Little planet, big fun

After over a year and a half of development and recent controversy, Sony’s quirky side-scrolling adventure “Little Big Planet” arrives on the Sony Playstation 3.

“Little Big Planet” is one of the most basic, yet oddly complex, titles in video game history.

At its heart, “Little Big Planet” is a game of creation and customization.

You begin the game as a character named Sackboy, moving across a 2D side-scrolling environment only to realize that you are actually running through the game’s opening credits as pictures of the developers take the place of the game’s physical structure.

Later, you are taken to the wonderfully vibrant world of “Little Big Planet,” where you are guided through a tutorial of the basics by a charming narrator. It is easy to learn the game’s basic controls, such as jumping and grabbing, and more in-depth functions, like being able to control waist and head movement by physically moving the Sixaxis controller.

Although gameplay involves two-dimensional stages, you can move from the foreground to background to give each environment depth. This becomes the games biggest technical fault as you will often be caught under objects or awkwardly trying to jump between the two.

“Little Big Planet’s” realistic physics accounts for momentum, weight distribution and gravity incredibly well to help craft a world that is both realistic and challenging.

These qualities are a useful tool to contrive memorable puzzles that are entertaining during the game’s story mode.

The different stages in the game’s story mode act as drastically different environments that are beautifully textured and have a certain glow to make them feel even more like fantasy worlds. Each environment has a different theme, such as the African Sahara or a European village.

Sadly, the game’s seven environments only have three to four stages a piece, which leaves the story mode feeling short.

Throughout the game’s story mode you will collect a mind boggling amount of additional content, such as stickers, decorations, music tracks and clothing you can use to customize your character.

You can take this additional content and use it in what is the most revolutionary aspect of the game – user-generated content.

After finishing the initial stages of the game, you are given the role of game developer by creating your own “Little Big Planet” stage using a function called “MyMoon.” This is your personal space to use any and all materials in gameplay to create your very own 2D environment and share it online via the Playstation Network.

The level of customization is truly astounding and unprecedented. Any object found in the game can be rotated, resized and flipped. Plus, gamers can control all aspects of the environment including lighting, music, fog and coloring.

The possibilities are nearly endless.

However, the most annoying aspect of level creation are the tutorials required for every one of the game’s developmental abilities before you can do it for yourself. This requires a hefty time commitment.

You can then share your creation and engage in a wide variety of other multiplayer activities to create an interactive community with nearly limitless replay value.

Having played an early version of the game, I was unable to fully experience this community that appears to be the crowning glory of this incredibly unique title.

However, with the fantastic gameplay already in place and the promise of online sharing of custom levels, “Little Big Planet” is well worth the purchase.

Five out of five stars.

lifeline@cm-life.com