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See those guys up there standing on that tank? That's Breego and I. But which one of us is the goof with the helmet? I will never tell. As I mentioned before I was totally blown away by Little Big Planet at this years Penny Arcade Expo. As I flew back to Minnesota there were 2 games on my mind. One that I got to play, which was Fallout 3, and one that I just got to watch a lot in demos, which was LBP. Of course I am also excited about Gears of War 2 and Left4Dead, both of which I played but I wasn't as excited about them. What really put LBP and Fallout 3 above the rest was one word. Innovation. Fallout 3 to a much lesser degree than LBP but both of them took old ideas and put an interesting twist on them. Follow the jump for my impressions of the LBP beta.
 Play
In Little Big Planet you play as Sackboy or Sackgirl, depending on your gender preference. If I had to put the game in a genre, I would say its a cross between a puzzler and a platformer with a hint of exploration. The basic goal in each level, whether its user created or from the story mode, is to find and collect bubbles. Some are good for points; some unlock new "stickers" or "environmental objects" for you to create your own levels with. Since I started out with nothing unlocked I figured I would play though the story mode before I tackled the level creation tool. In the beta there are 5 story levels, one of which is an interesting take on jump rope. But the 4 true levels all act as a tutorial, with little big planet monitors strewn throughout the level to get you up to speed with the control mechanics. These monitors do a tremendous job of showing you what exactly you can do in the game and how to do it and some of them are pretty funny. The controls are both basic and complex. Basic in that there are 2 actions that will make up 90% of all you will do in the story mode. You will jump and grab. Simple enough. Almost sounds too simple. But with all there is to interact with in LBP, it's not as simple as it sounds. On the complex side of things, pretty much every button on the controller has some function. It may be changing the mood of your sackperson, taking control of your hands independently or using your "pocket" for various functions like sticker placement or changing your characters underwear. The story levels in the beta seem very basic compared to what I'm sure will be more complex later in the game. But like I said they are meant for tutorial and to give you a pallet of stuff to work with in the creator which is the real meat of the beta. As I completed each level, in addition to the bubbles of content I unlocked in the level, there are bonuses to be gained by finding all the bubbles and exploring all the paths of a level. In the first couple levels I had no problem finding 100% of the items but the last two levels open up multiple paths and hidden items. All in all I played the 5 levels in the story mode for probably about 2 hours and still had more content to find and unlock. But it was time to move on to user created content... Share User created content, I can now guarantee, is where most of us will probably spend our time once we beat the game. I believe that there are 80,000 or so users that had logged into the beta last time I looked, and right now there are some truly epic levels out there. To put that into perspective, if a million people buy the full game, which I'm sure will easily be done, we are going to see 10 times the content out there above and beyond what people  have created up to now. Not to mention Media Molecule has stated that the content in the beta only scratches the surface as far as items and stickers in the full game. If you do a search on you tube you can find all sorts of user levels from a Tetris clone to a working calculator with capabilities to add and subtract. The levels I have really enjoyed include the following; - God of War level, with "boss" battles
- Grand Theft Auto
- NASA Moon landing level
- Ninja Warrior (tv show) obstacle course
And these are just a few of the highlights from hours of fun that I have had with user created levels. There are literally thousands and thousands of levels up on the servers right now and I would say hundreds of them are really good. Sure, you will find your boring and dumb levels but only if you want to. Because the developer has included a complex voting and search engine in the game. Every time you play a level you can "tag" it with a descriptive word like fun, lame, brilliant or silly, so when other users look at that level they can see what users think of it. It also shows how many times the level has been played and how many people have marked it as a favorite level. Also, if you find an author that you like, you can check more of their levels. In addition to those search options you can just type the name of the author or level if you know it. An example would be if you wanted to play a halo level you could type in halo and it would return any level with halo in the title or any level created by someone with the word halo in their PSN ID. I would guess 2 weeks after LBP hits retail, you will see enough high quality user created levels out there to keep you busy until LBP 2 comes out. Create
The third and final piece of the LBP trifecta is the creator. The first thing I will say about this is that if you are not willing to take the time to go through the tutorials and learn how to use the tools through some trial and error, skip this section. The tools included are very powerful and very easy to use, but to create fun, good quality levels, you are going to have to put in some serious time. I'm not suggesting you don't do that because after all, I need  something to do after the story mode is over, but just understand that creating a level is many times more difficult that playing a level. A good level could take days, weeks or even months to create and get perfect. Admittedly I have only spent a couple of hours in the creator with a limited set of materials but I am impressed. The developers at Media Molecule have done an almost perfect job of making an easy editor with depth and complexity. Imagine a painting program on your PS3 with 4 different layers to paint. After going through the tutorials I spent a few hours building a big ski jump made out of glass. Not so much a level but more of an interactive experiment to see what I could do and how long it would take me to do it. Knowing that all levels created during the beta will be wiped out as soon as the beta is over, I didn't want to delve into the creator too much. My time with it so far has proved that its entertaining and well done. Co-existOne thing that I haven't mentioned was the multiplayer. There is local and online play for up to 4 people. Usually I would only care about online multiplayer but this is a strange exception to the rule. When I told my wife I got into the beta I also mentioned that she might be interested in the game. Let me say this to people that don't know or are new to the site, my wife is not a gamer and in fact I would even go as far to say she dislikes most games. When I fired up the beta with her the first time she loved it and the next day asked if we were going to play it again. This is unheard of in my house. Usually I play by myself in the basement in the dark. It's a sad situation. But for her not only to enjoy playing the game but looking forward to when she can play it again is stunning. So if you are in a similar position, this is a game that is easy enough to get non gamers into it but challenging enough to keep the hardcore entertained. If you cant tell by reading this, I have a feeling LBP is going to be my Game of the Year. With its Play, Share, Create style of entertainment, I don't think there is a game out this year that is going to be able to keep up with it in terms of pure fun. Baring any major foul up, Media Molecule has made a game that has something for everyone. If you have a PS3 and have any interest in fun, you owe it to yourself to go pick it up when it releases on October 21st. Until then keep, thinking up those level ideas. Also keep an eye open for Breego's LBP impressions as well.
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