LittleBigPlanet [PS3]

[SuperBeatBoy]

Does the Kratos sackboy work with the beta? I got my code for that today with my issue of OPM.

[Eight Rooks]

I'm constantly on the fence now; I really hope they fix the stupid little bugs or baffling omissions, etc. I keep uncovering. The corner tool sometimes locks up and permanently won't work, meaning you have to delete the shape you're working on and stick it in again; you can't seem to pull one shape off the floor without pulling everything else with it; if you drop a shape on top of another while you're editing it'll destroy it... I know, it's only a beta, so on, so forth. Still would have thought some of this stuff would have been there through most of the development process though.

[Number45]

Does the Kratos sackboy work with the beta? I got my code for that today with my issue of OPM.

Haven't tried actually... I guess you'd do it through the same promotional code entry as for the beta key?

EDIT: It's also just occurred to me that I have no idea where that key is.

EDIT2: Yay! I've thrown it away with the rest of the junk that you normally get falling out of magazines.

[Neon Ignition]

I've spent some time on this now and its swaying me against the full game. There's a lot to like and it is well designed in what it does but I find playing the user made levels to start getting a bit dull as so many are poorly designed and the level editor (and this purely down to me) I find too dull to use to really set the time aside to make anything worthwhile. Given This comes out around the same time as Far Cry 2, Banjo, COD5 etc I know I wouldn't spend any real time on it. A great demo but for the full game I can see it being a 2009 2nd hander once the game part of LBP emerges from the level creator part.

[RobRoy]

yeh i agree. i think it will be a good few months before this game begins to shine properly

[RobRoy]

Although when you see things like

http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3170411

You realise what an amazing piece of development this is

[Number45]

http://www.eurogamer.net/tv_video.php?playlist_id=15422

That's a great video that highlights some of the more complex things you can do in the game - it also highlights just how much effort it is to make just a few seconds of gameplay.

I think I'm still going to pick this up, but as you say it's going to take some time for the community to mature fully. Hopefully they keep people interested long enough to see what it can offer.

[Eight Rooks]

Yeah, I should probably stop playing with the editor, I think. I'd need a week or two on and off to start making a level I could really be pleased with, and the beta ends in a few days... the constant little errors and the lack of any material I want to use beyond the basics is annoying me no end. Although painting stone with stickers does give a surprisingly pleasing look in some ways.

I do think that if you're into the idea of realising your artistic vision in 2.5D and you can find a similarly creative friend or friends you want to build things with this will be amazing. I'd kill for the chance to work on something really ambitious with three other players. None too confident that'll ever happen, though.

At the same time I think it could stand up as a really good single-player platformer, and yes, once the truly dedicated have got to work on it the idea of endless free DLC will start to come into its own. Whether it'll save the PS3 is another thing entirely, though.

[Matt]

yeh i agree. i think it will be a good few months before this game begins to shine properly

I really really really don't understand these kind of statements. If this was a demo, with the 4 official levels in it, would that have you interested enough to buy the game? Ignore the user stuff for the time. The gameplay itself, the quality of the official levels, isn't that enough to warrant a day one purchase?

The user levels are extras to keep you playing for a year or four. From what I've seen in videos and playing the beta a lot, the official levels are awesome! Sure, I'd like a bit more variety in the control (wall jump, sliding, triple jump) but the game is solid. I can't wait to play through the official levels. The game has charm coming out of it's arse. It's never anything short of enchanting.

So once I've done the 50 or 60 official levels, guess what? They'll be a lot of quality user maps out there to enjoy. But that's a bonus - sure it's being marketed as the highlight of the game, but from where I'm sitting, the game would be worth a purchase without the user content. The 2d Mario games were great fun and this is looking like it could hit those heights (strong words!).

People complaining about some poor user levels are, imo, way off the mark. Not to mention that of course there are crap user maps out there, but there are plenty of real quality ones as well - add me to your Friends List and see the maps I've Hearted, and check out the Map Recommendations thread in the General Gaming forum.

[ShadowDancer]

Just has a mini on-line session with Elanial..it was fab.

I found this one stage (think the writing was Japanese on game title) and it was mega hard. I kept dying which turned out to be the end..as i was messaging Elanny..I missed the ending as he did it...bum..i wanted to see it!

This really is the best thing ever...

[kernow]

I'm too lazy to make my own levels since my save game corrupted and I'd have to go through all the building tutorials again, but I'm up for playing other peoples creations still.

bah, soon the beta will end and I'll be sadpanda

[Eight Rooks]

I really really really don't understand these kind of statements. If this was a demo, with the 4 official levels in it, would that have you interested enough to buy the game? Ignore the user stuff for the time. The gameplay itself, the quality of the official levels, isn't that enough to warrant a day one purchase?

The user levels are extras to keep you playing for a year or four.

No they're not. Or not solely. They're a major selling point of the game, and a major reason for Sony's believing it'll save the PS3. Sure, it looks pretty likely it'll be a very entertaining single-player game (though I think you're getting just a little carried away, personally - the skipping rope section is a "level", and 50 or 60 of those wouldn't exactly be mindblowing) and the software as a whole doesn't deserve to be torn to pieces because people can't get to grips with the SDK/restrain themselves from leaving their brainfarts all over the intertubes. But I think it's pretty fair to say the game will take a while to truly grow on you (or us, perhaps ).

Although the official levels are a lot of fun and the beta's a wonderful way to suggest some of the possible things people will create with the full game, the official levels are very brief and largely devoid of any challenge (I'd be very hesitant about buying it based on what's in the beta, if there were no level editor/online community), plus the user-created content is blatantly skewed massively towards throwaway crap and also only a suggestion of what's possible. Yes, the calculator's amazing. Yes, World of Colour, Platformer Pandemonium et al are fantastic for something that's been knocked up in a couple of weeks with an incomplete toolbox. But the calculator has no instant practical application, for example, and if you think the user-created levels so far truly represent the pinnacle of what we're going to see out of LBP in a month or two then you really do need to put down the pixie sticks.

[EvilBoris]

I finally got around to play this, it was as I feared; Barely a game.

It's a very nice tech demo, the graphics are outstanding , probably the closest thing to photorealism I've seen in a retail product.

[Matt]

No they're not. Or not solely. They're a major selling point of the game, and a major reason for Sony's believing it'll save the PS3. Sure, it looks pretty likely it'll be a very entertaining single-player game (though I think you're getting just a little carried away, personally - the skipping rope section is a "level", and 50 or 60 of those wouldn't exactly be mindblowing) and the software as a whole doesn't deserve to be torn to pieces because people can't get to grips with the SDK/restrain themselves from leaving their brainfarts all over the intertubes. But I think it's pretty fair to say the game will take a while to truly grow on you (or us, perhaps ).

Although the official levels are a lot of fun and the beta's a wonderful way to suggest some of the possible things people will create with the full game, the official levels are very brief and largely devoid of any challenge (I'd be very hesitant about buying it based on what's in the beta, if there were no level editor/online community), plus the user-created content is blatantly skewed massively towards throwaway crap and also only a suggestion of what's possible. Yes, the calculator's amazing. Yes, World of Colour, Platformer Pandemonium et al are fantastic for something that's been knocked up in a couple of weeks with an incomplete toolbox. But the calculator has no instant practical application, for example, and if you think the user-created levels so far truly represent the pinnacle of what we're going to see out of LBP in a month or two then you really do need to put down the pixie sticks.

The thing a lot of people are forgetting is the game has a full blown single player game in it from the start. 50 to 60 levels. Of course Sony are making a big deal of the user creation stuff, because it's new to consoles (and new in such an easy implementation on any platform). But for me, if the game didn't have that at all, it would still be an instant purchase. So people moaning about crap user levels is, imo, daft.

It would be like moaning about the latest PC FPS because, at launch, it only had the 20 or whatever official levels with it, and you had to wait more than 1 minute for quality user maps to appear.

The user levels are a new dimension. It's not as if the game doesn't ship with a load of proper levels, and judging by the SHORT "beta", you'll end up playing each level multiple times to open up all the costumes and materials. I think the main game will have a lot of playability.

[kernow]

I finally got around to play this, it was as I feared; Barely a game.

It's a very nice tech demo, the graphics are outstanding , probably the closest thing to photorealism I've seen in a retail product.

But you can make halo levels and stuff, that'd make it the best game ever surely?