Super Fun!
Story ~ Basically you're the cutest little sack person ever, in your very large sack world out to find adventure in each Creator Curator's made realm... And saving flaming cats or beating baddy bosses on the side. Fun easy stuff!
Gameplay ~ In my opinon it's super simple stuff just to get through each platform. You run, jump, swing, slide, press buttons and pull levers to get where you need to be. Avoiding obsticles such as hidden spikes, flames, gas, and being squished into a little sack pankcake. It's a definate cute, and self explanatory platform game that reawakens how we as kids would play them constantly. Usually requiring us to hog the family room tv back in the day :P
But not everything is perfect. Although the gameplay is easy and fun, sometimes it's a little difficult to differentiate where to be. And what I mean by that is the fact that the world of LBP, albeit a platform, is a 3d platform. Depth perceptions can be thrown off if not looking at it at a proper angle. So when you take off into a good run and you think that fiery pit of spikes is on your sack person's left, it's really right in front of you and bam you're dead. So yeah, sometimes it's really hard to tell where you need to stand when trying to get across things. And sometimes the oddly placed camera doesn't help with that at all either.
Controls ~ Controls are pretty simple, as explained in the LBP tutorials as well lol. And they handle pretty well too once you get them down. Sometimes I have jumping issues such as jumping a little further then I want too but then that's probably human error on my part. Running, jumping, clinging, and yes even smacking your buddy around is all simple and plenty fun. I especially like smacking others lol.
Visuals ~ Yes the visuals and details to LBP are astounding. Giant skateboards, teacups you can hide in, aligators, monkeys! It's got it all. All put in a silly little art style that's for sure going to put a smile on anyone's face ~ including your sack person!
Customization ~ Loving every minute of it. Whether I dress my little sack girl as medusa, a female version of Kratos, or randomize it to look like a backwards hillbilly, it's all in good fun. And if you're creative enough you can put objects on your sackperson as well as the outfits you find. No one will care if you run reckless in leves with an oversized star on a spring sticking out of your head... or tummy.... And they won't question why you have on a bunny tail and a cardboard box. Or how you managed to paint your little toy sackdoll you carry around bright pink. It's all for one in making each one special! Don't forget to take screenshots of your oddball and publish so others can giggle at your horrid sense of fashion.
The Pod, where you go inbetween lvls, is customizable too. So that when other little sack people drop by to say hello, they can be awed by giant flowers or plants, or the fact you got an enormous ROFL sticker plastered to your ceiling lol.
LvL Creation ~ After you collect all the necessary items on each lvl and gained 100%, what next? You create your own level of DOOM! Use your creative thinking cap and get to crackin'! It's almost limitless as to what you can do. At first I was pretty skeptical b/c at a first glance you'll notice a thermometer bar on the left hand side of the screen that shows about how much is left you can put into each created lvl. But surprisinly that takes longer then I thought to finish. But an endless stair case! Make everyone feel like hampsters in a ball by making them run thru fire inside a tube they have to push from the inside. Create monsters to chase them down. Make it as easy or as difficult as you want. Publish it. Have friends Heart it. Play it! And I have to say, I've had to traverse some almost IMPOSSIBLE stages.
Online play ~ This is where Sony and Media Molecule improved on an already fun to play game. Sure it's fun to play alone and beat high scores, but why not bound through lvls with 2-4 people instead, bungling up everything! It's pretty much required to have other players join you in story mode eventually because you're gonna need their help (and I almost bet they need yours too) to complete some of teh 2 player and 4 player sections stashed in each lvl. That is... if you want the 100% completion hehe. Make new friends, heart them, play their lvls, help each other out. And importantly, have fun!
One downfall of online play with other members is communication. I've found either having a usb headset or keyboard, or even a blue tooth headset is pretty important. Or you'll be spending time trying to use the ps3's typing system and making everyone impatient waiting on what you have to say. The other downfall playing with others is sometimes you don't always agree with what others want to do, you all try to go seperate directions... and that usually means someone dies needlessly. Arguments can start this way, and we don't want that, so be careful!!
At first the online play was pretty iffy. That's due to some server issues that have been since then repaired. But I can still see some lagging issues. I've had my fair share of networking erros when trying to visit other sack friends, either to play a lvl or just to pop in their pod. Sometimes you'll jump in a story or community lvl too late so you watch them try to finish it up. That's fine and all, but you'll lag hard til you actually get in the room and then the whole thing speeds up really quick to catch up to what your friends are doing. It's a little disorienting.
Also, in multiplayer mode the camera is a little absurd. It'll constantly want to go back and forth between players. This causes problems if you're falling behind, because it'll want to focus on who's in the lead leaving you stuck to try and feel around and not die anymore on your journey to catch back up to the victors.
All in all, I've enjoyed this game so much so far in the first week I've had it. There's nothing like it so far, and I'm hoping for more interactive games like this in the years to come.