Little Big Planet

System: PSP

The oxymoronic title of this game makes it seem cute and cuddly and innocent. It's not really like that. Touch anything that looks shiny/electric and you die with a firecracker-like sound. Fall into lava? Dead. Hit a thundercloud? Dead. Accidentally get somewhere you're not supposed to be? Well that's when the "retry" button comes in handy. Sure you respawn (usually close to where you died), but it gets frustrating when you get to a spot and you don't know how to not die. The secret keys used to unlock extra levels are pretty difficult to find, and some of them are really hard to play. While the game may be frustrating a little bit too often, it's nice that it's not extremely easy. The point of the game is to try and collect bubbles, stickers, and costume items scattered through the levels, and it's challenging to find all of them because there are a lot. Through all the frustrating levels, though, they are all possible even though they may not seem like it the first 20 times you die in the same spot. The only thing that I can complain a lot about is the short storyline. It doesn't take long to finish the few levels.

Personally I loved dressing up Sackboy (the character you control) in some funny costumes. Giving him dreadlocks and a monocle is an interesting costume choice, and there are a lot of possibilities for costumes. The option to create your own levels is nice, but it's hard to figure out at first, and I myself most likely won't spend much time on this. The music of the game is good, but it gets annoying after you've heard it for too long when you get stuck on a level. Graphics wise, the game is nice to look at. Once the game is finished, as in you've played all the levels once, there's definitely replay value of them so that you can collect all of the items in each level, even though that's difficult to do.

I rate this a: 9/10