I am posting on my no-longer active user because I thought It was important enough of a matter.
On Friday, September 26, I was accepted into the LittleBigPlanet Beta. 4 Times.
Yeah, I applied for ScreenPlay Beta keys, and I wanted a better chance, so I applied all my accounts for it (that is, me, my two brothers, and our master account) for it. Much unexpectedly, all the accounts were accepted and a different key was sent to each one, meaning not only did i get in, but 3 of my friends (from real life) got my keys and they now are in the beta.
Anyway, enough about how I got it. This game is quite possibly the best game I've ever played in my entire life. Without a doubt, my experiences with this game have already far surpassed my experiences with even Metal Gear Solid 4. Seriously, Expect 10's across the board as far as review scores go.
Right now, there is one problem: everyone is new. The reason this is a problem is we are seriously lacking the kind of user-created levels that are completely outstanding. Like, don't get me wrong, there are some great levels, some are very unexpected (such as one where we take off in a rocket ship, fly for about 10 seconds at extreme-speed, and land on a "moon" to go into a moon car), there are some other cool creations, like one where you have a cannon and you have to aim and shoot at a dragon who is shooting fireballs at you. Cool Stuff.
But Theres no levels that are just like "Wow, this is breath taking". At least not yet. From what I hear, there are still about 23,000 keys to be given out, so it will get better as more people join and hit the learning curve.
BTW, the learning curve was short, but a bumpy one. When you first open the editing tool, it is frustrating. Stuff kept getting erased that I didnt want to be erased. Cars weren't working. Plus, the game forces you to do tutorials before you can even do anything. Later on, you'll find out that all the tutorials were insanely helpful.
The editor is simple, although very complete and feature-filled. There are three walkable layers in LittleBigPlanet: Front, middle, and back. And, there is a spot for a flat background behind the backmost walking layer. In these, you can put anything you want. When creating something, the general rules are that L1 and L2 move between layers, and R1/R2 adjust thickness (if it is flat, or takes up 1, 2, or 3 layers). You can add many different types of hinges, ropes, chains, winches, poles, pistons, and more. You can make stuff on fire or electric, or even a smelly gas that kills you. You can make explosions, a ton of different switches, disappearing material... You can even make races, with a starting line that wont open its gates until all players are on the starting platform, and then it counts down from 3.
One moment I'll never forget: In a level called "Heist part 2", the creator made a part where you are escaping through a drain, and the drain is clogged. A message comes up saying "Oh, the drains are clogged. Use some bleach to unclog that mother". and then it gives you a bleach sticker (which is a picture of some guy holding a bleach bottle). He used a sticker sensor to detect if you placed the correct sticker, and if you do, the drain is unclogged, and you can proceed. Indeed great stuff.
Additionally, if people make different objects, they can give them away in their level in bubbles. They can give away models and stickers.
After you play someone's map, you have a ton of options. Look through a slideshow. Add a comment. Tag it. Heart it (which is like favorites). Save it and edit it yourself. Theres so much to do!
Visually, the game looks amazing, however there are noticeable "jaggies" in many places. Now, I can't judge on this, really, because I downloaded the European beta (I had european beta keys), and I live in the U.S. Which is a NTSC system, and therefore uses different resolutions than Europe's PAL system. So I don't know if it affects video quality or not. Not to say that the game looks bad, because it doesnt. For the most part it is very sharp. Im just saying that you do get jaggy shadows, however it is noticeable that they do have very high-resolution textures, which is a plus.
The controls are also great. When I first heard that the game would have three layers of depth, I thought "Great, another game where I keep falling and dying because I cant tell where I'll land after a jump." Well, LBP was smart enough to take care of it. If you jump, and you are on a different layer than the next platform, it will take you to the layer of that platform. No more "will i make it or not", because the answer will always be "yes, you will, unless its your fault and you obviously miss it".
I will not discuss the multiplayer component. The beta's multiplayer SUCKS. Lag is humongusly prevalent, and makes the game unplayable at many times. I have seen more PS3 crashes than at a NASCAR rodeo with this beta's online. BUT FEAR NOT: MM has already stated that the beta build is 4 weeks old! they've already fixed these problems. At least thats what they say. We'll find out when the full game is released!
As far as other random things go, this definitely uses the power of the PS3. Why do I say this? I have stressed little big planet out like no other. How did I do this?
1. My first test was to take decorations (which are all 3d, such as flowers or springy-stars), and load my POD (main menu thingy) with them. I must have placed like 80 springy stars and probably 30 Leafs or something like that, and even with all the objects moving around and everything, there was absolutely no lag whatsoever. No FPS drop, no nothing. I could hop around the same as if I had nothing in my pod.
2. I then went to Create mode and made a ton of objects. lots of sponges, lots of bubbles, lots of everything. Bombs, Switches, everything. No lag, once again. Now, it does lag a ton if you take stuff like this into the online multiplayer (because it has to send the location of every object to all the players over the internet). But once again, those problems have been fixed for the final version of the game in October.
Wrapping things up, this is an absolutely incredible game. Whenever those Sony execs said "You can't stop smiling while you're playing it", they were absolutely, 100% right. I die, I laugh. Someone knocks me off a cliff, I laugh. The game is hilarious. This is definitely helped by the great Sackboy animation (they're so friggin cute, mine has bunny ears).
PREORDER NOW!!! IF THERE'S ANY LEFT!!!
Log in to comment