LittleBigPlanet

Friday, January 2nd, 2009 by Nick Maunders

I hope every one had a happy Christmas and New Year so here goes the first review for 2009. LittleBigPlanet is a creative platformer exclusive to the Playstation 3. I have to say that it is a brilliant game as well. The platforming genre for me is involved in quite a lot of the games I buy. Most games associated with this are ones such as Super Mario Bros. so straight away people think if you don’t like Mario you don’t like platformers. However there are loads of other platform games out there and I think that LittleBigPlanet is one of the best … especially on the Playstation 3.

Released early November last year this game is about as creative as you can get. That doesn’t mean you can’t play it if you aren’t creative but it helps to have some form of problem solving abilities otherwise you will find this game significantly more difficult than other people. The word that stands out the most in this game for me is “fun”; it really is an enjoyable game. It’s nice to have a break from all the shooting games where you have to kill people all the time. Another quality of this game is that it is really relaxing! You can’t get much better than strolling around solving puzzles while listening to Stephen Fry.

Basically you control a little person known as a “Sack-boy” or “Sack-girl” depending on the appearance, this name is due to the fact that it looks like a sack person and has a big zip on it! You can customise your sack-person to your choosing; you can make him/her into a ninja, or even try to make one of yourself. Obviously at the start of the game there are only a couple of objects available for you to use to customize your sack-person. You must go through the levels and collect the other unlockables which give the game a purpose. It is quite satisfactory to finally reach a bubble (these are what the unlockables are cased in) which you have been trying to get for ages!

You have a surprising amount of control over you sack-person. You can change there moods using the directional buttons, there are a total of about 16 expressions which you can choose from. You can also freely move the sack-persons arms by holding the L2 and R2 buttons accordinly whilst moving the left and right analog sticks. This means that it is possible to whack another sack-person flying. You can jump and grab ledges etc to get to the finish line of the episode.

There is a tutorial at first to show you how to customise your sack-person and how to make use of all of its abilities. Also there are trophies to be unlocked on the Playstation 3 which is excellent. Trophies such as adding 10 stickers to your “pod” and completing a level etc.

I think one of the best things about this is the multiplayer option. That it is impossible to get 100% on the game by solely playing by yourself but it is possible to complete the game. Some parts say you need two people or more to unlock this stage etc. It helps having more than one player as well because two people are better than one person. Another great part is the online multiplayer mode. You can play with up to four people online. That means you and your friends can play online on the story with each other despite being on separate consoles. Also as I said before if you are stuck on a point in a mission and you need a second player you can play that mission online – as long as you are the host of course.

Also for all you creators out there this game is definitely for you because there is a planet called “My Moon”. This is where you can create your very own level from scratch. You can also add dangers to it such as fire, gas etc to make the level a little more challenging. The possibilities are endless. There is also another moon called “Info Moon” this is where you can share created levels, statistics etc to other people such as your friends etc.

Overall LittleBigPlanet is a very good game in my opinion which has been expertly created so I’m going to give it 97%!

Compare prices for LittleBigPlanet at Twenga

Posted in PS3 Reviews