Review: Little Big Planet 2

I'll start this review off by saying I DID NOT play the original Little Big Planet. I only knew of it, and what the whole deal was about. This said, I dove into LBP2 with a great deal of excitement. After all, I expected it to be the definitive Little Big Planet experience. Is it a good one? Or a bad one? Read on to find out.

Little Big Planet 2
Developer:Media Molecule
Publisher: Sony Computer Entertainment
Released: January 18, 2011 (North America)

Little Big Planet 2 is a game about crafting stuff and then playing through that stuff which you or other dudes crafted. Environments, levels, games, all of this can be put together by anyone who wishes to spend some time learning the included tools.  The game's visuals reflect this DIY aspect as most of the assets provided, once combined, resemble a patchwork of home-made handiwork. It's cute, and I really like it.

The main story, which can be played with up to 4 players cooperatively, follows a little sack person and his allies in a quest to save Craftworld from the Negativitron, some kind of evil vacuum cleaner/ TV set from space.  The plot makes no sense but honestly, who cares; the characters and events that transpire are so silly that they have a lot of charm while only occasionally being annoying.  There is a good variety in the levels and gameplay found in the story mode. Most levels are simple platformers with light puzzles while the best ones have you doing stuff a bit more out of the ordinary, like controlling rideable animals with different abilities or clearing the way for an army of AI sackbots.

Playing through the story shouldn't take over 8 hours plus it is a good way to check out what sort of things can be made in the game's creation mode, and for someone who isn't sure of what they want to make, it can provide good inspiration. In a way, it is also kind of 'required' to play through the main Story and not only that, DO GOOD on it in order to unlock more and more assets (decorations, objects, materials) that can then be used in Creation mode.

It's bad that a lot of the levels in the story mode, and some of the easiest to make in the creator are platform levels. The game controls with this, floaty loose feeling which I believe tries to emulate characters being moved about by invisible hands or puppeteer strings.  I wouldn't mind it as much if I hadn't died a bunch when the game required me to do a precise jump or dodge an enemy's projectile.  Here is a tip to all LBP2 level makers out there reading this review: Don't be mean when making your stuff. Know that without some good tweaking and design, hard jumps are going to be cheap and annoying.

You know what else is super annoying?  The grappling hook power-up. Its cousins the gun that can be made to shoot anything and the gloves of throwing are the cool guys in the power-up family but grappling hook just sucks. It swings and retracts but you'll end up swinging when you want to retract and viceversa. Also, when playing with other people you'll end up grappling to each other instead of to a safe spot and fall to your death. (That was funny, though) Throughout the Story mode, the grappling hook will mercilessly tease you, giving you glimpses of secret areas and hidden treasure that it won't let you get to because it's so stupid. Despite the awful grappling and jumping in the story, I still enjoyed it quite a bit.

Once you're done with the nice appetizer that is Story mode, you move on to the meat, the main course:  Playing user created levels and making your own.

Create mode has a great series of tutorials that cover pretty much everything you need to know to start making cool levels. There is around 50 of them and most of them have you actually do what was just shown to you which was pretty nice.   These tutorials are mandatory, though. Tools unlock only after you complete the respective lesson. Kind of a bummer as I like messing around with things, say, when I buy a microwave I can just toss the manual aside and go straight to burning stuff.   Not included are a set of sample levels that the player can just open and edit to see how they are put together.  This is not a big issue as I'm sure time will bring many tutorials and walkthrough videos explaining easy ways around common tasks.

The tools are pretty comprehensive, and they are all just a few button presses apart from each other. There is also a handy rewind feature that undoes your last change (THANK GOD).  It's easy to start making a little world that your sackperson can run around in, but don't expect to have rocketships fly around and scripted camera movements all over your world within the first 5 minutes of you starting Create mode. You will need a little time and patience (duh) for the more complex stuff.

I personally love creating stuff and because of this, I love the creation mode. Just playing around with the different objects and tools will bring many people hours of entertainment and the learning curve doesn't seem THAT steep, so their skills can only improve with time without getting too frustrated.

Only a week after release there are plenty of user made levels available online. Some of them are funny short movies, others are renditions of popular songs using the in-game synthesizer, and many more are levels that can be played either single, or multiplayer. There are plenty of filters to use and you can also search by text when browsing levels, although I couldn't find an option to go straight to the most popular levels when searching a specific description. Some levels or let's call them 'games' look or play nothing like what the usual LBP level does. I'm talking about top-down shooters, adventure games, sports, even tower defense games.

These are fascinating to both play and wonder at the creativity and dedication that went towards making them.   Also, any custom made objects created by a level's author can be given as rewards so that players may use them on their own levels. This is a great idea and one that makes LBP seem like a true community of creation.

The best way to play many of the user created levels is with some friends. Find a competitive or cooperative level, see who does best and then move on to the next game. You will be entertained for hours. Don't get too competitive, though. The somewhat loose controls mean that for some games luck will be involved just as much as skill. Oh, and as of writing this review, those friends you play with better be willing to hang out at your place; joining up with people's games online tended to get me stuck in an infinite loop of loading. And I heard others complain of the same.

The way I see it, playing Little Big Planet 2 is like visiting a quality flash game website. There are tons of games to play, most of them simple but entertaining nonetheless. There will be some with great ideas and execution, even if they are only for playing through a couple of times,  and a ton of levels that amount to nothing more than romps through varied environments.  Yes, you may be in space, underwater or in a homage to whatever fiction you enjoy, but as long as all you do is run around, look at things or push and pull stuff, it won't be that interesting.

I hope that eventually the best  and most unique levels are appreciated for their own merits and ideas rather than the "Oh, wow! How did they do THAT!" approach.

Little Big Planet 2 has a lot of potential. This is a special case in which the players get to decide whether that latent potential can be exploited and turned to greatness.

Already I have seen levels that show what the game can be used for.  People's creativity will find ways to work around whatever limitations the game ends up having.  I think of the power-ups included in the game, the grappling hook, for example, and wonder if perhaps -had it not been included- players would have been able to stitch up their own version by toying around with objects, behaviors and settings. I like to think that it is possible. This could be a good test for how customizable the game actually is. As long as people keep coming out with good levels or as long as I can stave off the frustration of not being able to finish MY perfect level and just abandon it, this game is phenomenal and will be worth coming back to.

The areas that the game has issues with can be ignored or put aside; all you need to do is go find some games that have the elements you enjoy. How crazy is that? If you don't like the game, instead of getting another game, you play another game, within your game.

Woah.

One final thought. Kudos to the Little Big Planet 2 community for being either fantastic or strongly moderated. All comments left on other people's levels were either praise or constructive criticism. None of the foul, hateful stuff that one usually sees out there.

Score: 89 out of  100

(80-89%: Great – Only very minor issues get in the way.)