LittleBigPlanet First Look

Following Sony executive Phil Harrison's demonstration of Playstation Home, Harrison introduced former Lionhead artist and recent co-founder of Media Molecule, Mark Healey. Steam users may remember Healey as the co-creator of the physics-based fighting game Rag Doll Kung Fu. Along with representatives from Media Molecule and Sony, Healey took the stage to demonstrate the first game developed under the Media Molecule name, LittleBigPlanet. Tying into Harrison’s speech, which focused entirely on community-based applications, LittleBigPlanet is billed as a sort of side-scrolling Garry's Mod, in which multiple players can spawn objects and physically interact with them in order to progress through the game’s environments. Healey began the demonstration by showing off a character he referred to as "Sackboy," a small stuffed animal-style creature with a giant, exaggerated zipper running the length of his body. To the crowd's amusement, Healey began to manipulate Sackboy's appendages using the PS3 directional pad, not unlike the articulation that was seen in Rag Doll Kung Fu. After zooming out to reveal a colorful landscape surrounded by simple cloth barriers, Phil Harrison entered the game as a similarly styled creature, while Healey explained the extent of environmental interaction LittleBigPlanet will feature. Using an interface created in the style of the Playstation 3's Cross Media Bar, Healey spawned various objects within the playscape, from simple blocks to more complex apparatuses. Each Sackboy can leap and grab onto things, as Harrison demonstrated by grabbing onto a giant spinning cog, which wildly spun his character in circles. Harrison then maneuvered his character on top of the mechanism, and began running along the top of it like a log roller. Decals and comical objects can be affixed directly to the sides of walls, other spawned objects, or even players, as was revealed when Healey planted two flower-like springs onto the head of Harrison's avatar. All of this came off as intuitive and fun, with the two players fluidly creating obstacles and playgrounds for each other in seconds. After two more players joined in, the group of four Sackboys burst through one of the cloth barriers and dropped down into a full user-created sidescrolling level. The environment resembled an oversized garden, and for the next ten minutes the players relentlessly moved forward, leaping over each other until they would reach an obstacle or puzzle. This component of the game felt like a clever amalgamation of Half-Life 2 and Mario, with the players spawning ropes and rocket packs in order to solve puzzles. Cooperation quickly became a key issue, as the puzzles were often insurmountable without a focused effort. In one case, the four players had to all tether themselves to a giant rock, blasting into the air with rocket-packs and lifting the rock into the trough of a see-saw, which subsequently lifted the opposite end and allowed them to continue forward. Following the demonstration, a short video was played that showed off some of the Game 3.0 features that will be integrated within LittleBigPlanet. User-created levels will be posted to a Sony database and can then be downloaded and explored by other players. Each level will have a download count and separate comments section, akin to a YouTube video. Off to the side, a ranking board will track the highest rated levels of the day. Playstation 3 owners can look forward to a demo of LittleBigPlanet this fall, with the full version slated for release in early 2008.