A Series of Tubes

It’s pretty rare for me to really like a video game, or at least it’s rare for me to like it enough to actually want to play the game all the time. I usually only discover such an addictive game about once a year. The last time that it happened was with Rock Band back in the spring, Kingdom Hearts a few years that, and way back when, the Myst series.

However, last friday (Halloween), one of my friends lent me LittleBigPlanet for the week, and I’ve been been spending most of my free time since then playing the amazing thing (I actually gave my friend back his copy on thursday, and went out yesterday to purchase my own). The game is beautiful, creative, addictive, unique, intuitive, and above all else, fun. Of course, I’ve known about LittleBigPlanet for more than a year. The trailers and gameplay videos for it during the summer of 2007 were big factors in my purchasing of a Playstation 3 in the first place, so one could say I actually spend $500 to play this game (or, if you consider the fact that I bought my HDTV to go with the PS3 around the same time, one could actually say that I spent over $1000 to play it).

In LittleBigPlanet, you play as Sackboy (above), a character made out of cloth (hence his name), and run around LittleBigPlanet (a physical manifestation of all of the dreams and imaginative energies of the people of Earth), exploring and collecting items. Items include stickers (which can be stuck anywhere in the game, even on other characters), decorations (which are like 3-dimensional stickers, and can also be stuck on anything in the game), and costumes, among other things. The costumes are a very fun part of the game, because you can really customize your Sackboy a lot using them (see below).

Besides the story mode (the main levels of the game, tied together into some sort of loose, disjointed story), there’s also the “MyMoon” area, where you can create your own levels. As you play through the official levels of LittleBigPlanet, you collect the objects from the official levels as items, allowing you to (in theory) re-create the official levels entirely, or build your own worlds. When you’ve created a level that you like, you can publish it, so other people can download and play in it themselves. You can also download and play levels that other people have made, some of which are really amazing.

Perhaps one of the best features of this already amazing game is the multiplayer gameplay. Up to 4 people can play at the same time, working cooperatively to finish the levels together. In my opinion, this is the best form of multiplayer gameplay (that is, 4 people in the same room working together, while the second best is online cooperative, then real-life competitive, and online competitive being the worst form of multiplayer), because it really feels like a group effort, and you’re playing with people you really know, and having fun together. LittleBigPlanet is a very social game, it’s actually impossible to complete it 100% on your own, there are a lot of two-player puzzles to get secret items and such.

LittleBigPlanet is definitely my favorite PS3 game thus far. I would strongly recommend it to anybody and everybody.

The Simpsons Game (what little I’ve played of it) is really really awesome. It’s definitely the best cell-shading I’ve ever seen, and also the best Simpsons game ever. Using the giant homer ball is really really fun, same with El Barto. If you have a PS3, definitely download this demo.

I bought LocoRoco Cocoreccho (the ps3 sequel to the very popular LocoRoco, for the Playstation Portable) last Thursday, when it came out on the Playstation Store. I have been playing it during almost all of my free time since then. It’s just that fun.

When I originally heard about it (in rumor form), I was extremely excited, since LocoRoco is so damn fun. You use the shoulder buttons on the PSP to tilt the whole world, and roll the LocoRoco’s along, picking up more as you go. Great gameplay, and on the PS3 it would be even more fun, since you could use the SIXAXIS motion sensors to tilt the world instead of buttons.

Then I found out that the game would be more of a screensaver than a game. I had really no idea what this meant, and ultimately it’s total bull. This is a real game, not a screensaver. But I also found out that the feature I was so excited about, the motion-controlled world tilting, was not actually a part of the game. Instead, you control a butterfly (using the joysticks), whom the LocoRoco’s follow. The SIXAXIS sensors are used, but just for tilting ramps, spinning wheels, pulling objects, and otherwise manipulating the scenery. A bit disappointing, but after actually playing the game, it is still insanely fun and addicting.