What SPORE did for Civilization-type games, LittleBigPlanet is going to do for platformers. Nobody will play the game the same way you do, and the longer you play, the more the game will become a unique reflection of your own creativity and the things YOU find fun. Joe, June, Jane and Jack can play it some stupid boring way, but you can skip all those parts and just bring the FUN ones into the game. Or make your own. Or take someone else’s and change it.
Because LittleBigPlanet isn’t just a game, it’s a thousand games, and you get to choose which ones become part of your own planet.
The game itself is narrated by British comedian Stephen Fry, who also narrated “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy”, and he makes even the tutorial a fun, fairy-tale adventure. The tutorials themselves give little peeks into the sort of worlds and levels the player will soon be making on their own, and I gotta admit, if my kids were still kids, making fun levels for them to play would be the absolute most wonderful thing ever. Every level is like a new story, with your little Sackboy or Sackgirl as the hero (and of course, you can invite your friends over to play with you! Why not?)
This is my “pod”, the room everyone gets. That planet hanging by a scrap of yarn is LittleBigPlanet itself, and using the PS3 controller in the back there, I can zoom in to any part of it and play the games I find. The pod can (of course) be decorated with the things you find in game, so even the menu screen for the game, which this is, will be as unique as the player.
I’ve barely touched the game, and the beta ends Sunday so I won’t get to go very far in it, but what I’ve seen this far makes this game an immediate must buy. Along with Rock Band 2, which comes out around the same time, this is going to be a VERY busy month.
There’s so much CHOICE in this game.. .. I’m really looking forward to it, and I think I’ve said that now once or twice.
No game is worth spending $400 to play.
You have to look at the total portfolio, which for the PS3 is lacking. For now….
The PS3 needed it’s killer app a year ago..
Based on this data…Xbox 360 has doubled sales in most continents and quadrupled in Japan…it’s toughest market.
There is no doubt that this game is what the PS3 has needed (as well as Metal Gear)
But, with no Final Fantasy until 2009, and several Squenix titles already coming for 360 first…
AND
Rumors of a Blu-Ray addon for the 360…
PS3 has become the Xbox of this generation of consoles.
When I first looked at Xbox 360 vs PS3, I decided the Xbox was the best, and bought that for my son about a year ago. Based on its portfolio and everything else. When we figured we could afford — barely — to send him to college, I had to make that choice again, since he was planning on bringing his Xbox with him (he didn’t, because it died last month, but he was planning on it). After seeing how the Xbox layered on extra charges for wireless networking, playing with people online and other things, the general shoddy quality of the hardware, the vileness of Xbox Live, and a huge catalog of games that were largely variations on a theme (and a theme I was not interested in, at that), I decided to go with the PS3.
For months I’ve used it largely as a media hub and DVD player because there weren’t any really compelling games for it. I have even used my old PS2 — still hooked up because my PS3 is not backward compatible — more for gaming than my PS3.
This morning, I started up the LBP beta and had my first glimpse of a game FAR more fun and WAY more polished than anything I’d seen on the Xbox 360 or the PS3 to that date. And given that SOE’s newer games — The Agency, DC Universe Online, and Free Realms — will be on the console, AND that the first rumors of EverQuest 3 indicate it will come to the PS3 as well — yeah. LBP would get me to buy a PS3, but only because I know this is only the first in a line of games I WILL want to play (The Agency not so much).
Should it have come earlier? Most definitely. Is the 360 kicking its butt? Most definitely. Do I still say that LBP will get folks to buy a PS3?
Most definitely 🙂
ost definitely. Do I still say that LBP will get folks to buy a PS3?
Most definitely 🙂
Bets are on. Lets check Christmas end sales (even with our economy…which clearly gives Xbox 360 an advantage though), and come back and see.
I REALLY wanted one of these after I gave my son my 360. But, the scarcity of games makes it not worth it.
As to a media hub…I have a media center PC I built for the same price as the PS3, but I can cruise the Internet, play PC games, and watch my own recorded (and other peoples recorded) shows anytime I wish.
I also have access to hulu.com which is gaining a huge library of TV shows, that I can cancel my Cable service if I wished.
I can now add a blu-ray to this PC for $199 also, which would put it on par with the PS3.
As Isanox stated…400 bucks for one killer app is a stretch.
I canceled my cable service and now use Netflix and Hulu for my TV watching. WAY cheaper.
I don’t think LBP will suddenly make the PS3 the #1 console — though I think it’s arguably way better for kids than the 360 — I wouldn’t LET a kid NEAR Xbox Live, that’s almost grounds for child abuse IMHO. But then, the Wii has that market sewed up.
All I’m saying is that LBP will get people to take another look at the PS3, and I do think some people will buy one to play it, and Free Realms at least.
I have been waiting for this game ever sence one of my friends showed me the demo almost a year ago. I own a 360, but luckily my roommate has a PS3 =). Hope to see ya theer Tipa.
P.S. So many games to play, and so little time these days =(
The kids are the problem on xbox live. And I’m worried about LPB once it goes live. There is nothing preventing a person from taking a salacious picture then posting it as a sticker all throughout your level. I have a feeling that LPB won’t be much of a family friendly experience for the first few weeks.
@TheRemedy — I worry about that, too. I assume they have a solution, but I haven’t gotten to the level where I can build my own stuff yet so I dunno. I assume at the very least that nobody will be able to vandalize my stuff unless I give them permission. And I imagine they won’t be able to copy and modify it unless I give permission for that as well. But I don’t know.
I do know I have never come across any Sporn in SPORE, ever. So they have something working to prevent that, somehow.
Today’s Penny Arcade does, naturally, show LBP Porn 😛
Occaisionally find a random penisosaurus in Spore, two clicks on the mouse and it’s gone, blocked, banned, reported or whatever. I’d hope LBP would have something similar.
Tinkered around with the character creator on the LBP site last night and, yeah, I could see me getting a PS3 for this IF it was backwards compat with the HUUUGE pile of PS2 games my kids have. Until that happens, it’ll be XBox for me (and with cheap XBoxes around this year, I know what I’d be buying as a second console atm)
So, uh, anyone else try making a Billy Doll in LBP for somebody whose Not Funny, Ever?
I have to say, you are right – i have been sitting on the fence about buying a ps3 (we already have an xbox360 that i can barely get my hands on) and then saw this game in CVG – definitly tipped my decision.
have a ps3 was thinking ofgetting xbox 360 for fable 2. I bought my original xbox just for halo
Fable 2 is a powerful argument for an Xbox 🙂 I’ll just wait for it to come out on the PC, if it does. I got bored with the first one and never finished it so I’m not first in line for the sequel.
@Tipa
I have Fable 2 pre-ordered, as it offers something that most games are forgetting…
Couch Co-OP for people who like to have friends over and duos (Husband / Wife team here…)
The ability to open your world to other players who are online also has possibilities for fun…or chaos.
I am sure I will be ranting about that game as soon as I get it (2 weeks…woot)..
Well, if I had an Xbox, I would have ordered it for sure 🙂 Looking forward to reading what you write about it!