Nega-review: LittleBigPlanet

[wraggster]

"Sony's game falls short of perfection, in large part because of imprecise controls." (1) "[They] left a few corners on what should have been a razor-sharp control scheme." (3) "Your Sackboy's jumping doesn't feel quite as precise as you might want it to be." (6) "After making a jump, Sackboy slides just a bit, as if he were on ice." (1) "We found ourselves forever overdoing jumps, slipping off ledges and generally getting into trouble at the hands of the controls." (6)

"Momentum is another issue. ... the physics don't feel right, so it takes more tries than necessary to complete the objective." (1) "Player acceleration (and perhaps deceleration) isn't as quick as it could be ... likewise, in-air direction change can be a little iffy at times ... making your character occasionally over or under-respond to what you want him to do." (3) "Combined with the vague, slow and over-zealously auto-corrected movement between the game's three planes of depth, it's a problem." (2)

To put it mildly, "the controls were a little fickle when it came to moving your character among the three planes of perspective." (8) "The three-tier system the levels use, allowing Sackboy to move in and out of the screen.... can cause real problems, ending in annoying and occasionally infuriating death." (6) "It works fine except when the game decides to shift you to another plane, which often kills Sackboy." (1) "There are instances where it doesn't do what you want it to do, and these points stick out like a sore thumb, especially when it means your death." (3) "I ... found myself getting ... frustrated as Sackboy found himself on the wrong plane, repeatedly, sometimes resulting in his untimely demise." (7)

"This is made all the worse by what can only be described as a terrible checkpoint system." (6) "Three lives just aren't enough for some of the harder sections, and if you lose them all, it's back to the start of the level. ... this inflexible system creates half a dozen choke points of almost unbearable, teeth-grinding irritation that simply didn't need to be there." (2) "It tests your patience to near breaking point." (6)

http://www.joystiq.com/2008/10/15/ne...ttlebigplanet/

[bumfacekilla]

The controls could definately be worked on, the physics are too "floaty", the plane shifting and random unexpected deaths are annoying, true, I agree with all of those points. But I think the difficulty thing is kinda cool.

Obviously it's annoying when somebody creates a level that is either deliberately too difficult or poorly made and so is broken. But I think the idea of limied lives is great. I embrace the idea of an old-school platform vibe. Do you remeber the days of 8 bit and 16 bit platform greats? I can't begin to list the profanities that would be hurled at Mario after falling down the same pit for the 5th time, but also never wanting to give up.

It was learning how to beat those difficult sections that gave some older games their satisfaction. Too many games now are throwaway with lives and continues then suddenly, death in the game has no penalty or consequence.

[Accordion]

I actually thought the controls were great in 2-D. Like any game you need to adjust to the way the game character moves. An at the end of the beta i could traverse tiny platforms with ease

Moving between layers can be irritating, however simply turning off auto alignment or being able to use the d-pad for movement would fix this very simply. The other solution of course, is for level creators to consider the depth alignment when creating. Its not hard

[AlanSmithee]

Media Mediamolecule acknowledge the control problems and announced that this would be fixed in future patches, but the feelt the need to release it now instead of delay it over and over.

I played the beta and the control sheme is not flawless and frustrating and times, but it wasnt a deal breaker for me, it still rules big time for me (score 9)

and I'm confident that Mediamolecule will release future patches with awesome improvements and feutures