Wednesday 2 December 2009

Little Big Planet: PSP Review

Whilst on my slightly longer than they should have been train journeys the last few days (not today, I was at the mother ship) I have been playing Little Big Planet. On my PSP.

Now I haven't finished it or tried the create mode yet so this is sort of half a review. So why write it at all? Well I've had my PSP for around two years and I've hardly used it but I sort of fell in love with it as soon as I loaded LBP up. (And there's a lot to not love about the PSP, believe me.)

The original game is a hugely underselling PS3 classic. A side scrolling platformer with a difference. There is a huge, wonderfully complex, create mode and thousands of PS3 owners made and uploaded levels and still do. It is one of the most beautiful games on any system and the levels that came with the game were tricky, clever and a joy to play. The game looked like this.

Original PS3 version of Little Big Planet
Now Sony have released a scaled down version for the PSP and although some of the amazing graphical detail has gone it's an incredible reproduction with a completely new story mode.

It looks like this.

PSP version.
What has been transferred brilliantly is the amazing game play. The physics engine that made the original so compelling and frustrating in equal measure has been faithfully copied and that adds to the immersion as Sackboy (your lil on screen self) and all the objects around you act as they would in reality.

To have achieved this on the PSP is truly remarkable. It is a lovely game to play and it might be a bug in the game, but you appear to have infinite lives. This comes in very handy on later levels as Sackboy dives into fire a lot... he makes a great sound as he dies though...

Whether I'll make levels like I did on the PS3 edition remains to be seen, but just like that, once I've completed the levels that come with it I'll be playing the ones created by others.

Best of all though I got it on download from the PSN. So no fiddly UMD disc either although it did take an age to download.

If you have a PSP you should get this, even if you've not sampled the delights of the first game.

****

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