Little Big Planet

In the animated movie Ratatouille, food critic Anton Ego is transported back to his childhood after taking a bite of lead character Remy’s famous Ratatouille. I had somewhat of a similar experience with developer Media Molecule’s platformer, Little Big Planet. As I booted up the game and was being introduced to the game’s developers (in a very cool way) and the adorable protagonist(s), sackboy/sackgirl by the ever-so-charming Stephen Fry, I found myself regressing slowly but surely into my childhood (just like Ego).

Was it the happy music? Was it the cute as a button sackperson? Or was it Stephen Fry’s father like charm? I guess it was a bit of everything that helped create this happy illusion. Oh and I wasn’t alone in feeling this way. No Sireee. Seated right next to me were two of my colleagues and I noticed a similar (goofy) grin plastered across their faces as well (in fact I think I saw a tear of joy roll down one of their cheeks as well). And that ladies and gentlemen is Little Big Planet’s biggest draw. The fact that it attracted three grown men into its bloodless, saccharine sweet world is a pretty awesome feat in itself.

But once you’re in the world of Little Big Planet you realize it is a lot tougher than it seems. LBP is a platformer at heart which means you’ll have to indulge in a lot of jumping, running, climbing and so on to complete each level. The first few levels (that double up as tutorials of sorts) start off pretty easy but half way throughout the game the difficulty level jacks up significantly as a result of which I wanted to tear sackboy’s head off at times (I’m exaggerating off course – I would never harm sackboy).

My anger stemmed from the fact that controlling sackboy wasn’t as tight as I had hoped it would be and in a platformer, this isn’t good news. Unlike the Prince or Mario, sackboy’s controls feel a bit “floaty” which means that sometimes your jumps may overshoot your expectations resulting in an untimely death. Plus I also didn’t find the controls very responsive which made controlling sackboy a bit sluggish. Throughout every level you only have a certain amount of lives to fall back on and once you use them all up, you’ll have to tackle that level all over again. This isn’t much of a problem initially, but as the levels get longer and tougher, it definitely becomes a bit of a bummer. From what I’ve seen, LBP is geared towards kids and casual gamers and this sort of a steep difficulty level may not go down too well with them.
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Luckily for us in LBP you’re not limited to the levels bundled with the game. Just like EA’s Spore, players can create and share levels using the game’s Level editor via the PlayStation Network. While platforming all over the place in the single player campaign you will pick up tons of items, materials and stickers that can later be used (along with certain predefined level templates) to create whacky levels. If like me you don’t have a single creative bone in your body, no need to sweat since you can go ahead and play user created levels that are available in abundance on the PSN.

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Visually the game is phenomenal. It has the most unique art style I’ve seen in a while now and the entire game looks like it was made by children using nothing but stickers and cardboard cut-outs. It of course isn’t but this homemade vibe adds a huge amount of charm to the game. LBP also utilizes Havok’s physics brilliantly in this game be it for simple platforming or puzzle solving. Level design is simply phenomenal and the sheer imagination used to create various set pieces – be it a garden, a jungle or a wedding (inspired by the Grim Fandango?) – is mind blowing. There is a bit of a slowdown while playing online but that’s a net code issue and once the game loads up the level it was smooth sailing all the way.

I wholeheartedly recommend Little Big Planet to every PS3 owner out there. Do not judge the game merely by its child like appearance. Its art style is brilliant, and the game itself while not revolutionary, is highly imaginative providing hours of re-playability thanks to the ingenious level editor and the game’s level sharing mechanic. It may not be the game you’ll play for hours on end but it’s perfect for the in-between game and its healthy community will ensure that you hang on to your copy for a long time.