LittleBigPlanet

At long last, I've beaten my first PS3 game. My girlfriend bought the system for me back in May and this was the first game I sought out. I figured it was "the" PS3 game to own, what with Sackboy (pictured above) kind of being the unofficial mascot of the PS3 to date. If you're not familiar with the game, it thrives on user-generated content. I think the idea in a nutshell is not so much a game as much as a platform for which everyday people like you and me can design levels and challenges of all kinds and share them with one another. It's truly a community-based project. Now, I did dabble with a few user-generated levels, and I can certainly vouch for both the game developers and the community at large in their ability to make it all work. But naturally, the bulk of my time was spent completing the single-player story. LittleBigPlanet doesn't try to be something it's not, and it's certainly not plot-heavy or character-based. Nor does its gameplay offer anything too unique; you can move and jump, and that's it. When I beat the final boss, I was totally underwhelmed by my reward for doing so. No credits rolled. No heartwarming scene occurred. Instead, I simply got a trophy called "Just Beginning." Clever, I suppose - again, the real point of the game is to create your own levels, share them, and enjoy the creations of others. But I'm likely not "just beginning" my time with LBP at all. After all, I've completed all eight worlds that the game had to offer. I did enjoy dabbling in the extra content and would certainly have plenty of fun were I to spend several more sessions on it, but my mission here is done. At least for now. Oh, and I might as well review and rate my experience with the game before I go. Overall, it was a good one. The controls were a bit sluggish sometimes, but never in an overly frustrating way. Some bosses and series of traps and pitfalls took me a few attempts to vanquish, but nothing was too challenging or unfair. I did take advantage, twice, of the ability to co-op a level with a random stranger from the Internet. Though two people can collect more items and can access areas impossible to reach when going solo, I can sum up the experience only by saying that you'll only have as much fun as your Internet partner will let you have. Also, since headsets are so not in vogue with the PlayStation community, communication is a nightmare. My suggestion would be to just play the game with an actual friend when you feel like doing some co-op. In fact, if there's anyone out there who's thinking of playing this game (Sweeney? Keith?), by all means, let me know. We can get in on some double-teaming action some time, earning more items and trophies in the process. And there's nothing we love more than our precious trophies, right? Except for maybe our Xbox achievements. At the end of the day, I liked LittleBigPlanet enough to strongly consider buying its upcoming sequel, LittleBigPlanet 2. It's also nice to get over the hump and finally beat my first PS3 game. May the next one take fewer than three months for me to finish.