FINALLY
Ok.
FINALLY, LittleBigPlanet has released. ....er, sorta. Explain that in a moment.
I went down to the Gamestop on Saturday morning, just to see if it had a confirmed shipping date yet, and pow, it was there, my reserved copy was ready to be picked up.
Firstly; yes, this game is everything that they said it'd be. All of the hype ended up being true.
As 2D platformers go, this plays and controls EXCELLENTLY. I dont think I've quite seen a control scheme like this..... the amount of control you have here over your little sackperson is amazing. And it feels so natural, too.... which, in any game, is a major plus. There's never any moments where you feel you are fighting with the controls.
The single-player campaign (which can of course be played with up to 3 other players, if you wish) is ALSO really good.... alot of players just expected some short "tutorial" levels to show what the game could do..... but no. You get a full game here. All of the levels that make this up are very well designed (even EGM thinks so), and do all sorts of crazy things with the game engine. You've got things like giant boss fights, and crazy vehicles, to name just a few.
And the editor. I've never seen a better editor for ANYTHING..... period. And I do ALOT of modding type stuff..... I've been doing it since the days of Doom (I spent alot of time making levels for Doom.... ahh, the memories.....), and recently have been doing things like Rom hacks. But this editor.... beats all of them. Period.
.....and then there's the game engine.
LittleBigPlanet is a purely physics-based platformer. Now, I've seen physics engines before in games. .....but not like this. Not like this at all. This might be the single most powerful game engine I've ever seen, period.
Lets look at your normal physics engine. Say you've got an object.... just a simple cube. Generally, takes a fair amount of processing power to handle this cube. And if you increse it's complexity.... for example, change it's shape into something awkward.... the amount of power necessary to fully handle it goes up. And when you've then ALSO got more than one object, like that, IN CONTACT with each other, well..... you get the idea.
That being said, I've NO freaking clue how this game even exists. The game engine that's running this, logically, should be something that'd make even my powerful gaming rig of a PC simply detonate. I can shape anything in the editor however I like.... all sorts of screwball shapes, and it'll handle them fine. It'll handle a ZILLION of them all at once just fine. It'll ALSO keep in mind that each THING can be made of different materials, all having different properties, and.....
Well, I spent some 20 minutes tonight just trying to overload the engine to see what happened..... kept picking huge, complicated objects found in the main game, making them bigger, and then popping them high into the sky above the level.... and then just let them all crash to the floor. Didnt really matter how many of what I added; the thing still DID it. My mind is officially blown. (making this more entertaining is that everything is destructible, if enough force is applied.... all of these large things hitting each other kept making various pieces of them snap in half and such, which was entertaining)
Technically of course there IS a "complexity" meter that your custom-made level is contstricted to, but..... well, *I* sure dont know what in the hell insane thing would be necessary to actually FILL it.
So that's a particularly nice point, is that there really just ISNT any constrictions on just what you can do with the engine.
This being said,
I've yet to FULLY experience this game just yet.
The "official" release of the game isnt for another day or so..... as such, the servers for the game are turned off right now. They wont be on until that happens. This of course leads to complaints from some people, but..... well, they're stupid.
If the game is THIS insanely amazing without even CONNECTING to anything.... well.... I cant wait for the servers to be turned on, I'll put it that way.
All in all..... yeah. Totally worth the wait, and lives up to the hype.
I'll be playing this *alot*......
FINALLY, LittleBigPlanet has released. ....er, sorta. Explain that in a moment.
I went down to the Gamestop on Saturday morning, just to see if it had a confirmed shipping date yet, and pow, it was there, my reserved copy was ready to be picked up.
Firstly; yes, this game is everything that they said it'd be. All of the hype ended up being true.
As 2D platformers go, this plays and controls EXCELLENTLY. I dont think I've quite seen a control scheme like this..... the amount of control you have here over your little sackperson is amazing. And it feels so natural, too.... which, in any game, is a major plus. There's never any moments where you feel you are fighting with the controls.
The single-player campaign (which can of course be played with up to 3 other players, if you wish) is ALSO really good.... alot of players just expected some short "tutorial" levels to show what the game could do..... but no. You get a full game here. All of the levels that make this up are very well designed (even EGM thinks so), and do all sorts of crazy things with the game engine. You've got things like giant boss fights, and crazy vehicles, to name just a few.
And the editor. I've never seen a better editor for ANYTHING..... period. And I do ALOT of modding type stuff..... I've been doing it since the days of Doom (I spent alot of time making levels for Doom.... ahh, the memories.....), and recently have been doing things like Rom hacks. But this editor.... beats all of them. Period.
.....and then there's the game engine.
LittleBigPlanet is a purely physics-based platformer. Now, I've seen physics engines before in games. .....but not like this. Not like this at all. This might be the single most powerful game engine I've ever seen, period.
Lets look at your normal physics engine. Say you've got an object.... just a simple cube. Generally, takes a fair amount of processing power to handle this cube. And if you increse it's complexity.... for example, change it's shape into something awkward.... the amount of power necessary to fully handle it goes up. And when you've then ALSO got more than one object, like that, IN CONTACT with each other, well..... you get the idea.
That being said, I've NO freaking clue how this game even exists. The game engine that's running this, logically, should be something that'd make even my powerful gaming rig of a PC simply detonate. I can shape anything in the editor however I like.... all sorts of screwball shapes, and it'll handle them fine. It'll handle a ZILLION of them all at once just fine. It'll ALSO keep in mind that each THING can be made of different materials, all having different properties, and.....
Well, I spent some 20 minutes tonight just trying to overload the engine to see what happened..... kept picking huge, complicated objects found in the main game, making them bigger, and then popping them high into the sky above the level.... and then just let them all crash to the floor. Didnt really matter how many of what I added; the thing still DID it. My mind is officially blown. (making this more entertaining is that everything is destructible, if enough force is applied.... all of these large things hitting each other kept making various pieces of them snap in half and such, which was entertaining)
Technically of course there IS a "complexity" meter that your custom-made level is contstricted to, but..... well, *I* sure dont know what in the hell insane thing would be necessary to actually FILL it.
So that's a particularly nice point, is that there really just ISNT any constrictions on just what you can do with the engine.
This being said,
I've yet to FULLY experience this game just yet.
The "official" release of the game isnt for another day or so..... as such, the servers for the game are turned off right now. They wont be on until that happens. This of course leads to complaints from some people, but..... well, they're stupid.
If the game is THIS insanely amazing without even CONNECTING to anything.... well.... I cant wait for the servers to be turned on, I'll put it that way.
All in all..... yeah. Totally worth the wait, and lives up to the hype.
I'll be playing this *alot*......