Little Big Planet PSP Review

Little Big Planet PSP


2008's huge PS3 hit Little Big Planet was a big winner, and now the good people at Media Molecule have brought the game to the PSP. Now, obiviously, there are destined to be challenges in porting from what is practically a supercomputer to a handheld. However, both in the intrest of fairness and due to the fact that I have never played the PS3 version, I will be reviewing this game for its own merits.

The game itself is a colorful masterpiece, with elaborate bright landscapes rarely seen this side of Mario. Sackboy is somewhat blocky, but other than that, the graphics seem fine to me. The game leads on a quest to gather all of the world's caretakers, the Creator Curators, to participate in an epic parade of sorts. Yes, it's not exactly Mass Effect, but the plot gives enough meaning that the levels don't get tedious. The level have good varitiy in between puzzles and action. LBP's Story mode is a good value for the PSP's normal single-player modes - I really find that a nice touch, that they didn't just use the downloadible levels and level creator as a justification for skimping on their own. Which brings me to the next topic.

To say that LBP's level creator is epic would be an understatement. In fact, to an LBP noob, the many options can be tough to understand - which is why I enjoyed being taught by charming tutorials. To watch so many help videos would be boring in any other game, but LBP's tuts are funny, to the degree of becoming hilarious at times (Grab switches - "place them on something you'd like to grab onto - nothing dirty though!", at which point Sackboy sticks his tounge out with a huge grin). I'm now on my way to becoming an ace creator myself, and though I sometimes wish for greater options, such as importing MP3 tracks, I'm largly satisfied with the creator. Little Big Planet manages to stand tall, even in the high standards its console brother has made.

Review Wrap-Up
Pros: Good creative functions and learning process
Cons: Could use some personalization - pics and MP3's would have been nice!
Nitpicking: Being unable to skip the ELCA policy everytime you go online.

Final Thoughts: LBP PSP does the series well, considering the major downscale in hardware capibilities. Nothing more than minor complaints here. 9/10.