Preview: LittleBigPlanet

Due in October for PlayStation 3

RUN, SACKBOY, RUN! Mechanical crocodiles menace Sackboy and friends in Little Big Planet.

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Flung about with abandon during my recent time with PlayStation 3's LittleBigPlanet was the phrase, ‘you're only limited by your own imagination' - a cliché I usually deplore.

However, LittleBigPlanet is so massive in premise and more importantly in execution, it's a cliché that is undeniably fitting. I spent only a few hours with LittleBigPlanet, but already the potential for it to surpass generic ‘game of the year' awards and become an actual creative phenomenon is evident.

Big words, but hear me out.

The concept is probably familiar to most - the internet is awash with details - but here's a breakdown for anyone left out of the loop.

LittleBigPlanet is at heart a platform game. You play as little ‘Sackboy' (or Sackgirl if you wish, burlap is gender malleable), a Tim Burtonesque fella who in typical platforming tradition jumps, fights and solves puzzles.

To begin with, you can play as Sackboy through a ‘story mode', around 50 levels of various theme and difficulty, either solo or with friends.

This ‘story mode' is satisfying in itself - the levels seem both challenging and charming - but what fundamentally separates LittleBigPlanet from more traditional platform fare is the ‘create mode'.

In ‘create mode' you have the tools to design your own levels. Actually, strike that, you have the tools to design your own anything.

When I got my hands on the game at Sony HQ, I began by playing through a couple of levels in the story mode. Playing God was a little intimidating, and I wanted to get a feel for the physics in the game first.

Jumping in, what was immediately striking was LittleBig Planet's DIY feel, as if the developers had thrown random materials together slap-dash, but cleverly made a cohesive whole.

Cross-stitched monkeys swung at me from cardboard trees. Corrugated iron structures lead to pits of flames that could only be crossed on giant skateboards. It was like playing in the sandpit of some deranged yet genius toddler.

Colourful and vibrant, it may have looked a little childish, but the puzzles were head-scratchers and I found myself asking for help on occasion. The developers have not neglected core gameplay, and LittleBigPlanet plays like a well-rounded platformer should, with undercurrents of black humour and an enjoyable sense of the bizarre.

It was even more fun playing with someone else; a Sony rep and I played the second half of the level together, which involved a mixture of co-operation and competition. At one point her Sackboy stood on a switch so I could get through a door.

At another point my Sackboy monopolized the only hanging rope, resulting in her Sackboy performing a leap of desperation and landing in the jaws of a plastic crocodile. My Sackboy got the tokens. It was fun.

I can only imagine the rivalries that will grow if you play this game with friends and family. Boy oh boy, heads will roll.

With a tentative grasp on the game's mechanics, I felt ready to move onto the create mode. There is certainly a learning curve when playing with your tools - presented in a pop-up menu - but they are immediately intuitive and forgiving of your screw-ups.

You have a large number of materials at your disposal, both common and not so common (think paper contrasted with gravity-defying ‘dark matter'), which you can manipulate into any shape you like across a blank canvas.

Your little Sackboy is the one who does all the actual building, stretching shapes and placing objects with his lasso. As well as unformed materials, you also have your ‘goodie-bag', full of ready-made objects you can insert into your level. I included an enormous cardboard cityscape and a bull on wheels, just for kicks.

I was worried at first about ease of manipulation, particularly when it comes to that tricky little thing: the camera. However, gravity is suspended when you're creating to make manipulation easier. The camera is mostly controlled with the shoulder buttons on the Sixaxis controller, and you can zoom around your Sackboy as he floats about, throwing things left and right.

At any stage you can choose gravity to kick in and see whether your level actually works. Gravity plays a very important part in LittleBigPlanet and you simply can't neglect it- an intricate structure I built collapsed because I hadn't played by its rules. Once you grasp that everything in the game behaves like it would in reality, LittleBigPlanet's world becomes understandable and manageable.

The engineering possibilities these creation tools offer gamers are incredibly exciting. Although I originally wanted to create a level based on a traditional platformer, I ended up playing round with the idea of building a gigantic robot instead.

Then an enormous soccer pitch. I could have plunged hours into making a perfect replica of the interior of my childhood bedroom. Or the ultimate rollercoaster. Although I didn't get to see any of the online options, once the game is released you'll be able to submit all this stuff onto the Playstation Network and have others play it and rate it.

With this in mind, every time you go online, you'll play a new game, or simply have a new interactive experience. The world will constantly expand and evolve.

During my time with LittleBigPlanet it really hit home why it's unlike anything that's gone before - it can be any game you want it to be.

If this is Sony's great hope for 2008, its ‘killer app', then the future looks very bright indeed for the PlayStation 3.

Keep an eye out for our full review in October, and until then, get out your old play dough and your building blocks and stick some stuff together. You'll remember it's a hell of a lot of fun.

- NZGamer.com