October is when it all kicks off. Games will be flying left, right and centre of all genres, mostly being the third or first person shooters. However some clever clogs at Media Molecule have put together a game of remarkable originality, LittleBigPlanet. This game just about crams every little bit of charm and charisma from other similar titles and converts it all into simple perfection. For those of you who have never heard of or seen LittleBigPlanet, it is a plat former in which YOU, the player, will create your own levels and play them. You may be thinking that it will be just like one of those horrendous flash games you’ve played about with on your desktop, but no, LittleBigPlanet offers something unique to all gamers from social and casual gamers to the very hardcore gamers.

          The events of LittleBigPlanet take place a world inhabited by the coolest and cutest looking protagonists in next gen history, the Sackboys (or Sackgirls). Every player can customise their own Sackboy in anyway they wish and there are thousands of different customisation options to browse through such as bike helmet to hard hats, stunt suits to superhero cape, Helghast goggles to shades; the possibilities are endless and it’s up to you to decide. LBP can be played on and offline, when offline you can build up your own stages and play them either by yourself of with local friends, there is a story campaign confirmed for the game which is said to give a basic narrative and dozens of pre-made levels. Also it is said that you can play the campaign in two ways, either being a Sackboy yourself or the Creator. When online there is a lot more to do than you would imagine. First of all you can obviously play with other gamers, dropping in and out of their games whenever you please and inviting them to your games. However the one thing that gets me most excited is the ability to bring your own user-made maps to the online community and let fellow players play and download your content which promotes a great sense of a friendly online community. Media Molecule have also said they will be posting additional content to the game and have even put an offer out saying that some of the best user-content created will be selected by them and be sold in the Playstation Network store giving the owner of that content a cut of the money made from the certain item of content. There is speculation about this but it sounds more of a launch competition and prize draw rather than a regular thing.

          The gameplay in LittleBigPlanet is just what you would expect in any other plat former such as Mario, Sonic or even the Lemmings, you leap over obstacles, you duck through passages and you swing between gaping holes all on a 2D orientated stage. From what we have seen there is a lot of conventional plat forming going on the pre-made stages with some unique features such as when your Sackboy reaches a certain checkpoint it will open up a mini portal in which you will come through if you are struck down later on in the stage, with each portal having its own number of lives. Boss battles have also been shown with again, conventional plat forming methods of defeating them but developers have said that players will be able to make their own boss battles using their own unique methods which is quite interesting. So now you about playing the game, what about creating levels? From what has been shown it looks like a very simple canvas on which you can put anything of your choosing from a Mexican spice food restaurant to a flying giraffe. First off your level will be blank but adding obstacles is the first essential stage, the obstacles can be placed anywhere on the screen and can be widened or made higher, you can even have them lingering in the background or have them interact with the player. You are given thousands of different styles of block you can add including stone, wooden, metal, cardboard or anything that takes your fancy and if that isn’t enough I will tell you about the sticker album available. The album is an in-game item not an actual one and inside it are many stickers which you can place on all of your items and even your Sackboys. Stickers can be uploaded from storage media onto your hard drive or again, can be downloaded online from fellow players. It may sound pretty boring just placing obstacles here and there but that is where the mechanics come in. You will be able to create you own inventions and mechanics from a simple pressure activated sliding door to something as complex as a rollercoaster-type slide but the thing that Media Molecule have focused on most is that all of these features will be usable by anyone.

          LittleBigPlanet is solely a Playstation 3 exclusive and hopefully will remain as one which is likely as Sony studios are helping publish the game. Another indicator of this being so is the amount of Sony content in-game. The first content was a trailer on which a level was shown sporting a Killzone 2 theme with Sackboys suited up as the iconic Helghan soldiers. Another example was released only today as developers have announced that special pre-ordered copies of the game will include two exclusively downloadable Sackboy characters including Heavenly Sword’s Nariko wielding the Heavenly Sword and the one and only Kratos from God of War who seems to be the only character who isn’t smiling. Keep checking back for more info.