Felix: I have a LOT of games in my to-be-played stack. Some, years old. And these aren’t the shitty ones that have been left by the wayside, either. Quality games like Valkyria Chronicles, Shadow of the Colossus, Okami, that are just waiting for a bit of a time to be allocated to them so they can be finished, and adored even more.
I found a bit of spare time this afternoon, after work. What did I do with it? I played LittleBigPlanet. A game which, at the time of writing, is about 6 months old. I picked it up at launch, and played it then. I finished the main story levels months ago, but continued playing to collect the items I’d missed. And half a year later, by which time most other games would be collecting dust, LBP is still releasing patches, downloadable content, and filling up slots in my gaming schedule.
Stripped back, LBP is essentially a platformer with a cute mascot. For a significant slice of the gaming population, this is all LBP will ever be. “It’s not doing anything that hasn’t been done before”, “the controls are slippy”, “having three planes is stupid and frustrating”, “the English voiceover dude is cool”.
It’s their loss. They’ve completely missed the point of the game. Let them go back to their brainless macho FPS bullshit.
And for the record, his name is Stephen Fry. Look up his Twitter.
The core gameplay is divided into three distinct segments, defined by LBP’s motto – Play, Create, Share.
The Play portion is straightforward – finish the level, unlock the next one. Media Molecule (the developers) have built the game around several distinctly-themed worlds to travel through – the first of which is mostly a tutorial – easing you into the dynamics of the controls. After that you’ll find yourself in Africa, Asia, India, even Mexico – each with its own style and nuances. The difficult curve is relatively graceful – until the end – stupid Bunker level.
As an aside to the main story levels, there are also challenge levels – stay alive for as long as you can, earn as many points as you can within a timeslot – things like that just to mix it up a bit. Personally, I didn’t find them interesting really, and would have preferred them to concentrate on making more actual levels. The main story levels have a certain quality and atmosphere to them that the challenge levels – by necessity – strips away. Most people I know who have played to the end of LBP’s story mode exclaim “Is that it?”. Happy, but wanting more.
For the completionists amongst us – scattered throughout the levels are literally hundreds prize bubbles to collect. Know that lil buzz you get when you earn a trophy/achievement in a game? Yep – you’ll get that feeling every single time (LBP also has trophies, which are seperate from the prize bubbles here). Unfortunately, once you’ve collected something once, it turns into a big version of the points bubble, and it’s not such a big deal anymore in subsequent runthroughs. Stickers, decorations, costumes and materials – however – once collected can then be used within levels you build yourself.
Which brings me to the next part of LBP – Create.
Included with the game are a bunch tutorials and tools you need to create your own levels. The more items you’ve unlocked during the game, the more materials are available for you to choose from. It is seriously overwhelming – especially if you finished the main story levels before you started building your own, like I did. The developers have been quick to point out that all its own levels are built using the very same tools that they provide – highlighting the fact that quality is possible if you have the patience and inspiration.
This is probably the point in the game where you’ll most notice LBP’s cutesy graphical style. You can spend hours choosing between one spongy block pattern and another (and probably just end up using the default one), but those designers with a bit of nous will publish level as sophisticated as the ones MM made themselves.
Publishing your levels is how your level is Shared with the rest of the LBP community.
I remember reading an article on Kotaku the other day, apparently there have been over 700 000 levels published so far. Unfortunately, most of them are utter shite. Manage to trawl past them, and you can find some absolutely amazing stuff. Each user will have their own take on LBP, be it focusing on an interesting story, quirky game dynamic, or just making you think “How the fuck did they do that?” (check out the LBP Contra remake, Libidius – a space shooter!, or the guy who’s made a fully functional mechanical calculator).
Levels are sorted using both a hearts (essentially, favourites) and a rating system (1-5 stars). It’s not perfect, but it mostly serves the purpose of helping good levels bubble to the top of the pile. You’re also able to heart creators, if you find a particular author whose work you appreciate. It’s odd though, apart from a simple commenting system, this is about the extent of community that MM have built into the game itself. Strange, for a game that is so focused on sharing and multiplayer.
And multiplayer is where LBP really shines. Games are a fantastic mishmash of both cooperative and competitive fun (well, levels are mostly meant to be coop, but slapping a friend into a fire bit never stops being hilarious). You can play any level with 1-4 players (online, local, or any mix of the two). Local multiplayer is preferred – online play is built on a P2P system – so your game lags as much as the player with the worst connection. A few levels actually have sections that can only be accessed with 2-4 players – so break out those dualshocks!
So what makes LBP so alluring, and enjoyable to play?
To be honest, I’m not sure I’ve worked it out. But it’s bound to have something to do with its simplicity, accessabiliy, and ability to continuously amaze. The Play platforming-part is a well trodden path (see Mario, Yoshi, et. al.), so I figure it’s the Create and Share sections that are setting LBP apart. Media Molecule have essentially bundled a toolkit and tutorial, and said ‘Do whatever you can’. And there are some REALLY creative people out there.
Unfortunately, it’s more than likely that the first few levels you make will be shit. There’s a good reason why most of the user levels are shit. The tools can be fiddly – especially if you don’t know what you’re doing yet – and won’t react in the way that you expect them to. You’ll notice that your levels don’t nearly have the depth that the MM-created ones do. This is the point where LBP players get divided into three categories:
- Those who can’t make good levels, and stop;
- Those who can’t make good levels, but make levels regardless; and
- Those who can make good levels.
There’s an inherent problem that MM seem to have overlooked – they’ve made the tools available, provided a platform where anyone can be a designer – but the thing is – most gamers aren’t good game designers.
It’s the same reason people have jobs. People specialise. A dentist is better at checking my teeth than I, despite the fact that I’ve spent a fair few years brushing and eating with them. In contrast, a lot of gamers seem to have this notion that they play a lot of games, they’d be really good at making them. Hate to burst your bubble, but the reality is – the mere fact that I drink a lot of milk doesn’t guarantee I’d be a very good cow.
Now don’t get me wrong, there’s a whole bunch of tutorials to help you make good levels – it’s not the tool that’s the problem. You just need a touch of inspiration and creativity. But waiting until it hits would go against MM’s “Everyone can create” agenda. A lot of the trophies available in LBP are to do with creating and sharing levels – which provides significant incentive to build – but perverse incentives are lurking as well. A large number of the most popular and most played user levels you’ll come across are not designed for the purposes of entertainment – but only to earn trophies for the author or player. I should disclose – playing these sorts of levels is how I earned a couple of trophies for myself – but I felt dirty doing it, like I was cheating the game out of its intentions. I’ll bet there are thousands of quality, entertaining levels out there which are buried under the mass of “Play ths so I getz my trophies!” crap.
Sorting though the trash levels wouldn’t be such a big deal, but the filtering systems available (hearts and ratings) to do so are basic, and don’t scale well. Most people have taken the hint, and developed LBP communities external to the game – in order to advertise and promote their levels. It seems to me like a huge missed opportunity here to develop a strong in-game (or perhaps, in PlayStation HOME) community.
The caveat to these complaints is that LBP is still in development. It’s continuously improving, monitoring LBP community forums, releasing patches – in this way it’s got a very WoW kind of a feel to it (not that I’ve played WoW). Personally, I much prefer the microtransaction business model to the subscription – people get to choose which pieces of DLC they want, devs get revenue for continued development, as well as an indication of what kind of things the community are after, and are willing to pay for.
Oh, DLC – almost forgot to mention it. A LOT has been released. Costumes, mini-packs (stickers and decorations), level packs. Some are free, some are not. You might as well download the free stuff. Because of how the level sharing works, it’s already patched into your game – grabbing it from the store just unlocks it so you can use it in your game.
But whatever you do, buy the Metal Gear Solid level pack. I don’t care if you’re morally against DLC. It doesn’t matter if you’ve never heard of Metal Gear Solid. They’re a set of a new LBP levels, created by MM (in the style of MGS, obviously) – and they are fantastic. At the very least, you get more trophies to earn, and the PAINTINATOR! (I’ll let you discover what that is for yourself)
I’d like to think that most gamers out there will play LBP, and see it for what it really is. They’ll actually play the creation tutorials, and try to build a level of their own. They’ll publish their levels out to the PSN, and play levels that other people have made. They’ll read forums, create communities, and keep going back to the story levels to finally score the coveted ‘Collected all prize bubbles’ trophy. They’ll spread the word about the amazing, the quality, the stunning user-made levels, and try to bury the crappy ones. Commit to LBP, and it will reward you in droves. You’ll become one of the screaming fanbois, nagging Media Molecule to hurry up and release more DLC.
Don’t feel bad if you’ve missed the hype on this one. Sony didn’t do nearly enough to support what was meant to be ‘the new face of PlayStation’. Releasing a new IP in the bloated November window, with a marketing budget that couldn’t buy a PS3? That’s crap, Sony. Media Molecule handed you a gem, and you might as well have spat on it.
Speaking of which, I’m going to go back and polish my level.
PEWPEW!
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