TEH. BEST. GAMES. EVAR.Andr'e Swartley
PSN ID: lordgodalming

Little Big PlanetDeveloper: Media Molecule
Platform: Playstation 3Rating: E for Everyone

This past week the Los Angeles Convention Center hosted the yearly Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3), where the "big three" gaming companies (Microsoft, Nintendo, and Sony) presented their hardware and software innovations for the year to come. Microsoft focused almost exclusively on its new motion tech, Kinect; Nintendo unveiled a 3D handheld system and the Zelda Wii game everyone expected them to; and Sony lobbed game after game at its fans, most incorporating their own motion tech, Move, and 3D.

Honestly, none of it was terribly thrilling, but there were still a few bright spots, my personal favorite being Little Big Planet 2. Its creators are marketing it as a combination of game and gaming platform, meaning that players will not only be able to play the game Media Molecule is building, but creative types will be able to create new games of their own with the tools included on the Little Big Planet 2 disc.

This ambitious goal extends from the first Little Big Planet, which was released in 2008 with a tagline that essentially defined Sony's marketing campaign for the next couple years: "Play. Create. Share." Gamers would play the game, use the editing tools to create their own levels, and share those levels on the Playstation Network.

Little Big Planet is a sidescrolling platformer, much like the original Super Mario brothers with an added physics engine. But instead of a pair of Italian plumbers (Mario and Luigi), Little Big Planet stars an adorable little mascot with the unfortunate name Sackboy. He is a tiny doll sewn together from burlap, with shiny black buttons for eyes and a wide, expressive mouth.

Little Big Planet would almost certainly have crashed on takeoff without Sackboy's irresistible cuteness. Besides running around and jumping, you are also able to control the little guy's emotions-the D-pad on the controller shifts his emotions between three levels of happiness, anger, fear, and sadness. You can also swing his arms around, making Sackboy mimic John Travolta's iconic flailing from Saturday Night Fever or windmill like he's strumming an invisible guitar. Add in hundreds of costumes Sackboy can wear in any combination and you're looking at a whole mouthful of cavities, sweetness-wise.

The facial expressions and arm movements, while hilarious and awesome, are completely pointless to gameplay. The levels in Little Big Planet take Sackboy around the world (represented by a cute fabric ball with the continents stitched to its surface), and the individual locales are rendered in cardboard, stone, burnished steel, and most other natural or manmade materials you can think of. But since Sackboy is only supposed to be a few inches tall, everything is scaled back to his size. The whole game world is tiny and cute and well aware of it.

For a game that basically requires you to run from point A to point B, Sackboy's third skill, the ability to grab, adds substantial depth. You can grab onto any surface made of soft materials like foam or canvas. These materials cover blocks that must be dragged around, hanging baubles that can be used to swing across gaps-I dare you not to smile at Sackboy's flailing little legs as he swings across a chasm of fire-and mechanical switches to make elevators move up or cars move forward.

You will need to use all of your cunning and skill to collect all of the costumes, stickers, shapes, and devices used in the game's "Create" mode. Some of them are hidden behind level geometry-also unlike Mario, Little Big Planet has three planes on which Sackboy can run-near, middle, and far-and some can only be accessed when playing in cooperative mode.

Up to four people can play a level at once, either together in the same room or online. And what astonishing chaos four players can be! It doesn't help matters (or does it?) that swinging Sackboy's arm beside another player results in a screamingly funny backhanded slap that sends the other player flying.

The levels go from reasonably easy to pervertedly difficult. Checkpoints throughout the levels ensure you won't ever have to go back too far when you lose Sackboy to a spiked pit or electrical charge, but most of the checkpoints have limited uses. Die four or five times at one spot and you'll have to go back to the beginning of the level. So sorry.

At any time before, during, or after you traverse the seven continents of Little Big Planet, you have the option to leap into the game's "Create" mode. This mode was a risky inclusion for several reasons, the biggest being the question mark of whether gamers-who are stereotypically viewed as sedentary, glassy-eyed introverts with the reflexes and attention spans of squirrels on cocaine-would bother to create anything worth playing.

Two years and over two million user-created levels later (not to mention a host of Game of the Year Awards), the answer to that question is a resounding, deafening yes. Gamers all over the world learned and mastered the immensely powerful tools Media Molecule handed them, expanding the game's original fifty levels by...a healthy percentage.

Now, not all of the user-created levels are worth more than glance-creating a fun level is difficult and time-consuming-but some of them are so creative and enjoyable that Media Molecule have flown their creators to headquarters to work with the design team for Little Big Planet 2. Talk about trusting and respecting your fans.

The last aspect, "Share," is the easiest and most obvious aspect of Little Big Planet's mission of global domination. Most games that can be played across the Playstation Network limit players by country. People in the US can only play on US servers, and so on. Little Big Planet allows players anywhere in the world to upload their levels to a single server, meaning that you'll have to shuffle through some new and exciting languages if you don't want to miss out on some of the most interesting levels. A simple rating system lets you know which levels the community have deemed worthwhile or not.

Little Big Planet was a potentially disastrous experiment; few games ask so much of the people who are meant to play them. But the experiment worked, as few games have gotten so much back from their communities. And by uniting the different regions of the actual world together on the PSN to play together, Little Big Planet more than lives up to its name.

Final Grade: A+

Note: I will be taking a break from reviews for part of the summer. Fear not, I will be back soon, after I have spent some time outside. Maybe I'll see some of you out there too, blinking in the harsh, unfamiliar glow of natural sunlight.