Little Big Planet 2

[Charlton]

Play, create, share. More than a slogan, LittleBigPlanet gave a leitmotiv in the PlayStation 3. This game platforms oriented community with a powerful level editor, in 2008 symbolized the ambitious policy of Sony on the PlayStation Network . Three million levels created later, LBP is back with a new goal: no longer just a game platform, but a gaming platform. It is a 2D platform game with 3D elements based on a more realistic physics. The title is to focus on creativity by providing an editor that can make our wildest dreams. It was then that we discover a story mode consists of different worlds and yet more levels. These, too wacky and varied, can highlight the many opportunities for the publisher by offering a mix of just anything that can be done in the game. Platform classic rail-shooter, shooter, the game offers a wide variety of content submitted by the crazy world that he knows.

The solo is mainly focused on its platform stages where you control Sackboy's using physics of the game and various accessories to complete levels and unlock the myriad (and the word is weak) and bonus levels hidden here and there. Sackboy, although presented in a 2D world, can move in three ways. The simple controls leave the field open to interaction with the environment to provide a gameplay rich wish to smoothly compensate the short story mode. Death is here learning as only a large number of successive deaths may have to start a level. However, die lowers the score, and levels are based on this principle a lot of scoring. Realistic physics and neat graphics tend to make the universe terribly credible and visually beautiful, every texture is well done. Beyond the purely technical, artistic direction is very hard on this result and proposes a design and dream great delight that the mass public. Finally, sound production is also offering a wonderful melting pot a little every possible type that keep coming with harmony without ever stepping on toes.

Themes of quality that few gems like a remix of the theme of 2001: A Space Odyssey will serve as background music. This story mode allows you to ride on the Little Big Planet in different world to the unique visual layout tab. A world of candy, an enchanted tree, each universe has a neat appearance. The levels offer a variety of bonuses (mostly objects for customizing Sackboy and levels) to unlock, and even a few bonus levels, versus or challenges. The multiplayer mode is in effect the party, whether in competition or cooperation.

Features :

• A powerful new set of tools awaits you, tools that vastly widen the scope of possibility, and that hand you the power to create WHOLE GAMES. Through a familiar but revamped Popit, you can bring your characters to life, compose your own music, direct cinematic masterpieces, wire controllers directly in to your contraptions, connect easy to use switches, microchips and circuit boards to build epic bosses, vehicles, machines, and puzzles. Make your wildest dreams come true, yes, even that one.
• Bring your little Sackperson on a brand-spanking-new adventure, wrought with mild, and possibly even pant-wetting peril, and spanning an entire cosmos of tomfoolery.
• 2 Million Levels ready to play. LittleBigPlanet is a manifested embodiment of your perfect dream world. It’s all about your imagination, and your creativity and to date you’ve filled it with over 2 million levels. LittleBigPlanet 2 is part of that very same dream world, it’s all one big ever-expanding cheese-stuffed-crust community, which means each and every one of those two million creations will be yours to play, right out of the box, along with everything you’ve already collected or built in LittleBigPlanet.
• With two million creations out there, and millions more to come, it’s important that you’re able to find the experience you’re looking for. We’ve expanded Share to enhance your ability to discover exactly what you want to find.
• A new web portal will give every single LBP creation its own home on the web, with a page for every creator and every level. Browse creations online to find fab levels, add them to your queue to play later on, check photos, comments, leader-boards, create and share playlists, and easily promote your levels and games wherever you might hang out online.
• Add life to your levels by dropping in a couple of Sackbots, then tweak ‘em to fit your purpose: style, shape, resize and dress them up nice, and then bring them to life with digital puppetry; either choosing their behavior or recording your own. Sackbots can be friends or foes, robots or zombies... whatever you need them to be.

[Charlton]

Gameplay

Negativitron the fight against the big bad of the game is mostly an excuse to mix all types and all aesthetic. From the beginning of the game, the creators have fun parody comics and superheroes, while the savior of the world is a doll fabric (Sackboy). The player can then cross the mountains of cakes worthy of the imagination of Tim Burton , huge wheels like Chaplin's Modern Times, to the prehistoric or futuristic universe. The designers of Media Molecule have also been able to establish good chemistry between puzzles, platforms, and breaks (re) creative. Each level is full of original ideas, making them worthy of the best independent productions, or references to games platforms like the saga of Super Mario . In some car chases, the game published by Sony recalls certain levels of Sonic, Sega's mascot. But they are always original, the worlds are rarely difficult to go to finish.

Watch and learn: LittleBigPlanet requires humility. While the title contains more than three million online levels, it forces anyone who inserts the Blu-ray into the console for the first time beginning with a scripted adventure developed by Media Molecule . Until then, nobody was surprised to politely follow the map of the Mushroom Kingdom in Mario . And more broadly, there is not abnormal to pursue a goal set by the developers in most adventure games. Yes, except that in LBP, nobody is fooled: the story of departure is only a demo. A glimpse of what can be achieved in the heart of the game: the creator of levels to unlock later. But we will return. For now and for a few hours of gameplay, the adventure takes the form of a game platform but in 3D on a 2D plane, which is retained until the entire atmosphere. LittleBigPlanet 2 starts on a daydream the country's paper-bubbles and rag dolls.

Full of cultural references and cinematic universe at a crossroads between Burton and Gondry, is much more subtle and mature it looks. All the techniques of the game is in the service of beauty, with attention to detail permanent textures or animations. Despite a few bugs and crashes two or three jerks, LBP still flatters both the optic nerve. The auditory nerve is no exception. The voice that guides the player is stepping back a bit, but we will not quibble because the soundtrack is memorable. Media Molecule has appealed to many composers of talent already heard about Mass Effect , PixelJunk Eden , or God of War to compile neat melodies. Never invasive, but still catchy, small sound loops fit perfectly to the action and compensate for their lyricism interventions namby-pamby characters. Without having changed enormously since 2008 side atmosphere, LBP 2 remains on first contact, one of the games most sparkling and more attractive in recent years.

Levels

Aware of his hands hold a rare concept, developer Media Molecule did not want to change the gameplay , despite the controversy surrounding some of its aspects. As LBP first name, the player must accommodate floating jumps and imprecise, a signature of gameplay . Ditto for the three game plans on depth, difficult to manage, particularly in levels created by the community. Not enough to plant poisoned needles in limbs fabric of Sackboy, but it is still real gaps in an adventure-oriented platforms. PS Move the compatibility in a dozen levels similar to cooperative multi Mario Galaxy does not change the substance of things ( Sackboy's Prehistoric Moves : 1 to 4 players progress normally while another affects the scenery to protect). Moreover, LBP 2 provides a more compelling story than the beginning of the first game. A fat fifty levels 1 to 4 players, where Sackboy is more with new accessories.

Anything is possible, everything is possible. Above all, do not stop at the nice bright adventure LBP 2. It is only a glimpse of the possibilities offered by the publisher "My Moon". Because we can never say enough, LittleBigPlanet is not a finite game. It is primarily a creation tool for bringing players involved and allow them to share their works online. With a bonus for this version 2, creative possibilities multiplied. The editor next generation cannot be understood simply maps integrated in a vast game, as was the case in LittleBigPlanet first name, but sets its own right, with the gameplay totally different. Shoot , role play, point & click , tower defense ... LBP 2 exceeds the final frame platforms. The creative work encompasses all aspects of the game abstract data such as the AI and physics are materialized and partially automated to give the impression to the player-creator to build a kind of Lego castle in a convenient editor, as possible. The only limitations are the creativity of each and a thermometer to measure all the resources used by each establishment. Not to mention that LBP 2 provides backward compatibility with the first episode, some objects from previous packs as Peinturator gun or water being included directly in this suite.

Among the many tools of the new generation editor, two stands out immediately. Do not rely on ridiculous nicknames of the game, these two tools offer phenomenal opportunities. The Sackbots used to create characters. Can set their pace, their words and behavior (follower, aggressive, etc.). Enough to create enemies and NPCs with multiple reactions in a role play, for example. It can even control Sackboy as the time to let them play a scene that is then integrated into his game as a script. Materialized in the form of a chip, it can control an object directly with the joystick, instead of Sackboy. With it, you can take the controls of a car in a racing game, a pointer in a game of strategy or a spaceship in a shooter . The sky is the limit.

[Charlton]

The 3D Effect

With Sackboy the new skills, the second episode of LittleBigPlanet has however increased wealth relative to its predecessor. With his grapple, the character can twirl one platform to another. And Sackbots, small robots to accompany the hero, whose stubbornness is reminiscent of the famous Lemmings, also bring freshness to the game the game story is also served by its secondary characters, the worthy replicas of the best films animation. Avalon megalomaniac commentator Larry da Vinci, the mad scientist who does not leave his 3D glasses, loving the haughty Victoria: the gallery is rich, and often comical situations.

In the end, part of LittleBigPlanet 2 gives the impression that everything can be playable: a series of portraits and a tube of gouache can be transformed in an instant, as a parody fun Space Invaders . A kind of playful version videos or films Michel Gondry. But the title of Media Molecule also wants to shine with its contributing modes, promising, like New Super Mario Bros. Wii , play a game of multiple platforms. In his appearance sometimes too rough, LittleBigPlanet 2 fails to reach the summits of cooperative play - more often competitive - the creation of Nintendo.

The greatest success of Media Molecule is to make the player bulimic novelty and creativity. LittleBigPlanet 2, nothing is lost, everything is transformed, the appearance of the main character in the world enhanced by the player. In the levels it runs, the player collects tirelessly new clothes, or reusable objects to customize their avatar or the world that is being built. For LittleBigPlanet 2 is finally a game-world, an invitation to lose yourself in levels created by other players. As in the first episode, Media Molecule has a level editor, but this time is even more powerful.

Updates

It would be difficult to compile an exhaustive list of possibilities offered by the publisher of LBP 2. To have a fair idea of the thing, you can still add that the tool allows great opportunities later stage. One possibility is to include kinematic, HUD (health bar ...) or menus home. The integration of photos with the PS Eye camera was valued, as is the creation of sound through a sequencer comprising several dozen instruments. The cameras move to free themselves from routine 2D and give the feeling of finally diving in depth as in a FPS (that too is possible). In short, many tools to eclipse the little Sackboy to create games totally independent. As we have not seen the potential of some designs, one can hardly worry idea. But after many eyes shine, it should be noted that we do not improvise a game designer in a game
By leveraging its capabilities, the publisher LBP 2 multiply its complexity.

More than one LittleBigPlanet , create a good game takes time. Not an hour or two, but whole days. Without laughter, a novice sees the boss end of the adventure pre-installed faster than it puts into practice the big fifty video tutorials. And do not expect to leave a level on standby for several weeks before returning to: it's about as dangerous as to let the fire part of Myst or Zelda: Majora's Mask . Also, as human beings use only 10% capacity of his brain - say - the publisher of LBP 2 may well remain an unexplored region for much of the public. Not that it's dark or seedy, instead, is a remarkable extension effort. But the transition from being passive players to creator application as inventiveness, investment, patience and humility that a large part of the owners of the game will feel excluded.

Conclusion

Game platforms or puzzles, party game or toy building? With its aesthetic made of bits and pieces and endearing heroes, LittleBigPlanet 2 manages to be all at once. In story mode, players must solve puzzles or jumping from platform to platform to reach the end of each level - but this mode is only one aspect of the game playing alone or with others, the story mode has a staging rather successful and offers the player a wide variety of actions.
More mature than the first episode in many ways, LittleBigPlanet 2 is also a carbon copy which adds more than it fixes. Sony's game is not better or worse than its predecessor, it simply brings new opportunities over its shortcomings. A set of gadgets and mechanisms as budding creators will be quick to try and share, but if the act of buying a new game not fundamentally new, does not stop them. Newcomers will find them a very patient as a staggering wealth, home to countless tools to stick to their imagination. It remains to accept the contract and hours of fun learning. You do not become Sackboy in a day.

In this sequel, or more precisely, this update of magnitude, the pleasure of discovery is still there, boosted by a new editor that can create not only levels of platforms, but all sorts of games with gameplay different . The shoot in the game, running through the role play ... Imagination as the only limit, what a dream, only warning: be involved in the game editor, the real heart of LBP 2, is a staggering challenge. The tool may well be a work of remarkable extension of friendliness, its depth can be terribly intimidating. The owners of the first game know: for a level is completed, how many projects are stillborn and not even saved drafts? Of course, it may be sufficient to complete the adventure "pre-installed" and wait for the more committed members of the community create masterpieces, but it would scratch the surface crust of this planet, decidedly so great and small at once.