Little Big Planet - Real Talk

LBP,

Hmmm, what to say about it. How about AAA? Well first, the graphics are astounding. The gameplay is addictive, and the creation tools are... well unbelievable.

Graphics: Phenomenal. Cutesy little sack dudes and dudettes make the game completely gender neutral. It is the equivalent of running a children's show with a controller. Actually the graphics are better than most cartoons and shows on Noggin, etc.

Gameplay:Your movement (and creation) relies on smart fluid multiplane shifting. This allows for lots of exploration and hiding of bonus items. It makes the game non-linear and unscripted. You can implement a minimum of two ways to accomplish any task in the game.

Creation: There actually appears to be 5 planes that can be taken advantage of, but it will take some creativeness to utilize them all. Many people will only recognize 3 of the 5. This makes decoration of stages complete eye-candy as you layer item on top of item and create depth in your scenes. There are ways to force attachment between items on separate planes, but it can depend on the thickness between the two items. There are rules and laws to attachment and creating items. Here is a top notch hint from me to all of you: Dark Matter is your BEST friend in creating a level. If it needs to hang in mid-air, instead of attaching a kazillion things together, make you item out of Dark Matter and paint the hell out of it. Cons of Dark matter, it will not fly no matter what, so don't use it for vehicles, etc. But use it as a rail to hang your gliders on. But the creation tools are GREAT, I was able to create a talking villainous XBOX 360 complete with mini RROD minions. All programmed to rush and attack you if get close. The tools are not necessarily N00bified, and can take a wrangling to get accustomed to. But the payoff is huge if you are into creating playing levels to share online.

Overall: Complete awe inspiring fresh new game with It is cutesy but no one will be embarrassed to play it in front of others due to the highest of cool factors. This is one of the few games I have bothered to review. It is a GOY contender and deserves a special innovation award. This game can be played with your homeboys, or your sons and daughters.

Cons: There are some quirks with the creation controls that will frustrate some. For instance, the attachment function can feel like a bowling ball in your rectum if you accidentally attach your 8 piece vehicle to a rail you've created, and it refuses to detach cleanly. It is very important to store items you create as new objects. This way, if you MUST delete an erroneously attached item altogether, you have a backup in your created objects. None of the predefined cons actually matched up to this game, but i felt it necessary to point out the attachment issues in the beta.

Note: Also, KEEP AT LEAST ONE BACKUP OF YOUR CREATED LEVELS!!! The LBP servers wiped out my 1st LEVEL creation for the GP contest to nothing but a finish gate and corrupted my original save!!! My level published improperly and all my game content was basically LOST! After I received 2 bad level reviews, I saw that my entire game was nothing... people would start to play only to appear at the finish line!!! I am SOOO glad I kept backups or I wouldn't have been able to enter the contest. Trust No Online SERVER keep a backup like I did!