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Hands-on with LittleBigPlanet 2

The other day, Will and I were able to get some hands-on time with LittleBigPlanet 2 coming to Playstation 3. Though I've admittedly not played the first, the game has always been one that I've wanted to try because of just how fun it looks. And the sequel is very, very fun. The extra emphasis on fun comes from the forgiving nature of the game and the ultimate customization and creation of worlds.

Once again, you are Sackboy (or Sackgirl, or Sack-person), and your job is to play through dozens of platform- and puzzle-filled levels. Some of the areas demonstrated bore a resemblance in style and design to Super Mario Galaxies 2. Fans of that franchise will perhaps be very pleased with Little Big Planet 2's well-established, excellent level designs and quirky gameplay. Even without the boon of user-generated content through the game's powerful level creator, the game will come with a slew of new worlds to explore.

The pre-fab worlds are fun and filled with puzzles that will keep players thinking and trying to react quickly. In a segment I played, the grappling hook was very instrumental to achieving success; I had to cling to moving platforms, making tricky, swinging jumps as I navigated over an electrified floor. There are lots of potential dangers such as poison gas, losing air underwater, being zapped, etc. Different rewards are also handed to players through collecting items, exploring and even rescuing NPCs.

CGA movie lovers will perhaps really enjoy the fact that the entire game looks like something Pixar created and almost reminds me a bit of Toy Story 3. From the way the characters move, to the way that puzzles and the environments are so much larger than Sack-insert-gender-here will give off a sense of child-like imagination and nostalgia. Players have loads of choices throughout the entire game for nearly every aspect. For example, I chose to make Sackboy look like Mary Poppins with a top hat. Before tweaking, he looked a bit like a pirate complete even with a non-functional sword.

While new items like the aforementioned grappling hook and heavy-object-hefting power glove add variety in the gameplay, LittleBigPlanet 2 really sets itself apart from its predecessor with its deeper, more powerful level creator. The new version gives players far more control over what they can create, and how their creations can act.

In the first LittleBigPlanet, "enemies" were basically mindless robots, given the most simple commands to move back and forth and guided by strings, pulleys, and gravity more than any real intelligence. In LittleBigPlanet 2, characters can actually be given a rudimentary intelligence through a variety of tools and settings. They can be set to react to the presence of players, making them chase after Sackboy, run away from him, or follow him slavishly. This adds a massive new dimension to the game, allowing players to create actual NPCs, units, and monsters, instead of building facsimiles out of them with stickers and engines.

The "Creatinator" gun also adds new possibilities to level design. It's similar to the "Paintinator" paint gun in the original LittleBigPlanet, but instead of just firing paint balls it can spawn anything. It functions like a portable, player-controlled "Emitter," the level design tool that can spawn any sort of object or material. The examples we saw had the "Creatinator" throwing snowballs and creating little robots, and it looks like the gun can be set to create greater, stranger things than that.

It looks like MediaMolecule looked at the sort of tricks players used to create truly clever and varied levels in the first LittleBigPlanet, and then tried to streamline those tricks into actual level creation tools. Thanks to the new features, players will be able to explore different genres and gameplay styles, beyond the standard platform-based puzzle solving in the first game. One particularly clever demonstration level showed a faux-3D rail shooter that used timed enemy spawning and background scrolling to give the impression that the Stickboy, sitting on his little ship, was flying off into the distance. We were told that a rudimentary RTS level was also created, but unfortunately we weren't able to try it.

The first LittleBigPlanet offered a fantastic set of levels and gave players the ability to create their own. LittleBigPlanet 2 is shaping up to offer an even more fantastic set of levels, and give players an even greater ability to create their own. LittleBigPlanet 2 ships November 16, and will be available in both a standard edition and a collector's edition that includes DLC costumes, a 7-inch plush Sackboy, and a set of LittleBigPlanet bookends.