This is the first in what I hope will be a series of posts about that oh-so-creative of games, LittleBigPlanet, the collection of which will form one great big (non) review. It’s out, uh, tomorrow in Europe but Play.com came through once again, in the same way they did for Metal Gear Solid 4, and have stumped it up nice and early. I’d go to them for your pre-orders if you’re in the UK (and they’d better be damned grateful for this free advertising I’m giving them).

So then, it’s finally here. Time to kick-start this multi-part review with the unboxing, the first-time updating, and the first couple of hours of LittleBigPlanet. Here goes.

First up, that box. It’s a shiny one, right enough. Mainly because, y’know, it’s in that shiny cellophane wrap you get. You know, the one that’s got the “PLAYSTATION 3″ tape around it that you pull away to unwrap the thing. Dead shiny, and it had that ‘new’ smell to it as well. I think that might have been been because it was new.

Anyway, with the required sarcasm out of the way (we’ve got a quota to reach y’know, otherwise the site name constitutes false advertising; true story) it was time to put the disc in and start it up. Once you’ve made your way through the various updates – server fixes, apparently – and EULA screens, it’s time to dip into the vast amount of tutorials the game has to offer.

Let me put it into context for you: LittleBigPlanet is an ocean. Try and dive straight in and swim out into the middle and you’ll end up lost and confused, unsure of how to do certain things without them going wrong. To make sure this doesn’t happen, your first few hours will be spent in tutorial upon tutorial, acting as a little paddling pool where you can get your sea legs, and so on.

Nautical puns aside, you really will spend a good 2-3 hours simply going through tutorial after tutorial, all narrated deliciously by UK comedy genius and all-round brainbox Stephen Fry, in a role not too dissimilar to his own in the recent Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy movie. With the occasional bit of typical ‘British’ wit and, um, charm, thrown in there it doesn’t really jar, and within a short time of dipping into tutorial upon tutorial you’ll be all set to get playing properly.

It’s very much a hand-holding process at first but it’s not patronizing at all; you feel like you’re learning on your own even though you’re being told exactly what to do. I think I can pin this down to your own imagination helping you along; you might be told by a tutorial to pin a motor bolt to a bow tie and make it spin, but while you’re doing that you’re coming up with a million other ways you can use the bolt, because you know exactly how it works once you’ve seen it in action.

LittleBigPlanet has the power to inspire you and drive you in that way, unlike any other game before it. Certainly, there have been tutorial levels but they’ve done nothing more than flash the controls on the screen and then left you to do the same thing over and over again. You shoot, or you drive and crash into things, as the game told you to do in the tutorial level.

In LBP, you can use each item in so many different ways that the learning process is a constant one; you can grasp how to use something, but what exactly you can use it for is something that will continually change and evolve as your understanding of each tool increases.

The fact that you’ll learn so much from simply letting your brain explode with ideas as you try each thing out justifies the hours you’ll sit learning about everything. It’s a ride made all the more pleasant by Fry, who dictates your tasks and points out the game’s features with the dry, sardonic wit of a best friend; “If you have a PlayStation Eye,” he drawls, as you await an informative instruction, “then, ooooh, get you!” All that build-up, only to tell you you’re posh enough to have a camera for your PS3. This happens a lot, and it never gets old.

Anyway, that about wraps up my first LittleBigFever post, the series of which will make up a nice big review for what is truly one of the nicest, biggest games currently out there. Keep an eye out for my next one in the next couple of days!

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to get comfy. It’s 11:40pm, and there’s an election to be watching and some gaming to be done! It’s gonna be a long night…

Tweet This Post