A lot of people approach video games with the idea of having an imagination. We play games because in the real world, most of us aren’t allowed to have an imagination. We go to work, we clean the dog, we pick up the dry cleaning, we eat our food, we go out on dates, we meet the person of our dreams, and then more happens that stops us from really having an imagination once again so we turn to video games or movies which allow us to live in someone else’s imagination for a short while.
Little Big Planet is sort of like that but also not. It’s a game that encourages the use of an imagination by way of its storybook development.
Based around the concept of living inside of everyone else’s childhood imagination, you’ll play as Sackboy, an androgynous biped character made out of yarn who can be dressed up to be whatever you like and controlled to within an inch of his life. He lives in the storybook world that makes up Little Big Planet, a collection of childhood design & element that looks akin to what your kids used to find in children’s books all those years ago before ideas like the PlayStation ever came to fruition.
Sackboy’s world is fun, playful and most importantly imaginative. It still has rules of physics which help to let your character push & pull things, but unlike other games, everything in Little Big Planet is essentially living in one giant sandbox. If this doesn’t make sense to you, perhaps this will: in Little Big Planet, you make the rules.
You don’t just make the rules, you make the world. Most of what makes Little Big Planet fantastic is that its designed around the concept of its user-base making content for Little Big Planet. A downside of this is that Media Molecule – the creators of Little Big Planet – monitor what goes on pretty frequently and have been known to make some quick decisions about some of the better levels to see the light of day. Regardless, this whole user content side of things makes Little Big Planet one of those never-ending titles because of the sheer amount that’s out there for you to play.
Judging it like a game, the graphics are amazing with it being a very colourful and beautifully 2D adventure. The sound is equally cute and quirky with little noises puncturing their way through the music and causing your face to go “awww”. If you never thought a side-scroller could work on a next-generation system, you’ll be incredibly surprised here as Little Big Planet works on pretty much every level. It even uses SixAxis well, a motion control concept I was beginning to think no one at Sony would ever get right.
Ultimately, Little Big Planet is as close to perfection as Media Molecule could ever want it to be. It is simple and stunning, an achievement in design and fun. Little Big Planet could well be the best game of the year and is easily worth a look, especially if you have kids.
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