At some point during each generation of game consoles there comes a game that exemplifies what before was impossible. For today’s consoles, LittleBigPlanet is that game.
Media Molecule’s first project is a platformer that takes a youtube approach to playing a videogame. A freeform editor let’s a community of players create, share, and rate levels in a surprisingly simple interface.
User Generated Content: Search, Play, Rate
That’s literally the entirety of what players are required to do to enjoy LittleBigPlanet. Finding content to play is as easy as looking through cloth buttons on a world map resembling Super Mario World, playing those that look interesting or seem popular, and then giving them a star rating.
In a world where increasingly involving games between the Playstation 3 and Xbox 360 demand more and more of people’s time, LittleBigPlanet offers a massive potential for content in a very pick-up-and-play format.
Usually when systems like this are established with users as the main providers of content it takes a while for anything truly worthwhile to emerge, but the community behind LittleBigPlanit is already showing impressive creativity mere days after the game’s beta test and retail launch.
While there does exist content obviously thrown up for superfluous reasons like quickly getting Playstation Network trophies, it’s largely being overshadowed by clever content that’s both successfully emulated today’s landscape in game form and exhibited a profound range of creativity.
What’s notable about this is the fact that what makes LittleBigPlanet such an essentially next generation game isn’t its beautiful high definition graphics but how uniquely and constantly online connectivity is tied to its functioning.
LittleBigPlanet’s depth starts to fully emerge once players investigate the creation tool. It allows more freedom than most creation tools in games but can be used by almost anyone.
At first players will have to go through a series of tutorials, but once the mechanics are understood, making levels is little more than a matter of creating objects, connecting them, and working within the game’s laws of physics. It’s kind of like inventing your own pieces and machines in an Erector Set as opposed to modifying a computer game.
Part of the reason why LittleBigPlanet is so accessible is probably because it applies all its innovations to a game formula that virtually every owner of game consoles has been familiar with since they first picked Super Mario Bros. over 20 years ago.
Media Molecule’s Own Contributions
At heart, LittleBigPlanet is a classic sidescrolling platformer which Media Molecule seems extremely able in designing. Even if LittleBigPlanet was just another static game with none of its user generated content, it would still have its top-tier level design to fall back on.
The levels included in LittleBigPlanet by Media Molecule are as fun, inventive, and challenging as many of the best old school platformers. The contraptions Media Molecule themselves set up for players are both extremely challenging and mind-bogglingly elaborate, especially considering they were all made with the same tools that are available to the players.
Furthermore, Media Molecule has given LittleBigPlanet some amazingly detailed and charming art design. LittleBigPlanet’s visuals at once show off the graphical prowess of today’s Playstation 3 and carry an innocent playfulness resembling what many of today’s gamers grew up with.
The only truly detrimental thing to LittleBigPlanet is the core engine it’s based upon. Realistic physics, while almost essential in today’s games, are highly uncommon in classic platformers. The way LittleBigPlanet handles this among other things can be jarring to veterans of two-dimensional games. These qualms however are quickly overshadowed by LittleBigPlanet’s tight design and the possibilities for players to work around them.
Bottom Line
LittleBigPlanet is just one of those instances where a brilliant idea – a product of the times, combines with smart, polished game design to create something that should be a marker for things to come.
Daniel Sims - Daniel Sims lives in Fairfax, Virginia and recently graduated from George Mason University with a Bachelor Arts degree in ...
