LittleBigPlanet

Review from Matt - Thursday, 13 November 2008 @ 4:18pm

Hype is a funny thing. Increased publicity and promotion leads to higher sales, but you can also get a nasty backlash, especially if the game doesn't meet the raised expectations.

Few games have had their expectations raised as thoroughly as Little Big Planet. If Sony had a farm (they probably do, actually) they'd be betting it on Little Big Planet. Its burlap protagonist, Sackboy, has become the smiling and slightly unnerving face of the Playstation 3. Sackboy has a lot of pressure on him to sell an awful lot of very expensive videogames hardware.

And you know what? I think he will.

Looking back only 5 years you see a large proportion of titles are console exclusives. As time has gone and the industry gotten bigger that has changed. For third parties who pump multi-million dollar budgets into a title it's not often an option to limit yourself to 50% of the gaming market, and platform agnosticism has become the norm.

The differences in the PS3 and Xbox 360 hardware are largely moot. GTAIV is the same on both, as is The Force Unleashed, or (heaven forbid) Golden Axe: Beast Rider. For this reason more than ever the titles that are exclusive truly matter. They allow a manufacturer to separate themselves from the competition, to say "well, you couldn't do that on the other guy's system". Despite a 95% crossover of titles the console wars are waged on that remaining 5%.

I don't care that much for fanboyism, but I thought it might be interesting to give my opinion of the current state of the two systems:

The Xbox 360 has a larger install base. The Xbox 360 has a larger range of back-catalogue titles. The Xbox 360 has a vastly better online system. The Xbox 360 has a better store, updated more often, with more content. The Xbox 360 is substantially cheaper. The Xbox 360 has more top-tier exclusives. The Xbox 360 has a vastly better multimedia interface (largely by not sucking ass like the PS3 one does).

The Playstation 3 has Little Big Planet.

Winner: Sony.

These only open when you're in the air jumping at them. It's scary! Plus they scream!

I'm hyperbolising, of course. I really like Little Big Planet. If you don't want to listen to someone rant about how awsome a game is then I'm going to recommend you skip to the end bits about its shitty online play, and then go back to the Xbox Forum that spawned you.

The first thing that deserves mention is the most obvious – the graphics. We're so used to perfect water textures, complex dynamic lighting and particle effects, and photorealistic power models that it's a welcome change when the muscle of the current generation of consoles is used to accurately draw simple things like cardboard, cotton and wood. Everything in Little Big Planet is made of oddly physical materials, from Sackboy's rough burlap to the cardboard and plywood that makes up a lot of structures. It sounds strange but somehow that's more impressive to me than the slimy arms of a giant alien strider. It's like a real thing, like you're playing with a large but very cute diorama.

Special attention is deserved to the music of LittleBigPlanet. They were a highlight of the trailers and promo videos that have been released prior to now, but those videos were just a taste. A lot of the tracks that play are familiar for someone who has religiously downloaded every video available, but there are a hell of a lot of great tracks that really suit the feel and style of the levels.

So I started playing with the level editor, and I have to say, it's pretty cool. It isn't as scary and dull as I expected it to be, being actually pretty fun to play with. This is helped by Master Fry, who narrates a little bit of instruction for a rather startling range of the tools. Obviously no expense was spared making the creation system as accessible and simple as possible. And with good reason. A difficult system, or one poorly explained, will result in fewer people making content for the thing, and for Sony's flagship title that's not a good thing.

There are a lot of pre-built "objects" like this scattered through the story levels

Still, it has been well spent. It's remarkably easy to play around with the level editor and create something simple. Even seemingly complex interactions like switches and creatures are actually quite simple to put together.

Little Big Planet isn't perfect. At its core it's a 2D platform game, and that's the weakest element. There are three planes of movement, and getting between them is dodgy. It's improved substantially since the beta, but it can still be a little frustrating. Later levels in the "story" mode become rather on the fiendish side, and there's a patch after about the third "creator curator" where things seem to fall a little flat and the levels just lack the spark and inginuity of the earlier ones. That picks up, however, and that following levels are a marvel.

Other than that I find it very hard to pick flaws in LBP. It's just... so damn good.

This review is pretty glowing, so here comes the downside: online.

Not everyone is going to be able to get the most out of LBP. If you don't have your PS3 on the intarwebs you're only going to get about half the game. You won't have access to the user created levels, which while varying in quality do really offer some great stuff. While you can make your own levels still you can't share them.

But see, I do have broadband. ADSL2, about the fastest consumer connection you can get. And online play still sucks balls. Like... a lot. The smoothness and fun of the single player or multiple player mode melts away like pissed-on snow, and it turns into a lagfest of frustration and clumsiness. I haven't had an opportunity to play against fellow Australians on my friends list, and that may mitigate some of this, or even eliminate it entirely.

If you have a bunch of people playing in your loungeroom the game is excellent, and you can play the levels lag-free once they download. But that being said, sometimes the servers have been down entirely, meaning no user-created levels are available, or a large number fail to respond.

I have to assume that the players are in the US and the servers are in the US. I'm sure they're getting an awesome experience there, but for our $109.95 (yes, I paid full retail at EB, but at least I got a Kratos!) we deserve the SAME experience, not some half-assed lesser game. With local servers set up, Little Big Planet would be a work of near perfection, but the lag, disconnects and delays with the current situation marr an experience that is otherwise exceptional.

Why no, thank you. I shall pass on that kind offer of a blowjob.

I consider the Story mode a pretty awesome game. I've enjoyed playing it, both alone and with friends in groups of 2, 3 and 4 people. But whether the Story mode alone justifies the price of purchase is a decision I can't make for you.

LittleBigPlanet is Sony's big gun for the Christmas season. They have almost nothing else to offer, apart from Resistance 2. They also have a vastly more expensive console especially after the recent price cuts of the Xbox 360.

Whether Sackboy is up to holding the PS3 up all by himself is dubious. It's probably time for Sony to bite the bullet, and help him out with a price drop. You can be the most expensive console and claim that you're more expensive because you're better... but when you're twice the price people are going to need to be convinced. Even as a growing PS3 fan and lover of LittleBigPlanet I wouldn't say the PS3 is worth that big a difference.

Whether a PS3 is a worthwhile purchase for someone who already owns a 360 is a tough call. I'd lean towards no. While there are a few exclusives (Resistance 2, LBP, Valkyria Chronicles, etc) there's probably not enough that's truly compelling. Little Big Planet will be a real loss, but such is life with exclusives.

To sum up, regardless of the minor (and in some cases major) issues, it's my favourite game for the year. There's no game that's impressed me more, no game that I've enjoyed playing more, as a single player experience, with my friends or my son... and no one I've played it with has failed to enjoy and laugh at the capering antics of Sackboy, the welcome new face of the PlayStation 3.

Pros

Exceptionally fun. Very cute. Really nice level of customisation of the sackperson characters. Stephen Fry is a godlike narrator-being. Very clever level designs.

Cons

Online an issue in Australia. Servers keep going down. Non-broadbandies won't get the full value of it.