One of the most anticipated games in recent memory made its long awaited debut to a slew of controversy with offensive song lyrics and online server issues. Sackboy is the new face of the PS3 and LittleBigPlanet should be a system seller. You’ve got solid gameplay coupled with the best level creator we’ve seen and an immense social network.

When you fire up the game, you’re graced by the dry, witty humor of Stephen Fry who narrates everything in the world of LittleBigPlanet. The presentation here is just phenomenal. From the game’s intro to the way you navigate menus with your Pod, Media Molecule hit this one out of the park. Graphically, the game looks great. There’s a terrific cartoon-realistic feel to everything and you get great depth to the levels. The background music is amazing and really fits the mood, as well, making this an all-encompassing experience.

As I mentioned earlier, the gameplay is solid. The controls are simple: use the left analog stick to move, the X button to jump, and the R1 button to grab on to things. The longer you hold the X button, the further you jump. There are a couple problems, however. The game plays as a side-scroller with 3D elements. A lot of times, moving forward and back in the 3D space is wonky and getting precise jumps just right is hit or miss. Expect to miss a few jumps and have your Sackboy plummet and burn up in fire pits. Don’t worry, it makes you laugh even if you die five times in a row.

LittleBigPlanet’s story mode is the jumping off point. With just over 50 levels included, there’s plenty here to pique your interest, but this is just the beginning. The real heart and soul of LittleBigPlanet lies in creating, sharing, and playing levels from other users online. If you can imagine it, you can make it happen in the game. You can browse Cool Levels from your Pod and see some of the most played and “hearted” levels currently available. Even with only a couple weeks under its belt, there are some terrific levels out there already. Users have created working calculators and levels as homages to Metal Gear Solid, Gradius, and other big games of the past and present.

There is a huge online community with LittleBigPlanet that will only continue to grow. After playing a user-created level, you can “heart” it (effectively recommending it to others) and further drill down to that creator’s other levels. Once there, you can see levels they have hearted, then those creators, and over and over again. The social networking aspects here are great. With any of the levels, you have the option to play alone or with 3 other friends online. There’s been some lag issues when playing with others which seem to have been worked out on the server end of things.

If playing other people’s levels isn’t your bread and butter, you can create anything your mind can imagine in the game’s level editor. By playing through the story and other levels, you unlock various stickers and objects to use in your own creations. Media Molecule put together one of the easiest to use and most intuitive level editors I’ve ever used. The only problem is, to stand out from the crowd, you’re going to be putting in some serious time to polish your level. Because of this fact, most people will just stick with the other great levels online.

If you own a PS3, LittleBigPlanet needs to be at the very top of your purchase list. If you don’t yet have a PS3, this makes the cost of admission worth every penny. With the massive amount of creativity and ever-changing online realm, there is endless replayability with the game. There will always be something new for you to try and you’ll certainly keep coming back for more.

Overall: 9.5 out of 10

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