LittleBigPlanet “Charms,” “Wows,” and “Blows the Minds” of E3 Writers
- Scribbled on July 16th, 2007 by S Holmes
- Filed in Adventure, Casual Gaming, E3, Previews, Sony PlayStation 3
The reviews are in, and E3 writers are calling LittleBigPlanet “undeniably addictive and fun,” “terribly fun,” and simply “awesome.” Heck, even the TeamXbox forums are in love with it. In yet another raving review of the PS3’s ultra cute, ultra creative, and ultra unique LittleBigPlanet, Joystiq has posted its own first-hand impressions of the game.
Marveling at the simple but powerful ability to create and immediately enjoy, Joystiq found the creation system seemingly limitless in its possibilities. But with such a glowing review, why bother with paraphrasing:
“LittleBigPlanet left us pleasantly surprised with its charming personality and incredibly intuitive design mechanics.”
“Don’t be surprised to see LittleBigPlanet score big time when we make our ‘Game of the Show’ awards later this week.”
“Wow.”
“There’s too much to love about LittleBigPlanet, and we’re willing to bet that casual players will love playing LittleBigPlanet when it comes out later this year.”
“Although we’ve been praising the game for the past few paragraphs, it’s difficult to truly convey how fun the game really is. No video demonstration, nor write-up can effectively portray the creative potential that’s hidden away in LittleBigPlanet.”
Still don’t believe the unique style of gameplay will hold your attention? Gamespy reassures that “it looks like you’ll be able to have just as much fun screwing around with the level creator as you will playing through the pre-made levels.”
A public beta is on its way as well as partnerships with other fan-favorite Sony first-party developers. Maybe we’ll see a LittleBigPlanet incarnation of the God of War universe. But if there’s just one thing I don’t think this game is capable of, it’s maintaining Kratos’ menacing look in the adorable LittleBigPlanet world. Expect to hear a boatload about this game at the Tokyo Game Show.
If these reviews accurately reflect just a fraction of the fun to expect when the game arrives, LittleBigPlanet just can’t get here fast enough.
July 17th, 2007 at 12:04 am
http://techdigest.tv/2007/07/nobody_won_e3_t.html
It also displayed Littlebigplanet again, a game seemingly designed specifically to appeal to men on the internet who like “kooky” games. Men who want to like “kooky” games as that makes them “kooky” too.
It may well look all weird and clever, but games like Littlebigplanet usually go on to sell about 100 copies around the world. PlayStation owners want to drive cars into other cars, not stroke cute teddy bears with lazy eyes.
Beware: Media Molecule hadn’t yet designed a way to implement objectives into user-made levels
July 17th, 2007 at 1:06 am
Jonah, when you buy a PS3 I’ll let you vouch for what I want to play and what I don’t want to play on it
I’m willing to bet LittleBigPlanet sells like CRAZY. It’s unique and people know about it. That’s like saying “Bah, no one wants to play with little plastic guitars that’s baby shit”
July 17th, 2007 at 8:08 am
Who gives a rat’s ass about sales? Is that what we’re talking about now? That’s half the reason I own a PS3, because they’ll produce games that aren’t necessarily expected to sell millions of copies. Ico, Shadow of the Colossus, Katamari Damacy, Okami and many others are examples of this. PSN games like the disastrous flOw and Echochrome are also representative.
Tech Digest’s comments that Playstation owners only want to crash cars is a joke, in my opinion. But even accepting it as true, at least the unique, award-winning, creative games will actually show up on the Playstation platforms - something I can’t say for other systems that seem to think FPS games are all a gamer needs (and based on what owners of those systems support, they appear to be correct).
And you’re citing Tech Digest as a source? “The UK and Europe’s premier site for news, reviews and opinion on consumer electronics and gadgets.” I didn’t read anything in their article that suggests they even attended E3 and participated in any demo, much less the LittleBigPlanet demo - which still doesn’t support your comment that actual E3 writers (meaning, people who attended E3) found the game “boring.” In fact, it appears that the writer simply watched the live feeds online based on his “I closed the window” comment which I’ll get to later. That’s a pretty credible source - someone who didn’t attend E3 and gives opinions after not even watching the entire presentation.
What I do know is that six of the previews I linked to above are from Top 25 (most are top 10) gaming review sites and ALL of the writers of the previews actually attended E3 and demoed the game. I also know that doing a simple search for these previews didn’t reveal one article from any writer (much less someone who participated in the E3 demo) who called the game “boring.”
So, it appears that your unnamed writers at E3 are so concerned with being “tactful to large companies” that they accidentally referred to the antonym section of the thesaurus instead of the synonym section. I just can’t think of any other way for the word “boring” to turn into “awesome” or “terribly fun.” But at least they’ll keep their good relationship with the large companies (journalistic integrity aside).
And I’ll certainly keep tabs on Media Molecule’s design system for objectives in LBP. But since the game won’t be out for 8 months I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt that they’ll come up with something. I’m sure there are countless FPS games that went from concept to store shelf in half that time.
But I guess we’re shifting the argument to whether it’s “kooky” and will have good sales. I think everyone will concede the game is “kooky.” Hell, that’s half the appeal. But as to sales, well, just like I said, who gives a rat’s ass. But for the record, it appears Tech Digest is alone in their concern over sales since nearly every review I’ve read suggests LBP will have wide appeal and be a huge hit.
One more thing. And this is a big one, Jonah. You really should read the entire article before citing to it. Because that same writer who called LBP “kooky” and questioned its sales potential (two very mild criticisms) also had an opinion on your personal God of games, Halo. You know, the one that you’ve said has a massively successful novel (obviously meaning the story is critically acclaimed) and is considered one of the best games of all time? Yeah, that one. Here’s what Europe’s premier tech site had to say about Halo in the exact same article:
“Microsoft at least had Halo 3 for the fan-teens to get excited about, and this time it managed to show off some single-player footage.
At least the first half of the trailer was single-player footage. I closed the window out of desperate boredom after 30 seconds. Thank god Halo’s only a trilogy. Has there ever been a more boring game than Halo?
No. There hasn’t. Don’t even bother arguing or thinking about that one. Everyone on the internet is wrong about Halo. Playing Halo makes me want to give up video games and start doing charity work in my spare time. I could be working at the local needle exchange. Surely there’s more to life than steering a boring man through corridors all day?”
–
Did you see that one word in there? It looks like we finally found the writer who called a game “boring.” He didn’t attend E3 and wasn’t talking about LittleBigPlanet, but he said it. In just three paragraphs he managed to use the word “boring” twice and “boredom” once about the Halo series (not just Halo 3) - something I haven’t found once in over a dozen full previews of LBP from well-known sites and people who have actually seen and played it first hand.
The outlook on next gen video games sure is bleak when two of the most talked about games in recent months (LBP and Halo 3) get reviews like these. But, nevertheless, I’ll take my chances and keep gaming.
July 17th, 2007 at 10:44 am
You want to talk boring? HALO. It might “SELL” but got-dammit if it’s done ANYTHING original EVER. It’s slow, it’s just an FPS, and fanboys need to chill. It’s done nothing to improve the genre yet somehow it sells… Then these incredible games like Katamari, like you said Holmes, LittleBigPlanet, and Beyond Good and Evil, all ORIGINAL GAMES, come along and people don’t buy them. Well, Katamari is a smashing success, BG&E is an underplayed game but LittleBigPlanet, like it or not, WILL SELL.
*Got-damn Holmes that was huge. Nice rant*
July 17th, 2007 at 10:59 am
I’ve never found anything good in Halo myself.
July 17th, 2007 at 1:18 pm
Sounds like a lot of people ranting about a game they havn’t played. Its nice to see a bunch of Sony fanyboys (thats right clean the sony juice from your chins)sticking by a console and a company that constsntly lie to there customers. LBP looks ok, but through and through after the objectives are done are you really going to sit there and make your own levels? Maybe. I would rather Sony work on some real games for the PS3. LBP please, why are people excited for this game? Over Drakes, heavenly sword, or lair, not to me. Halo is a great game with a great story, the only people that don’t like the game can’t play it or are Sony fanboys who have never played it.