LittleBigPlanet

Nope mate. But if they're saying user levels will be free at "launch", I'm reading that as saying we'll be able to create levels beforehand and then when we get the retail game, we'll be able to go to the store and download the user levels for free.

I think SCEE's choice of words was wrong and misleading, its implies that they'll be available before the game is out but that's not true.

Speaking of spore - do you get that creature creator with the full game?

I'm not sure but the creature creator has been available to buy for few weeks.

I'd like to see some developer created levels from poeple other than MM, that would be interesting.
 
Probably. I've got a laptop with a shitty graphics card so Spore isn't worth looking at for me, it sounds amazing though :((
 
The demo of the creator of Spore works fine for me but i cant find anywhere that says if you need to buy that or if all it really does is let you create creations that can be imported into the final game - or if you get it with the final game or what.
 
We're excited about LittleBigPlanet. And maybe you are, too. LBP-centric site LittleBigPlanet Central is obviously jazzed as well and got a total of one hour and thirty minutes hands on with the game at this year's Comic Con, taking copious notes of things it noticed. Let's dive in:

Character Customization
• There is a Tron suit you can wear in the game, along with a killzone helmet and mask.
• Not only that, but there are about 25 different materials and designs that you can choose to have your sackboy made out of, including 3 types of camo.
• There are held items that you can choose from, such as a wooden sword and a magic wand (a stick with a star on the top). You can’t use them as weapons, but when you slap while holding an item you hit them with said item.

There's more after the jump. Lots more.

Level Editor
• For those of you that don’t know, you can switch back and forth between flying and running around by pressing *down* on the d-pad.
• When everyone has a menu open, the menus auto-adjust to the top left, top right, bottom left, and bottom right corners to keep the screen clear.
• LBP comes with a nice 10 premade vehicles or so(I drove a lowrider!), but as with everything else you can edit them as you like.
• Logs burn. You can make a log, or anything out of wood, really, and set it on fire. We made a floor full of burning logs and then we drove a monster truck over them.
• There are “triggers” that you can place to have events happen right when you want them to. For example, you can make it so halfway through swinging on a rope across a gap, the rope snaps and you fall down to another area.
• Anything you can think of, you can make. Just be careful when making a “Sonic” level or a “Mario” level, because that won’t fly on the servers. Name it something generic that won’t warrant deletion.
• If you want to make carpet, you can. All you have to do is take a picture of some carpet, apply the sticker to something thin and soft(sponge, for example), and save the item.
• If you made a kickass vehicle, you can make that vehicle collectible through your level. For example, you could reward players who made it past a particularly difficult portion of your level with a buggy you made, which they could use at any time throughout making their levels. This applies to items, such as carpet, as well.
• The size of your crater on the moon corresponds directly with the amount of items you can place on a level. This way you can have a minigame taking up a small crater, while a full, hour long level would take up one of the largest craters.

The Construction Yard
• This is the level I got a chance to play three times.
• Eric (the producer) was really stressing the term “Coopetition”, which is cooperating so you can compete for the collectible items and points. For example, there was a lever that would slide a girder across a gap. It requires two people(at least) to complete. One would move the girder across using a lever, the other would grab the chunk of sponge at the other side, which the first player would now bring back with the same lever. That sponge was required to reach a certain height, so you could collect more goodies. In my case, I stood on the sponge with a friend while another guy dragged it across, and right before we got there I slapped my friend off so I could have the stuff to myself. That, essentially, is coopetition.
• The developers love to hide goodies that you have to find later. I didn’t notice all the stuff I could eventually collect until the third playthrough. If you’ve ever played Portal, and you know that usually there is more than one way to beat a level, the same applies here. The more difficult task you accomplish, the more collectibles they reward you with.
• At any point, you can bring up a sticker which is basically a live image recorded from your PS Eye. When you stick the image on a surface, it takes a picture at that moment, so you can tack yourself onto the walls in a level(or whatever else you feel like doing).

Emoting
• Emoting is awesome. Using the d-pad, you can select three different degrees of sadness, anger, happiness, and fear. For example, you press up to smile, press it again to smile big, and press it again to be ecstatic with your tongue hanging out.
• If you hold R2, the right stick becomes a controller for your right hand. The same goes for L2, the left stick, and the left hand.
• The sixaxis controls which direction your head is facing, and it was surprisingly intuitive.
• If you click and hold L3, the sixaxis controls your hips instead of your head.
• Using a combination of these, I made my guy do a pretty kickass hula dance. I forced him to do it, though, so he was pretty scared at the time.

:LOL: Was it Radiation who wanted to create a Sonic/Mario level?
 
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Yes it was, as for the game update :SMOKIN:
 
Jeez, no wonder this game is taking so long. Can they really pull all that off!!!!

Sounds utterly amazing!
 
In my case, I stood on the sponge with a friend while another guy dragged it across, and right before we got there I slapped my friend off so I could have the stuff to myself. That, essentially, is coopetition.

With friends like that.... eh!

I'd much prefer to share the stuff myself

If you’ve ever played Portal, and you know that usually there is more than one way to beat a leve

What Portal game did he play because the one i had wasn't that open at all.

-

I saw the ps eye with the eye of judgement for £25 brand new in my local gamestation a few weeks back - i always liked the look of that game as well but didn't want to pay the £70 they were asking.

I might have to pick it up now more quality games are supporting it

Was it Radiation who wanted to create a Sonic/Mario level?

I'll be able to take an image now of the sonic textures and use them so the game would look even MORE like a sonic game.

My ideal design for a level though is going to chronicle my fave games from when i was a child - so i'll start out in an 8-bit looking world... that will then transform into sonic then into mario then into something else depending on how far we can push it.

Oh and of course ill design my own boss battles at the end of each section
 
Damn, can't play the video, so annoying.

Any way of ripping it and downloading it?

Edit: Nevermind :))
 
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Spotted a Joker sackboy at the end of that video :DD
 
I'd be interested to see what kind of Sackboy Jay comes up with ...
 
I would want to make sackboys with bubble-heads of Bush, Blair and Aznar and make them fall in the fire all the time.
 
LittleBigPlanet may be the most high-profile and anticipated game launch ever to hinge so much on user-generated content. With that in mind, storage space is sort of a big issue — if the game depends on contributions from users, how much self-made stuff will people be able to upload?

According to Gameplayer, each user will have a limited allotment of server space for their LBP creations. But there's kind of a neat catch that helps demonstrate that Media Molecule is taking their role as user-generated-content-messiah seriously:

Writes Gameplayer:

If their scheme works, users who upload the most popular levels will be rewarded with more space. It’s common sense, really — when lurking on YouTube, do you look for the videos with five stars, or with one?

On the other hand, if you wanted to play Devil’s Advocate, you could accuse Sony of some subtle social engineering here. After all, server space is so cheap these days that it’s effectively free. Just think of GMail, and Flikr, and all those sites that let you upload files that are hundreds of megabytes in size — for free.

So it’s not an issue of cost — it’s an issue of quality.

Sony wants to create a sense of value for those who’ve bought their game. By rewarding the best LittleBigPlanet players with more online space — and by restricting those who, well, suck — they can make this dream a reality. Or at least, that’s the plan.

A system that depends on community content, one could argue, ends up subject to quality issues; Microsoft has attracted criticism to that effect regarding its community games (and responded to it). But a system that holistically encourages and rewards quality creations has a good shot, right?
 
Media Molecule co-founder Alex Evans wants to do another big "reveal" for LittleBigPlanet - and reckons the game has plenty left to surprise us with.

Chatting to Eurogamer last week Evans said, "I really want to be able to do another [Game Developer Conference 2007] reveal. A lot of people say to me that when we first did that Sony GDC reveal of LittleBigPlanet, that was a big shock - people didn't see it coming. I want to do another LittleBigPlanet reveal that people don't see coming.

"It's still LittleBigPlanet, but people will be saying, 'I thought it was this - now you're telling me it's this as well?!' That excites me hugely."

You certainly can't accuse the studio of thinking small, and Alex makes no apologies for that."I started Media Molecule with my friends to go balls-out, to see what's the biggest thing we can do," he enthused. "I would love there to be a LittleBigPlanet universe of content. With a game like this, the number of directions and the breadth that you could take in, while keeping it in a self-contained universe, is insane."

As to those people finding the wait for LittleBigPlanet all too long, Alex points out that the game has actually been developed in double-quick time - and if it feels like it's been around for ages, that's because they've been open with everyone about what they're doing from the outset.

"The big thing thing there is that we've got into a real habit of throwing stuff out earlier, testing it and showing it earlier," he explained. "A lot of people ask, 'When will LittleBigPlanet be done, for god's sake?'. This is the quickest game I've ever worked on! To me, this is an in-and-out, job done sort of thing.

"I think the reason is because we showed it when it was less than a year old. If you go around and ask developers working on a new platform with a new IP whether they'd show it when it was less than a year old, those people would be like, fu** off!"

"We've got used to this idea of really baring our soul to everyone as much as possible," concluded Alex. That's going to be great for them in the future, though, he reckons. "It means that we can react to the community," he explained.

LittleBigPlanet is due out exclusively for PlayStation 3 this October.
 
Developer Media Molecule has "a rather scarily long list of great ideas for ways to support the community" after LittleBigPlanet launches - but is waiting to see what people want first.

"We've got loads of plans, we're going to support it massively," studio founder Alex Evans told Eurogamer. "Content packs, new objects, new game modes... All of this stuff could be done. What we're basically waiting to see is what the demand is for.

"We can do all of that stuff - we will do all of that stuff - but what order we do it in, and how much weight we throw behind any of the different ideas that different people have got, is totally down to what the community does," he continued.

"That really excites me, because if people are loving the costumes, we can crank them out. If people are loving the levels and master classes... We've got a slightly scarily long list of great ideas for ways to support the community, and it's just a matter of prioritising at this stage."

As to what users will be paying for that content - if anything - Media Molecule hasn't made up its mind yet, but there'll definitely be some freebies in the mix.

"All options are open," Evans informed us. "I can definitely say that there will be content that's available to people free of charge - I'm just not saying exactly what that content is going to be right now.

"I can also say that if there's any way we can reward the community, we'll go there. If people are clamouring for big chunks of content, it would make total sense for us to do it. We're just exploring all options at this point. Sequels? Why not! DLC? Yeah, why not! Paid-for content? Why not!"

Look out for our full interview with Alex Evans soon.
 
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The Americans are getting some pre order goodness...
 
I'm still not convinced that LBP is much more than a beautifully upgraded flash game. Sure, it will be fun to waste time with on occasion, but I can't see playing it for long sessions.

That said, I'm pretty sure this game is guaranteed to sell like gangbusters. There is no chance of this failing to be a commercial success.
 
I'm still not convinced that LBP is much more than a beautifully upgraded flash game. Sure, it will be fun to waste time with on occasion, but I can't see playing it for long sessions.

That said, I'm pretty sure this game is guaranteed to sell like gangbusters. There is no chance of this failing to be a commercial success.

I've got mates with no PS3 telling me they're only coming over again once I have LBP to play multiplayer
 
I've got mates with no PS3 telling me they're only coming over again once I have LBP to play multiplayer

Don't get me wrong, it looks like a fun party game... but in the same way that Wii Sports is a fun party game. I'll enjoy playing it with friends for a bit, but I don't see it as a long lasting experience.

I'm open to being wrong on this one, I'll wait and see just how much fun can be had platforming in the LBP environment.
 
I think it does depend on the user generated content and if sony themselves are going to be releasing amazing content. I can see there being an initial boom on user stuff uploaded and then everything will die down for a while and then we'll get great stuff once a month and loads of content with cocks and boob shapes on.

The way i see it for far we'll have content along the lines of.


* Short challenges like the lifting platforms where you have to drop down a level each time without falling off the bottom or going off the top - leaderboards for the best times.

* A variation on the above - time trial levels kinda like Sonic 2's opening level

* Basic platform levels with short puzzles dotted around

* Co Op specific maps where you'll need a team to complete them

* Classic platform style with jumps, secret shortcuts and with boss battles at the end



It depends as well what this other BIG secret is as well.
 
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At this point, I’ve seen and heard enough about LittleBigPlanet that I feel as though the game isn’t even real and that it’s never actually coming out. Thankfully, Sony brought along their first-party titles for us New Yorkers to try out and I can confirm that the game does in fact exist and will be coming out this fall. But after finally getting my hands on it, I think I’m going to have to turn down my hype meter just a bit.

When I got my hands on the controller and got booted up to the LittleBigPlanet title screen, the first thing I wanted to do was to make stuff. I think I’ve seen enough the gameplay from finished levels to know how it’ll work when it’s put together, but I felt since I didn’t have a whole lot of time, I wanted to dig deeper in the creation tools.

Without any real tutorial of the controls, I just started messing around. The first thing I popped in the environment was a sombrero. OK, easy. But the Sony rep and I decided we wanted to give the sombrero wheels and drive it off a ramp. Now this is when things started to get a little harder.

I think something that’s being overlooked with this game is the learning curve. I found it to be very overwhelming.

If you wanted to build a sombrero car, you have to attach it to a piece of wood (or something flat). But since the sombrero is two blocks long in width, you have to make sure your surface is just as long or it won’t let you do it. And if you’re not completely familiar with the system like I was, it’s easy to get stuck and frustrated when something doesn’t work.

So we finally got the hat on the piece of wood and I put some wheels on. But then since the hat is light, we had to make sure it’s glued down or it will blow off. Then we had to add two motors (one for each wheel) and manually go in and alter the settings to adjust the speed of the car.

I don’t know how long it took for me to build that sombrero car, but it took a lot longer than I thought it would, and it didn’t even look like something I wanted to save and share with my friends. We never did get a chance to drive it off a ramp both because I had to go, and the ramp itself wasn’t even done. :(

We also tried to attach one wheel to a can of tuna, which was dubbed the “Tuna Cycle,” but it didn’t work.

Granted, this was my first time with the game, but isn’t this supposed to be accessible? I had an easier time with SOCOM from earlier in the day. The Sony rep did mention there would be a full tutorial of the controls in the final version, which is probably the one feature I’m most excited about.
 
OK, I'm sure he'll come around :DD
 
Personally I liked that article because it shows some thought has to go into things and it'll be a much better feeling when you create a top level.
 
It also means that when a quality level turns up it really will be quality and not just something someone knocked up in 10 mins
 
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