Here’s a recipe for success. Take a highly engaging gameplay mechanic, allow for interesting interaction and then, open up development to the whole of the player community. What do you get? 1.5 million LittleBigPlanet 2 levels, and counting.
Sackbot returns with his high-flying, massively customizable, uniquely endearing personality. A personality that can be custom-tailored for every single user, given that you’re good enough to collect the gear, patterns, costumes and collectibles to turn your sackbot into the exact creature you want it to be. Plus, there’s a grappling hook, every great game needs a grappling hook, right?
LittleBigPlanet was a runaway success for Media Molecule and Sony. Its exclusivity to the Playstation platform gives Sony another big weapon in the console war. Of course, there really is no console war. It’s a war for gamers’ attention and money and this game gives you ample reasons to sink both into it.
While the core game mechanic stayed much the same, the creation tools evolved. As Media Molecule said early on, it’s not just about making levels now, it’s about making games. Direct Control Seat is the tool that lets you do just this. It gives you the ability to map buttons to items and functions. What that truly means is that suddenly, you have an entire system for creating a control scheme and along with the ability to build almost any level you like, gives you a way to make games for other sackbots to fool about with.
Now some of us aren’t the creative types and so are more interested in the playing of the game. There’s ample levels built right into the game itself to get you off and running. Once you’ve finished with Larry Da Vinci, you can then start to explore the myriad wonders that the community have made. My first community-made level was an F-1 Monza racing level. The controls on the car weren’t exactly Gran Turismo 5 quality, but hey, I got to drive a racecar with my Fu Manchu mustachioed sackbot and he never lost his Fez, that’s just cool.
