Little Big Planet Progress Report
Posted: Sun Jul 27, 2008 3:43 pm
July 24, 2008 - In case you haven't heard, the show floor at San Diego Comic-Con is littered with game demos that were already covered last week at E3. It's cool that they're here so fans can play them, but it kind of makes my job a bit too easy.
Luckily, LittleBigPlanet is a new ball of wax every time you sit down to play it.
I've been lucky enough to play LBP a few times, and I have a great time every time I pick up the controller. Still, I forgot that feeling of fun that sweeps over you as you take Sackboy from one end of a level to another for the first time -- at least I had forgotten it until I saw some Comic-Con attendees getting their first taste of Media Molecule's baby this evening. As soon as they got the controller in their hands, these kids were modifying their Sackboys in ways I had never seen. One took a photo of himself and turned it into a mask for his character, someone gave Sackboy a Sackboy toy, while another put an oversized zebra head on her Sackboy and added a fluttering red cape and green snake arm.
Then, they made a skateboard like everyone else.
When I got my hands-on time with the title, I chose to dive into a mini-game called The Dangerous Descent. Rather than be the typical side-scrolling LBP level, this challenge put three other human-controlled Sackboys and myself into a framed area with a bunch of upward-moving platforms. We had to make it through the holes in each platform so that we never touched the top or bottom of the frame -- we had to move fast enough to stay in the middle section of the screen and not get carried to the top. As we fell through the holes, little bubbles burst to set off visual effects, and the platforms began to come faster and faster. When three of us had been eliminated, the winner was declared.
It sounds easy -- and it was easy to get the hang of -- but like most of the LBP challenges I've participated in, the brilliance of the task is its simplicity. You're taking these highly customizable characters and putting them into user-created levels that anyone can understand. The cardboard cutouts, the stickers, the textures -- LittleBigPlanet is one of those games that deserves to be on every PS3 owner's watch list.
Luckily, LittleBigPlanet is a new ball of wax every time you sit down to play it.
I've been lucky enough to play LBP a few times, and I have a great time every time I pick up the controller. Still, I forgot that feeling of fun that sweeps over you as you take Sackboy from one end of a level to another for the first time -- at least I had forgotten it until I saw some Comic-Con attendees getting their first taste of Media Molecule's baby this evening. As soon as they got the controller in their hands, these kids were modifying their Sackboys in ways I had never seen. One took a photo of himself and turned it into a mask for his character, someone gave Sackboy a Sackboy toy, while another put an oversized zebra head on her Sackboy and added a fluttering red cape and green snake arm.
Then, they made a skateboard like everyone else.
When I got my hands-on time with the title, I chose to dive into a mini-game called The Dangerous Descent. Rather than be the typical side-scrolling LBP level, this challenge put three other human-controlled Sackboys and myself into a framed area with a bunch of upward-moving platforms. We had to make it through the holes in each platform so that we never touched the top or bottom of the frame -- we had to move fast enough to stay in the middle section of the screen and not get carried to the top. As we fell through the holes, little bubbles burst to set off visual effects, and the platforms began to come faster and faster. When three of us had been eliminated, the winner was declared.
It sounds easy -- and it was easy to get the hang of -- but like most of the LBP challenges I've participated in, the brilliance of the task is its simplicity. You're taking these highly customizable characters and putting them into user-created levels that anyone can understand. The cardboard cutouts, the stickers, the textures -- LittleBigPlanet is one of those games that deserves to be on every PS3 owner's watch list.
