Planet it all yourself

With a cute little Sackboy you clothe yourself, and a world created by people's dreams, new concept game Little Big Planet is a refreshingly organic twist on hi-tech gaming.
In a response to the trend for homesewn crafts, scrap booking and Japanese-style manga monsters, Little Big Planet is a composite of the very homemade and the very high technology. With the massive worldwide trend for customisation in everything from your Levis to your ipod, the game offers the ultimate in making your own world to suit yourself.

The premise is that all our dreams are chanelled while we sleep into another world, Little Big Planet, fuelling a colourful happy world where Sackboys and Sackgirls run about the various gardens and areas. But a mystery is afoot; some inhabitants and their creations have gone missing from Little Big Planet. Can you find them? After learning the tricks and skills required to explore the planet in the King's Gardens, your Sackboy will be sent off to explore eight realms -including Metropolis, Islands, Savannah, Canyons and Temples- ruled by Creator Curators with their own unique cultures as you search for the missing creations. When you're ready for the frozen Wilderness (not Invercargill in July) your Sackboy will confront the Curator behind the mystery of the missing creations, known as "The Collector."

Below: the Canyons

It uses realistic physics in a platform game with the standard levels and balls to catch for prizes, but the amount of imagination you input greatly differs from any other game.
As well as the gameplay, a major part of the enjoyment from Little big Planet is the involvement you have with the characters; they can reflect your personality as you change their expression to suit your mood and their colour, pattern, and clothing. With co-operative gameplay, it's very relational rather than competitive and encourages creativity- in fact it rewards it.

I loved the use of the Popit Menu, a tool that appears above your Sackboy's head when you press the square button. It contains all the creative options you'll need. And once you've collected Materials around the planet from Prize Bubbles, new objects can be created. In Create Mode within My Moon you can start building a new level from scratch, and even Publish it, to share your creation with the Little Big Planet online community.

“It's the manifest embodiment of your perfect world” says the narrator in a Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galazy-esque voice, with a very British sense of humour. "Ooh that face looks like a smacked bottom" he says in the tutorial for changing your facial expression. 
 
So, clad in a striped swimsuit I’m off to meet the Creator Curator. See you on My Moon sometime soon?  
 

 Howdy, pardner!

Megan Robinson, November 2008