LittleBigPlanet is a platform game but, in many ways could also be thought of as a game platform. As a platformer, it is a relatively simple but has a lot of charm. The aesthetic is that of a homespun toy box with lots of cardboard cut outs, different materials and stickers. In many ways, it resembles a scrapbook or the gallery from Tony Hart art programmes (and also uses the same music in the prologue). And this home-made feel is carried throughout the game with characters and levels made up of strange combinations of things that happen to be lying about. It is a great feel and seems perfect for the PlayStation 3 which has enough power to show this all but without trying to make it too detailed. It was a hugely charming game with a lot of character for the main protagonist, Sackboy. As it was multi player, with up to 4 players both off and online, each of your characters would also need to be differentiated so you could dress your sackboy up in curios that you picked up - and this level of personalisation was throughout the game. Your home, or hub, could also have stickers on it, you could take pictures and stick them up at home and lots more beside. The floaty physics were a little off-putting for me at first (not as tight feeling as Mario) but once you got used to it, the world was entirely consistent and the platforming both fun and interestingly different. As a 2D platform game, it added some layers into the mix and you had three planes in the z-axis that you could also use.
I wonder if people remember Web 2.0, or more pertinently Web 1.0. The original "web" was a world of static pages and authored content about, usually, fairly niche interests as it was aimed at the kind of people that used the web at the time. Web 2.0 was about creating some form of dialogue with your readers - except they stopped being readers and became users. User generated content. Like the explanation for selling soap to rich people in Fight Club[1], the secret was to make people pay and then work for their own enjoyment.
LittleBigPlanet was the gaming equivalent of Web 2.0 - the level editor was almost as anticipated, if not more so, than the game itself. Using a simple editor, which was very similar to the game, you could design levels with the same graphical fidelity as the levels within the game and the same levels of complexity were possible. A number of different switches and music "traps" were available to add colour and sound to the world so you could let your imagination run riot. Like Minecraft after it, some of the more popular creations were really recreations of other worlds and homages to other games and films. Who knows how many versions of Super Mario Brothers levels were made? Once made, the act of publishing was very simple and then, like a YouTube video, it was ready for anyone in the world to play with. It was a great explosion of the design world and it became a type of game platform.
A billion monkeys with a billion typewriters might be able to come up with the Complete Works of Shakespeare but what they are more likely to come up with is what we see on the Internet these days - but with fewer cats. And LittleBigPlanet levels were often like this, really dull with little of note, but the better levels were well thought out and a great exploration of the medium. A few sites attempted to curate them with mixed success. There was also a "scene" of people composing music videos and I particularly liked some of the Spirited Away ones. The series has continued with the same charm and fun with a number of instalments on the PS3, PSP, PSV and PS4 but it may have set the world up to be able to become ready for Minecraft and the creativity that has unleashed.
3 other L titles that might be interesting:
Last Of Us - Maturity in games can often be a bit misconstrued, but not always.
Link's Awakening - Zelda games work on the small screen – and this one really worked.
Lemmings - A puzzle game of saving cute little animals – quite atypical at the time.
No comments:
Post a Comment