If you know me very well at all, you know I'm a video game nut. I enjoy turning people on to new games or recommending titles that might otherwise be overlooked. I also enjoy dropping critical information on bad games to help people make smarter purchases; why, just the other day I helped a total stranger decide against buying the new SOCOM game for PS3, informing him that it was pretty poorly-reviewed BUT, if he was intent on trying it, to at least download it on the Playstation Network and save $20. That's me - friend of the little man.
So, with that being said, I'd like to take a few moments to wax about my newest digital obsession - a little, big game called Little Big Planet. Maybe you've heard of it? It's a Playstation3 exclusive created by a tiny software house called Media Molecule. Every report about the company mentions that their development office is on the second floor above a toilet store, so I guess that's somethin'. Sony has been spending loads of money to promote the game and it's been critically hailed as one of the best titles of the year. Unfortunately, the game isn't selling as well as it should - numbers are low, but those who have adopted this gem have taken to it like a new best friend - myself included. Let me tell you all about it and how it's taking over my life.
These are your characters in Little Big Planet. Sackboys and Sackgirls, customizable to the Nth degree with all sorts of costumes and stickers and decorations for their tiny sack bodies. Note that you're not locked into the brown sack material, either - there are a multitude of body types, from leather to green felt to burlap to who knows what. The control scheme isn't mind-boggling - you can run, you can jump and you can grab onto appropriate surfaces (i.e. sponge, carpet, styrofoam) to swing and leap and get yourself in and out of all sorts of shenanigans. It's basically just a good-looking, good-playing side-scrolling platform-jumping game with a great sense of humor, amazing production values and a quality of replayability that will keep you hunting for that one last item well past your regularly-scheduled bedtime. The normal portion of the game is relatively short, albeit fun, but the really interesting things happen after you finish the story and unleash the hounds of your own creativity unto the world - I'm talkin' about about custom level creations on an unprecedented scale.
The Media Molecule team has seen fit to provide all of the creation tools you could ever need to build insanely detailed objects, levels and fully-scripted narratives on your own little Moon in the Little Big Planet solar system. Everything operates in a fully-realized physics environment, so you'll have to keep your fantastic creations within the confines of Earth's gravity - unless you can build the simple machines to help you realize your goals. Which leads us to my Little Big Problem...
I am completely and utterly addicted to playing around with this game. My waking time is spent trying to figure out how to make gears work properly, how to string up a series of lights that activate when you open a door, what sort of creatures I could build to attack unsuspecting Sackboys and Girls. A game hasn't hooked me like this in years, and it's pretty refreshing. I just have to remind myself how to balance my time and keep the bills paid. It's not like I have a dynamite social life to begin with.
I guess the whole point of this post is to gush about how great Little Big Planet is and to encourage anyone with a Playstation 3 to go pick it up. Take my advice, won't you? It's totally worth it!
Oh, I forgot to mention that it's for 4-players, online and off, and is great for the whole family. Check it out!
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