that is available online.

There are many components that make up what LittleBigPlanet is and it’s not recommended to take everything in all at once as it will be quite overwhelming. A trip through the Poppit menu will be enough to satisfy you’re hunger for the rest of your playing session. The customization options are almost endless depending on what your needs are and what you have collected during each level. It’s almost crucial to play through story mode as deep into it as possible just to get the most of your level creation. You don’t have to do this alone; however, you can keep the faith and get some help with a friend.

The multiplayer elements are fairly robust. No, you won’t be seeing Sackboys using every means necessary to beat the living day lights out of each other, that would be just plain wrong. Co-Op can carry up to 4 players on the same console either online or off, which is great and not so great. The number of Sackboys running around the level at the same time can look a bit cluttered and if you’re all messaging each other online it can get even worse. Either way co-op is where at its here and is even more fun during level creation where “two minds are better then one” comes into play.

LittleBigPlanet is ready to be the flagship title for the Playstation 3. With LittleBigPlanet you get more out of it then you could ever imagine. If the beta is any of indication of what the final game will look like, then LittleBigPlanet has “Game of the Year” written all over it.