LittleBigPlanet 3: Sackboy’s three-quel is looking promising

Platforms: PS3, PS4 Release Date: 19/11/14 Developer: Sumo Digital, XDev Europe Publisher: Sony

If you thought your PS4 was being a little undernourished in terms of supremely enjoyable for-the-whole-family games then Sony Computer Entertainment has a treat in store for you. The third installment of Sony’s flagship puzzle platformer series LittleBigPlanet is coming out next month on both PS3 and PS4. Of course it was playing at this year’s EGX London and I had the privilege of playing the sack out of it.

LittleBigPlanet’s Sackboy rocking the Playstation Booth at EGX London

In Little Big Planet 3, Sackboy is joined by a host of new playable characters: Toggle – both the muscle and miniscule of the group, it has the ability to switch between a large and small version of itself both with their individual characteristics; Oddsock – a quadruped with lightning-fast agility and occasionally a trusty steed for Sackboy; Swoop – a bird-like critter that flies, glides and can even give the other guys a free ride.

It easy to see that the developers have taken abilities native to other platforming heroes like Mario and Sonic, and split them into these separate characters to infuse a greater sense of teamwork into the gameplay of LittleBigPlanet 3.

The levels themselves bring an new ingenuity to them as you’re tasked to utilise and manage every character’s strengths against the exceedingly fluffy and colorful environments. Accessibility is the key idea that sticks out from LittleBigPlanet 3 – no matter if you’re a newbie or hardened platforming pro, picking up the controller always ends up with a seamless and fluid experience. Of course if you’re anything like me, you’ll also be happy to know that the game imposes no significant restrictions to slap or intentionally kill your friends’ characters. This game was made for children, but no-one ever said they play nice.

A long-time-coming concept, customizable heroes, has also finally come to fruition. With the use of some unique costumes, a number of character-specific powers can be added for that extra spice in your worlds. The examples I saw were a fire-breathing Swoop terrorising a village and yeti-esque Toggle barraging through the snow.

In addition to its usual fantastic character creation, LittleBigPlanet 3 has significantly upped the scope of its in-built level design and content creation. The game even makes intuitive use of the Dualshock 4’s touchpad for level design in a feature called Touch Create. The worlds you can create are no longer limited by an arbitrary meter but instead the size of the console’s HDD, which also means up to 16 players can play together!

LittleBigPlanet 3 continues to expand it breadth and depth by including all story levels from the first two games as a part of this new package. I also definitely felt as that the so-called problem of ‘floaty physics’ had been addressed. It’s still a LBP game but the movement seems to have tightened up a bit, allowing for easier control of the characters.

I did however notice the relative simplicity of the playing the game as the flying sackthing Swoop – but bear in mind I only demoed a handful of levels and they all seemed to be for beginners – so I’m hoping this game doesn’t significantly reduce in difficulty over the course its story.

In usual LittleBigPlanet fashion, my thoughts only cover the surface of the game. The series shows no signs of stopping its world domination of all things fun – it truly looks to be the ultimate hub of creativity. Soon to be topped off with the always charming and witty narration of Stephen Fry, this is one playstation exclusive you’d have to be a oaf to miss. [divider_top]

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