Okay Geek Farm
PS3 Review - LittleBigPlanet 2
Jamie Donnelly
LittleBigPlanet; I loved it, I cherished it, I idolized it, but with LBP2 I had my reservations — that is until I saw its imense amount of beta footage, which at that point I made a 180, and my anticipation reached fever pitch. So now that it’s finally been released how does it stack up against my now high expectations?
What’s the Story with LBP2?
LittleBigPlanet 2 certainly isn’t going to be winning scriptwriting awards anytime soon. ‘The Negativitron’ is attempting to destroy Craftworld, and Sackboy must help ‘The Alliance’ to defeat him. On your journey you will run and jump your way through a plethora of varied locations; from steam-punk factories to the innards of a human being. If somebody told me tomorrow that Noel Fielding and Julian Barratt (the creators of The Mighty Boosh) had been asked to help create the universe of LBP2, I would not be the least bit surprised. The levels all have names that you cannot help smirking at before immediately shaking your head at the poorness of the pun (‘Fowl Play’ was a particular favourite of mine, in which a giant chicken chases you throughout the stage).
How’s the Gameplay?
At first glance it may appear that LBP2 has moved on very little from the first one in terms of the gameplay on offer. It is still a 2.5D game, taking place on three layers. The majority of the main story levels are of a platforming nature and will have Sackboy running and jumping through the various dangerous obstacles that lie in his path. However, the platforming element of LBP2 is only the tiniest tip of the iceberg. Imagine buying a dining table. This dining table does everything that you expect a dining table to do. You then discover that you can in fact use this table as a chair, as cutlery, as a plate, and to top it all off, you can eat it as well. This is the exact experience that LBP2 gives to its players. While it is a platformer at heart, it also offers countless other gametypes; ranging from side scrolling shooters to top down racing. This constant mash-up of genre types throughout the story kept it fresh and exciting from start to finish.
Even within the platforming sections of the game there are new tools to keep it interesting: there is a grappling hook that lets you swing from any latchable material, ‘The Creationator’ shoots out anything that it has been set to shoot (be it water or a cupcake). And ‘The Grabinator’ allows you to pick up and throw any object. All these tools are needed at some point to solve various puzzles throughout the game, but the most fun comes from mucking about with a friend.
I spent far too long throwing a fellow Sackboy, who also happened to be holding an explosive, towards an enemy and watching them both explode. It was a slapstick level of comedy, but it amused me; even if that does make me somewhat of a simpleton. The grappling hook feels quite clunky at first, but once you are used to it you’ll be swinging through levels and renaming your partner Jane. Swinging over flaming pits resulted in audible gasps, especially when you have another Sackboy holding onto you for dear life.
The other new gameplay element that LBP2 adds is the inclusion of Sackbots. Sackbots are, as the most astute of you may have guessed, robotic Sackboys. In “Create Mode” you can program them to do all sorts of things, but in the story they are mainly used on rescue levels reminiscent of Abe’s Odyssey.
The story mode in the first game was not particularly challenging, and LBP2 has toned down the difficulty levels even more. You will die plenty of times on your way to the end, but the amount of lives you are gifted means it never becomes frustrating. While simply completing levels may be easy, getting all the prize bubbles and finishing without dying will take time and practice. Even if the ease with which you can complete story mode disappoints you, I’m sure there will be community levels that will test your steel as much as any other game ever has.
And speaking of which, the community is where LBP2 really shines. It is almost as if the story mode exists simply to say “here are all the tools and how we used them, now it’s your turn”. There are many fantastic original concepts already existing amongst the community levels, and I have also come across Zelda and Mario clones, as well as countless others. Unfortunately, getting to the best levels is not always such an easy task. While Media Molecule have refined the community section and made it easier to find the best of the best, you will still find yourself wafting through poorly constructed, misshapen attempts at game design before finding those true gems.
It is also difficult to judge the community while it is still in its infancy, however it’s no doubt that once players begin to crack the creative potential of LBP2 their creations will most likely blow our collective minds. Currently the community element of the game is also dragged down by the connectivity issues that seem to exist. New players entering your level can take ages to load, and sometimes levels fail to connect altogether. This may just be because there is currently such a huge weigh-down on the servers, and these problems may disappear once the initial online activity dies down, but it is still a blemish on an otherwise polished title.
Create Mode
Play, Create, Share — This is the motto of LittleBigPlanet, and no LBP experience would be complete without diving into the Create Mode. Unfortunately, getting into the create mode in LBP2 involves first standing at the tip of the very highest diving board you can find. An overwhelming number of tutorials await, fifty to be precise, and even Stephen Fry’s dulcet tones and twee commentaries cannot prevent these from becoming increasingly tedious. (By the fiftieth tutorial you will in fact never want to hear his voice again).
If you are familiar with create mode from the first installment then a lot of the tutorials can be skipped. The main problem with them in general is that they did not tell me what I actually wanted or needed to know. How can I make a side-scrolling shooter, or a J-RPG? The tutorials teach you the tools and then expect you to figure this bit out for yourself. What’s the point in giving you an instruction manual that tells you what all the individual pieces do, but doesn’t actually tell you how to put any of it together? The internet will soon have guides up telling me how to do these things, but it’s pretty frustrating that there weren’t any sort of templates of these types of level design concepts.
With the inclusion of so many tutorials, it would be natural to assume that there is a whole range of complicated tools that no mere mortal could ever figure out how to use. This assumption would be partially correct if you do not take into consideration the lack of options in the first game. Media Molecule have clearly listened to their community, and whereas in the first game creating AND logic switch required a complicated array of carefully setup objects and switches, it is now simply its own tool. The same applies to many of the new tools and it means creating complicated levels is a whole lot simpler than in the first installment once you get to grips with what is going on. There is also now the ‘Controllinator’ which allows you to map any control scheme to an object you have created. It is using this that the most creative levels can be made, but as previously mentioned, you are not taught how to maximize its true potential. Although I have made create mode sound like a nightmare to learn, it really is worth spending the time on it as once you are able to create your own levels you will feel just like a developer. Seeing your ideas and designs come to life, and allowing other players to experience them, is what makes LBP2 the game it is.
How Does it Look and Sound?
I have already praised the creativity of LBP2 many times, and it is thanks to this creativity that the style of the game looks so good. It may not be photo-realistic graphics but that’s not what it needs to be. It embraces its own graphical style and the new camera features allow the storyline to become a streamline, cinematic experience. Not to mention that there are even more crazy costumes in which to dress your Sackboy in, and when scrolling through the outfits it becomes very apparent where Lady Gaga has been getting her fashion inspiration from. It may not be a story of groundbreaking stature and gritty realism, but it encompasses everything that LBP2 is about; child-friendly, weird, and wonderfully fun.
The soundtrack mimics the mood of the levels on the tee; bouncy, upbeat tunes for the more happy-go-lucky levels and eerie, Nightmare Before Christmas-esque melodies for the strangest of ones. The sound effects are silly and absurd, and the high pitched squeal that Sackboy emits just before he dies is as soul destroying as ever.
Overall
LittleBigPlanet 2 is not simply a reiteration of the first instalment, but instead takes the original formula and expands it to infinite levels. It is a refreshing break from the seriousness of so many games today and offers so much cuteness it could force even Gregory House to crinkle a small smile. Platforming, shooting, RPG-ing; LBP2 has it all.
“… fresh and exciting from start to finish.”Pro’s
- It’s weird, it’s wonderful, and most of all, it’s fun.
- Create Mode offers a wider, simpler range of tools.
- Acts like a party game thanks to the amount of different levels on offer.
Con’s
- Fifty Tutorials is excessive and intimidating.
- Connectivity and loading issues when playing online.
- A lot of bad community levels to waft through.
The create mode may seem intimidating at first, but there are plenty of seasoned experts creating fantastic levels that you can enjoy all the same and hopefully they will inspire you to take on the challenge for yourself. There are many long, complex and fascinating words in the English language, but LittleBigPlanet 2 can be summed up by one of the simplest; fun.
9/10
