The Demo from Hell: LittleBigPlanet

The story you are about to read is not meant as a commentary on the game, LittleBigPlanet. Rather, it is a cautionary tale about how a PR rep's terrible mishandling of a game demo can reflect negatively on a title's potential.

It was the second day of E3. Microsoft, Nintendo, and Sony had presented their press briefings the day before, and now it was time to get some hands-on time with the games. I had spent most of the day at the Viceroy Hotel in Santa Monica checking out Microsoft's lineup. I had made appointments for most of the game demos but I was also able to see games simply by walking and introducing myself to the reps.

On a side note, check out our previews for Halo Wars, Mass Effect, and Halo 3. They were my surprise favorites from Microsoft Game Studios.

Sony's hands-on time, however, was set up a bit differently-an open room located in the back of the Merigot Hotel was set up with kiosks, high-def Sony televisions, and leather stools dented by the butts of 3,000 gamers. The rules were simple: If a seat and controller were available, sit down and play.

There were many games on display but I had come for one game and one game only: LittleBigPlanet. My eyes scanned the room until I found the game being demonstrated on two televisions that were set up against the back wall next to the redesigned PSP. Alex Evans, co-founder of Media Molecule and creator of LittleBigPlanet, was giving a demo to three of my colleagues. All the people involved wore big smiles on their faces. They laughed as they slapped each other, placed stickers, and created objects within the game; it was clear that they were enjoying themselves. I watched as Alex created four tanks with fully mobile wheels affected by physics for each player to ride on. Like a kid in the electronics department of Target, I looked on anxiously awaiting my turn to get my "hands-on" and play.

When it came time for me to sit, I accepted the PS3 controller from another journalist with much enthusiasm. I found myself sitting next to a friend of mine from a major online publication and we exchanged hellos. He decided to hang out and play LittleBigPlanet with me.

The setup seemed perfect: getting to experience the collaborative free-for-all gameplay with the affable and gregarious creator of the game and my friend sounded like the ideal scenario.

Unfortunately, before I had even settled into my seat, a Sony rep walked up and said, "Alex, we really need you to do interviews now."

"Oh, ok. Should I shut this game down?" Alex replied.

My heart momentarily sank but my hope rose again when the Sony rep said, "No, we've got somebody else coming to demo it."

Okay, even with someone else running the demo, I figured I'd still have a good time. My eyes drew back to the screen in front of me. My fellow editor had created a sticker the size of a jumbo jet, causing the graphical prowess of the PS3 to be pushed beyond its limits. Heavy clipping occurred and many items onscreen began to disappear. Normally, this would be disheartening but in LittleBigPlanet, this sort of thing seemed like it was just par for the course. Of course, I wanted to join in on the fun and was just about to start wrecking creative havoc when the demo began its trek down the slippery road to Hell.

"Are you guys trying to break my game," a voice said from behind us. We turned and saw that the rep who was going to take over for Alex Evans had arrived. He seemed annoyed by the "damage" we had done to his game. "Now, I'll have to reset the whole PlayStation."

While we waited for the PS3 to restart, the rep began to chat with us about the game.

"So, have you guys played before?" the new rep inquired. He could have been from Sony but from the way he claimed LittleBigPlanet as, "my game," I guessed he was from developer Media Molecule.

Obviously, we had played before, considering we had been slapping each other around, jumping, creating objects, and having a great time just a moment ago. We told him as much.

"Well, we're going to start off slow," the rep said. "You've got to walk before you can run, and run before you can sprint. We'll start with the Game Developers Conference level."

I turned to look at my friend with questionable brows. The first thought that came to my mind was this: isn't LittleBigPlanet about freedom and having fun? Isn't it meant as a game where experimentation is not only necessary but integral to the game? So why in the world were we going to start off slow? Why not give us a brief tutorial on the game's core mechanics, and then set us loose to do what we wanted? After all, wasn't that the entire point of the game?

Still, the GDC level sounded like it would be pretty fun, so we sat back and waited for our "walking" lesson to begin.

The level loaded and immediately, I began pressing buttons. All of the options were there except the button to bring up the creation inventory. The rep opened a debug menu and I saw that the option was disabled. That explained things. He changed the option to character-customization only and I immediately took advantage by putting a silly top hat and snazzy vest onto my character. Seeing this, the rep immediately jumped back into the debug menu and disabled the inventory option, nerfing my ability to edit my character's appearance.

I looked over at my fellow editor and saw that his face was squished behind the same sense of growing frustration that must have been obvious on my own visage. What the hell was going on? Why was this rep holding us back in our attempt to enjoy the game?

I decided to ignore the fact that I couldn't play or experiment with what was arguably the core concept behind the game. We followed on as the rep continued to "walk" us through the demo at a snail's pace.

"Oh!" I suddenly shouted. "These are the arches where the mushroom stickers were placed at Sony's GDC presentation. Can you turn on the stickers, please?"

The rep gave me a stone-faced look. "Again, you really need to walk before you can run."

I was now officially pissed. I looked once again at my fellow editor who was, at this point, also completely fed up. The demo had done nothing but sap our enthusiasm for the game. But determined to salvage what we could from the demo, we momentarily ignored the rep and started slap-fighting with our characters. Now, we were starting to have some fun. I smiled for the first time since the demo started.

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