[Official] LittleBigPlanet: Play, Create, Share!

[+Audioboxer Subscriber²]

Few screens from an even in Edinburgh. I'll see if I can find some more!

From Japan.

[Guest]

:p

That section of 1UP Yours was amazing though. I got goosebumps ;)

Glad to see a fellow 1UP Yours listener as well, awesome podcast (Y)

For anyone interested - http://www.1up.com/do/minisite?cId=3149993 - Talk on LBP starts @ 35 minutes. There's a bit more talk on music for once, they said it's kinda like Loco Roco crazy, everything fits with the art direction :)

Also, good quote

"It's like clever overload, it's just so clever, like that's all I can keep thinking, is like OMG that's so clever, they just integrated that little... that's so ****ing clever! It's like saying that to yourself 100 times a minute, for at least the first half hour"

Clever then? ;)

Doesn't everyone listen to 1UP Yours? If not, they should.

[+Audioboxer Subscriber²]

Doesn't everyone listen to 1UP Yours? If not, they should.

I've only seen a few Neowins mention it, where as on the likes of NeoGAF they actually have a dedicated topic to each 1UPYours podcast every week :p

It's hugely popular but I don't think NW has that many listeners?

[Guest]

I've only seen a few Neowins mention it, where as on the likes of NeoGAF they actually have a dedicated topic to each 1UPYours podcast every week :p

It's hugely popular but I don't think NW has that many listeners?

It certainly looks that way :(

It's by far my favourite podcast (Y)

[Nightz]

i listen to 1up yours as well. i love how the shows have been a little longer the past few weeks...helps get me through my monday workday much faster. :)

[Vortex566]

I like GFW podcast more Jeff Green is really funny. He also knows a bit about games as well.

I'm sorry but if you enjoy games you should be looking forward to LBP.

This is a new IP which is going to take user content to the next level. You don't even have to be a hardcore gamer to enjoy this one. It's no MGS4, it's making me so excited just thinking about where this thing could go!

[clx]

Sorry if i missed this, but have they mentioned how the "pre order" bag/characters will be made available ? is it a redeem a code sent with your pre-order disk? or something else?

[+Audioboxer Subscriber²]

So today I was at the Edinburgh Interactive Festivals and there was 4 booths of LBP goodness where you could play.

I stood and watched as one of the graphic designers from Media Molecule showed me around the games features. He firstly showed me how to customize your Sackboy, there is so many options here.. Hair..face..eyes..mouth..nose..feet honestly you can change anything on your Sackboy, he turned Sackboy into this paper thin post-it note kind of thing, it was the first time I'd seen that so it was pretty cool. Also there was the helghast costume and the kratos one!!

Anyway then I asked if I could get hands on with the game, I jumped into a blank level to see how it felt to create objects in the game. I played around a bit with the diffirent materials and they really all do have diffirent physical properties, its easy to drag bubblewrap but try and drag a big block of wood and you'll need a friend to jump in and help.

Its really easy to scale things and move them around you use the right analouge stick to scale and move your objects.

The stickers are so much fun, there was loads to play with but the dev I was talking to said they had to limit the amount they came with as the build was being read from a memory card. I used the pseye to take a picture of my face and stick it on a robots face we made, the level of detail you can go into when making a machine is amazing, you can use different types of cogs and connectors and change the strength and speed of the cogs as you wish. I made a little car with beer tops as wheels, it wasn't to smooth!

I then decided to jump into an earlier made level and give it a try. There are only 3 buttons you control, X to jump Left analoge to move, and R1 to grab ,pull ect....

It's really easy to get to grips with Sackboy, for example you hold down X for longer to get a longer jump, there is also different depths to the game, you can bring stuff forwards and backwards you jump between these by pressing down on the stick then jumping.

I was playing co-op with a friend and we had to get on a jet-pack and collect lemons and drag them up to a canope which was connected to a pulee system, once we had enough weight on the canope, a door opned so we could continue the level. We were then confronted by ghosts that would bob up and down, there was platforms you had to go up so you can access a button which kills the ghosts, the platforms were too high for us to jump onto so we had to work together to pull a box so we could use that as a stepping block. All the way through the level we were collecting sponge to get our score up.

There is honestly to much to mention about this game, I was truley blown away. I felt before playing the game that I would not create that much levels but after trying it out it is so easy and so much fun. I think that loads of practice will make anybody into a great level designer.

Its a blast to play too, it is not super easy and often requires logic to be used and some parts took me a few trys.

Everybody present was really impressed by this game, this will be huge.

Heres some pics I took (they are from my phone so not the best quality)

[00000]

That life size sackboy is really creepy looking :|

[+Audioboxer Subscriber²]

Aside from some rather "meh" comments, I think this article makes some fair points.

(It has some newish things about LBP as well)

Not really about PSN vs Live, but more about, the future of games, DLC and user generated content. I think after LBP hits, if it's true to it's word, developers throwing up bloody reskins for money, are going to have to take a long hard look at themselves, and maybe just leave in a skinner in the game (kind of like Soul Calibur 4 character creation).

Is Microsoft’s Xbox Live service better than the PlayStation Network? At one stage in this generation such a question would get little debate: Xbox Live for the win – at least from a user’s perspective. We’d still tend to give a nod in Live’s direction. With all of Microsoft’s extensive PC networking experience behind it, consumers have rallied behind the marketplace (despite its questionable pricing plans: microtransactions our collective arses!) and fallen in love with the social mechanics and achievements.

Sony has been playing catch-up all along. But catching up they have been, with each firmware update the PlayStation Network has become a more robust online alternative, to the point where there is a hint of the cross-media bar in the upcoming Xbox Live re-skin. Now Sony just need some killer software.

For a while there it looked like Home was going to be Sony’s big PSN hope, but a run of delays has seen interest in the product wane. But a new beast has risen to take its place: having just spent a few days goings hands-on with LittleBigPlanet and chatting with Nick Robinson, its Senior Product Manager, we think it could be LittleBigPlanet that really rocks Xbox Live’s boat in this key skirmish of the console war.

For the uninitiated, LittleBigPlanet is one of the bravest software concepts of all time. A side-scrolling platformer on the surface, its beating heart lies in user-creation, with gamers empowered to construct their own levels and freely distribute them across the Net to all other community members. As Nick informed us, the driving mantra during the game’s creation was ‘no cheating.’ Each of the 50 levels constructed in the main experience is developed with exactly the same tool kit provided to users in the creation mode.

In fact, Nick stated that originally they weren’t going to provide any maps at all, just the editing software. But instead the 50 levels were designed and included for the specific purpose of illuminating what can be achieved with the tool kit: they’re instruments of inspiration first, entertainment second. And while Nick informed us that there is already 12 months of planned DLC for the game, it will come in the form of new editing tools – a mini music studio was spoken about but not confirmed – coupled with levels that show off what it can do.

The possibilities in LittleBigPlanet are next to endless. As part of our time with the game, the assembled journalists were each given two hours to construct a map, with everything from skate-boarding simulations to hardcore platformers and cut-scene driven puzzlers spilling out of the nation’s finest critics.

Nick is aware that this leaves the door open to just about anything – he believes that they’ll probably get every Mario Bros. level ever developed day one – and they have strict moderation features to counter spam and indecency. But the truth of it is they are genuinely clueless as to what is going to happen. They really don’t know: they’re going to press the big green button step back and watch what happens. It’s the great unknown, but ultimately Media Molecule, and Sony, are charging headfirst into the unknown with barely contained excitement.

It’s a mentality that parallels the ground-breaking work being done by Will Wright on Spore, and it’s already working. In fact, Nick informed us that other Sony studios – including Guerrilla Games – are chomping at the bit to make their own themed-levels for their games – Sack-Helghast anyone? The game is filled with brilliant features that are sure to facilitate exponential community growth. Like the ability to create props and images that you can hide in your level as Easter eggs which, if discovered, will be delivered as prizes to the gamer for use in their worlds. Or to chain-link multiple levels together, so when you finish one it downloads the next, allowing guilds and clans to develop whole games of their own styling. Not to mention full website support covering things like stat-tracking of your average map rating, and fastest times in race maps. Not to mention that the game supports Trophies.

It’s going to go off. And it’s all facilitated by the freedom Sony gives to developers in the way they use the PSN. Such freedom does not exist on Xbox Live.

We broached the subject of the Xbox 360 with Nick and whether LittleBigPlanet could function as desired on the format: the answer was a disappointed shake of the head. Echoing thoughts we heard from Epic Games Mark Rein last year regarding the issues they faced with wanting mods available for the Xbox 360 version of Unreal Tournament III (which subsequently resulted in a delay), and the frustration shown more recently by the developers of N+, Microsoft’s Draconian – and frequently hypocritical (seems to be ok in Halo 3 and Forza 2) – restrictions on user-generated content is proving to the be Live’s Achilles’ Heel.

Just today the developer of the highest rated XBLA game ever, Braid, suggested he would never work on the system again due to Microsoft's restrictions.

Getting a straight answer out of Microsoft as to what precisely is their problem has been a long trek down a dead-end. On the surface they’re saying it’s a bi-product of Xbox Live being a ‘closed system’, and then there’s been a bit of the old ‘we can’t guarantee the quality, or that the content will be kosher’. But there are more than enough hints to suggest that Microsoft is simply worried that it will devalue the premium content on the Marketplace: as in they will lose money. Or more precisely, will not get as much money. Certainly Bizarre Creations, who were told they couldn’t give Geometry Wars away for free, would agree with this theory. Even Mark Rein has moaned about the need of “convincing Microsoft to let us give some things away for free."

As it stands, LittleBigPlanet is set to embarrass Xbox Live and really challenge Microsoft’s views on user-generated content. The game has a tremendous amount of hype and having played it for hours now, that hype is certainly warranted. It’ll be a trendsetter for sure, and a host of LittleBigPlanet clones will surely appear down the track, all of which will seemingly need to head to the PS3. And LittleBigPlanet is just the first wave in an onslaught of user-driven experiences, including such big hitters as Guitar Hero: World Tour and Spore.

Indeed, if LittleBigPlanet fulfils its potential, appealing to mainstream and gamer alike, then it could very well force Microsoft’s hand by humiliating the revered Xbox Live system. Worse still for Microsoft is this all important question: what other unannounced games have already pledged themselves to the PS3 in order to jump on the user-content bandwagon?

Source: http://www.gameplayer.com.au/gp_documents/...ures&Page=1

In regards to the DLC comment above, I knew it would be editing tools or new game play mechanics. Seeing as you can basically make LBP with the same tools the devs used, they're going to need to make worthwhile DLC :p

Edited August 12, 2008 by Audioboxer

[popisdead uk]

http://www.gameplayer.com.au/gp_documents/...ures&Page=1

Worth a read, but take it all with a pinch of salt I think.

[Scazza]

Queue Piracy X and DM :p

Haha, this should be interesting to watch.......Mods at the ready!!

[+Nik Louch Subscriber²]

Shame that the title itself, with is flamebait and emotive wording has already put me off.

And I personally am intrigued - but refuse to read poor reporting.

[+Audioboxer Subscriber²]

Already posted this here - https://www.neowin.net/forum/index.php?show...amp;p=589639542

Didn't think this needed a new topic, due to the headline and the fact it'll no doubt turn into PSN vs Live cue #473897923874234

The article while a little unprofessional does make some good points at how both MS and Sony are approaching their online services in regards to DLC/Mods/User content - Because they ARE doing it differently, no doubts about that. We've already seen that with absolutely no mods being allowed for UT3 360, which was a shame but not the end of the world, but a game like LBP will practically live on mods/user content.

I'm requesting for this to be closed for a double post.

[BajiRav]

Naah, don't think so.

[popisdead uk]

If already posted, I apologise. Please close mods.

[DirtyLarry Veteran]

Closed.

DL

[BajiRav]

Aside from some rather "meh" comments, I think this article makes some fair points.

(It has some newish things about LBP as well)

Not really about PSN vs Live, but more about, the future of games, DLC and user generated content. I think after LBP hits, if it's true to it's word, developers throwing up bloody reskins for money, are going to have to take a long hard look at themselves, and maybe just leave in a skinner in the game (kind of like Soul Calibur 4 character creation).

Source: http://www.gameplayer.com.au/gp_documents/...ures&Page=1

In regards to the DLC comment above, I knew it would be editing tools or new game play mechanics. Seeing as you can basically make LBP with the same tools the devs used, they're going to need to make worthwhile DLC :p

/OT

I think we can come back to the DLC topic later in the September after Bungie's announcement. By all signs, it looks like a big change is coming in Halo 3. How Microsoft prices that stuff (I am betting for $20-30ish) is the million dollar question.

[John S. Veteran]

<threads merged>

[+Audioboxer Subscriber²]

European Boxart, I think it's better than American!

http://threespeech.com/blog/2008/08/exclus...et-uk-packshot/

Europe on the globe Sackboy is holding :)

[Lauguu]

Yeah, it looks better than the US boxart.

can't even see Denmark on that globe :laugh:

[Sethos]

can't even see Denmark on that globe :laugh::p

And the UK is connected to the mainland :rofl:

[+Audioboxer Subscriber²]

8 min video from Edinburgh -

Don't understand why people never bring good/decent cameras along to events :pinch:, but it will do.

Nice to see vehicles aren't on rails, I wasn't sure about that (you can reverse/go forward in realtime).

Another clip (:o Skiing!) -

Another clip - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CYaQypXFGNY

Another clip - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qhg0t6WJhE8&NR=1

Another clip -

Home made Sackboys,

Edited August 13, 2008 by Audioboxer

[+Audioboxer Subscriber²]

Amazon had an exclusive trailer a few pages back, here's walmarts!

http://uk.gamespot.com/video/938583/6195864/videoplayerpop?

[00000]

Have they announced any of the other preorder locations yet? I wanna know where I can get my LBP burlap sack, I thought for sure it would be amazon.com after they got the awesome Fallout 3 and Gears of War 2 preorders, but it looks like karma caught up with them and they got the crappiest preorder this time around.