GamesRelay

Name: LittleBigPlanet

LittleBigPlanet is Sony's latest exclusive game on the PlayStation 3, developed by Media Molecule the ambition is to give control of the content to the players, although many levels have been included with the game the developers hope that it will take on a life of its own with the online community by giving people the tools and the training to create their own levels and publish them online. The question for many is if Sony and Media Molecule can indeed pull this off, it's certainly a challenge on a scale not often, if ever, seen on a console before of any generation.

The action is set on the fictional LittleBigPlanet, a place where all the things that humans can dream of can come to life and be collected, stored, and shared with the world. These dream objects are known as Creations and are looked after by Creator Curators, there are eight Curators but one has gone rogue; The Curator known as The Collector has decided that he's no longer interested in sharing and wants to own all the creations for himself. Cue the hero of the tale tasked to save the day; Sackboy, or Sackgirl if you prefer, or if you're feeling particularly politically correct then Sackperson. Sackboy is a golem made of brown knitted wool and stuffed with cotton filling whose been brought to life on LittleBigPlanet; it's his job to stop The Collector from his hoarding ways and bring back all the creations for everyone to share. In order to stop The Collector Sackboy must traverse the worlds of the creators seeking out The Collector. Sackboy must help the Curators along the way in exchange for their help with bringing LittleBigPlanet back to the way it should be, a caring and sharing place suitable for all.

You first meet Sackboy in his Pod, well, your Pod, a space ship like device orbiting LittleBigPlanet, here you are introduced to the basic controls, you'll notice almost immediately the Pod's control panel looks suspiciously like a PlayStation 3 Control pad no doubt featured to make you feel apart of the world. From your Pod you are taught the basics of your Popit menu device, a floating menu attached to Sackboy by a tether, various options are available from the menu and your taught about them one at a time and in varying degrees by the soothing tones of Stephen Fry who provides the narration throughout. The Popit allows you to change the look of your Sackboy, changing the material he's made of, the colours that it comprises and can even be used to dress him in clothes, Sackboys are naked to start with but they don't have to remain that way. You're then introduced to the Pod's control panel, at first you'll not have many options available to you as they have to be explained before you can use them, but it's not long before you're transported down to the first level and the fun begins.

Each of the Curator's world is held to a certain theme, the first world you enter is The Gardens level which is looked after by The King, as might be expected this world is a lush green world primarily composed of objects that might be found in your own garden. The King and his entourage will introduce you to the basics of making your way around in LittleBigPlanet; Sackboy will learn to interact with the world and what your Popit will enable you to do. Each of the levels is composed of different materials from soft sponge material and other cloths through to harder materials such as stone and wood. These materials in LittleBigPlanet act as though they would in our world, the cloth materials are pliable and easy to get hold of, conversely the wood is hard and rigid. This is where some of the magic starts to take hold, great effort has been made to make sure these materials are as life like as possible, for example, if you come across a column of blocks which are made out of a cloth like material then jumping up and hitting them will cause them to fall over, bounce, and roll just as though you would expect them to, if however you lightly touch them then the column will wobble slightly, falling over only if you've affected the center of gravity sufficiently.

The Gardens offers several of these tutorials and before long you begin to truly believe you've got a hold of some wonderful little creature that's doing your bidding as you wander the worlds, pushing, pulling, poking, jumping and grabbing. You soon learn that although these levels are truly made of the stuff of dreams they do hold some danger for Sackboy, you'll come across elemental objects that are on fire, electrified, or surrounded in a dangerous gas cloud all of which can harm Sackboy; on top of that there are more mundane things to deal with such as spiky traps, moving blocks, and pretty soon you'll come across other creatures native to the levels that mean to do harm to the little hero as well. Should you run afoul of one danger to many times then don't worry there is a handy little check point system which sees your Sackboy reborn after each death, though you only get so many rebirths before you are dead and have to restart the level from scratch. It is a pretty good system with room for error, you get lives for each section so even if you're down to your final warning (a siren will sound) on one section then if you manage to get to the next checkpoint you're lives will be restored.

As you explore each level you'll learn that it's not all about danger and doing odd jobs for the Curators, there are objects for Sackboy to collect as well including Point Bubbles which increase your score for each level, but there are also practical things to collect as well, stickers for instance which you can use to customise each level and use in the level creator. The stickers you find are available from the Popit menu and aren't just for cosmetic value, you can stick them anywhere you see fit if that's your wish (including Sackboy) but there are special places on each level where you can stick them and they'll trigger a switch which will affect the level you're playing by opening a door to a previously inaccessible part of the level or giving you some kind of points based reward. As if that wasn't enough, you'll also encounter races in a level; these are special sections where you'll be expected to race from point A to point B as quickly as possible. These sections are often fraught with their own dangers to try and hinder your progress and lower your score, it may take a little practice to even finish the races without dying too often sometimes.

There is a total of eight different environment types to negotiate in LittleBigPlanet, one for each Curator, these span a total of 36 main story based levels to complete, some of the levels come with a key that unlocks a special challenge for Sackboy; these take the form of mini-games that need to be completed for points and stickers and can range from simple jumping exercises where you must keep your balance on a wheel as an object spins round to try and knock you off, to levels which see you stood on a conveyer belt jumping over the objects that come towards you gradually increasing in speed. The levels which Sackboy travels along on his journey cover a wide variety of themes, each of them seemingly covering a particular region of our own planet, English, African, Mexican, Indian, and Russian influences amongst others can all be seen in the game embracing the concept of one planet unity.