Little BIG Planet

[miffy495]

More difficult, yeah. Even so, I only had to actually restart a level from the beginning once.

[Tanukitsune]

Does anybody know if the costume codes expire? My copy continues to NOT arrive, and I fear I might miss out on some freebies!

[miffy495]

I don't know, honestly. Which code do you have? I know my Kratos one says on it that it expires January first. I'm not sure if that's similar across all of them or not.

[Tanukitsune]

I have the girl from Heavenly Sword code.

[n0wak]

Either way, I haven't really found the whole life system much of a bother. To be honest I'd hardly thought about it until this thread.

Maybe I just suck at platformers now*. I had to restart the Mine level because I was blown up one too many times and the Low Rider level because I was electrocuted one too many times. It was annoying. I just wanted to romp through this stuff without any worry of death (I've got Geometry Wars Evolved 2 for that) and was surprised to find the single player experience so, well, conventional.

* Then again, I did get 120 stars in Super Mario Galaxy. Who knows?

[Jake]

and was surprised to find the single player experience so, well, conventional.

That surprised me for a bit as well. Fortunately, it becomes less conventional the more controllers you plug in and occupy with friends.

[Cigol]

It surprised me because from what I'd seen of the hype it was primarily focused on its level building tools - so that there was a singleplayer component worth playing at all was a pleasant surprise. I've pretty much completed it myself (just the last area to get through) and thoroughly enjoyed every minute. I only got stuck trying to manoeuvre the dynamite around, but there's a knack to it that once you know quickly renders all your previous frustration trifling.

Charged with creative energy I find myself routinely jumping into the editor full of hope and promise only to find myself lost and out of my depth. It's very easy to use, and abuse, I'll give them that, but there's still a natural barrier for those us cursed with ordinary'ness.

...looking back on Spaff's first level. Cripes. Well done sir!

Being without the internet the past week or so I was crushed to learn you had to actually be connected online in order to play community levels? I mean as fun as the core game is that's a bit of a poor show for those who can't get online (for whatever reason).

[Thrik]

Just finished the story mode, and loved every last bit of it. It really brought back the memories of the old platformers for obvious reasons, but it's definitely its own new thing — I can't recall seeing many of the gameplay mechanics in LBP in other platformers before. Pretty much worth buying for that and the better user levels alone.

Also of note is how fuckin' brilliant the music is. I especially like what they call the iMusic tracks (Heh.), which as you might expect let you seamlessly make the intensity of the music match each area of your level. :tup:

[Jake]

Also of note is how fuckin' brilliant the music is. I especially like what they call the iMusic tracks (Heh.), which as you might expect let you seamlessly make the intensity of the music match each area of your level. :tup:

I don't play a lot of games, admittedly, but this was the first time I'd seen the "fmod" logo at the start of a game. (Fmod being an often-used realtime sound and music processing/mixing engine.) With the amount of great realtime interactivity going on with the music and sound, it's a well deserved placement right there up front.

[Thyroid]

So, what's with all this "LittleBigPlanet isn't selling very much" banter that's going on? Is this a very bad thing?*

Hmm.

*(Yes, yes it is. )

[DanJW]

Lots of anger this weekend about the Azure Palace level being blocked for no dicernable reason (best bet seems that griefers reported it leading to an automatic block by Sony). Seems to have put a lot of people off the game.

[Thrik]

You bloody what?

That level looked ace — I was going to play it properly this week. Better get un-blocked.

[miffy495]

(best bet seems that griefers reported it leading to an automatic block by Sony).

Seriously? They can do that? Random fucking griefers can get one of the game's most fantastic achievements deleted like nothing? Goddamn, this may be one of the most flawed systems of rooting out problem game content that has ever been conceived of if that's true... :(

[n0wak]

I tried playing that level with my sister and we got stuck in an impossible situation and had to quit out. As cool as LBP is, it's also a testament to the fact that you really can't leave proper stage design and designers behind.

[Thrik]

Guess it gives more people an opportunity to develop such skills though, n0wak.

Not that they'd be much use outside of LBP. :tdown:

Regarding the griefing, on one hand I do understand why they allow reports to have a level automatically thrown into the moderation queue, there clearly need to be safeguards against great levels like this being unfairly taken offline (albeit temporarily until their staff can review it).

I'm guessing it's something they somehow didn't anticipate though, and are going to work on a solution ASAP.

[Nachimir]

I bet someone reported it as a Shadow Of The Colossus infringer

wrt sales, as that article points out it only had 4 days in October instead of 11. It will likely do just fine in nov/dec.

[miffy495]

Hey, they put it back up!

[DanJW]

With an apology I damn well hope!

[Tanukitsune]

Now that I finally got and beaten the game, I can play the online stuff!

Are they still modding copyrighted levels? I played a Batman level, a Gradius one, the ICO one, a Sonic one...

I wanted to create a level myself, but the tutorials took up all my free time!

[n0wak]

Anybody want to try scheduling a time for a little co-op tour of little big planet? I'm available anytime.

[miffy495]

I plan to be spending some time working on my Thumb contest level this afternoon, so I'll probably be in-game quite a bit. If you sign in, I'd be happy to save, quit, and have a run at some levels with you.

[miffy495]

Oh my god, this level creation thing is so much harder than people make it look. I hope I can pull this crap off in time...

[Thrik]

Tee.

It is surprisingly steep a learning curve, but you do get quite good with it relatively quickly. It seems to be especially easy if you have a cool concept in mind rather than just randomly dicking around — I think there's something to be said for sketching out an awesome level before trying to do it in the editor. Just like when I was a kid!

[miffy495]

Well, I've got three pages of planning down with sketches for everything I want accomplished, so it's not for lack of forethought. I just may have thought of more than I'm capable of doing at my current skill level. I don't exactly have tons of free time available to create stuff, given school and work, so my main concern is that I'm shooting too high. I guess we'll see in the end. I made a few things work this afternoon that I'll hopefully put into my level, and the feeling of accomplishment was immense. I can see this becoming very addictive once I'm familiar with the toolset.

[miffy495]

Wow, n0wak, you totally out level-knowledged me. Well done, sir. Fun times were had.