The Bottom Line
Pros
- As a stand alone game it's a five star experience, but that's only scratching the surface of LBP
- Four player physics based platformer? Grab some buddies for an incredible gaming experience.
- Sackboy and his friends are adorable, even moreso when you dress them up
- Full featured tool set allows your imagination to go wild as you build new levels
- Building and sharing content finally brings modding to the masses
Cons
- The campaign in Little Big Planet may seem short, but remember there's unlimited free levels online
- The three levels of depth may confuse non-gamers in the beginning
Description
- Graphics: 5 Little Big Planet has some of the best art direction of any modern console game, creative and cute
- Sound: 4 Great music and cute sounds help bring the world of LBP to life
- Control: 3 If Little Big Planet has a weakness this is it, the ability to move in three directions is confusing in a 2D game
- Difficulty: 3 The included game isn't too rough, though some of the downloadable UGC is outrageously tough
- Gameplay: 5 The core gameplay of Little Big Planet is tried and true, what's amazing is how users mix it up online
- Multiplayer: 5 With friends on the couch or playing with newly stangers from Japan, LBP is four player heaven
- Online: 5 It's easy to find people to play with online and the online content is community rated, LBP has an excellent system
- Replayability: 5 Thanks to downloadable free online content LBP is the game that never ends
- All scores are out of 5; final score is not an average of the individual score
- Rated: Everyone While most of it is benign, you may want to preview the levels your kids download
Guide Review - Little Big Planet Review (PS3)
While both free and pay downloadable content (DLC) has been a resounding success for this generation of consoles, user generated content (UGC) hasn't, until now. Little Big Planet is an outstanding game, cute, fun, and surprisingly competitive when you play with up to three friends. It's real contribution to gaming, in addition to the absurdly adorable Sackboy, is the ability to create and share levels with other players over the PlayStation network.
Not only is it easy to download and share Little Big Planet levels, they are easy to create as well. Operating with a physics and material metaphor things behave as they should in Little Big Planet. If something is made of wood with will drop fast and feel heavy, items made of felt will be floppy and easy to manipulate. With a new twist on the no programming required style of level development, LBP has you use Sackboy and his bevy of tools to create new experiences. Want to made a door that opens? Use a pulley or lever. Want to get people to the next level? Put a platform on a spring, everything will behave as it should.
Running through the provided levels in LBP is fun, but once you get online you realize the entire game was nothing more than an intro level for all the amazing games being created by your peers. Little Big Planet really is the next step in console gaming, and it's a fun one.
