Date Completed: 2.26.10
Thoughts: I owned this game nearly a year before I had a PS3. I had just moved into a new apartment with a roomate who had a PS3, and I figured that it was safe to buy it, given the year lease and all. Things didn't go to plan and due to health reasons, he had to move out. I played it a bit initially, but didn't finish it before he moved out, and so it sat on my shelf for months. When I finally did get a PS3 it was not my first priority. That would be Uncharted. And then Uncharted 2. And then Infamous. But I knew I'd get back to it eventually.
This is a tough game to grade. It's beautiful. It's creative. It's artistic, and above all, it's charming. Everything from the music, to the art style, to the characters, and most definately to the expressions on the adorable sackboy's face brings a smile to me as I play. It's quite the artistic tour de force. With all that said, you might notice I haven't mentioned the gameplay. Little Big Planet is beautiful, Creative, Funny and original. But I'm not sure it's a good game. If the definition of a good game is solid game play, I don't know that this game succeeds. The controls are floaty and imprecise. The hit detection is spotty. It always feels like a bunch of objects cobbeled together rather than a well designed game. The later levels are frustrating, the limited amounts of things you can do in this game bring it down by the end of the game. It's a side scrolling platformer, just being able to jump on people's heads isn't enough, and especially not when the controls are this wonky.
As much as the idea of making my own levels intrigued me, I knew I wouldn't put the time into it that I could/should. Playing the user created levels of others is interesting, but it's a sad realization that a game that provides users with so many opportunities to be creative, finds an audience who primarily wants to re-create licensed materials.
Media Molecule hasn't revealed their next game, and the general impression seems to be that Little Big Planet will never recieve a true sequal. It's sequal will come in the form of a consistent stream of downloadable content. That seems unrealistic given how DLC has not been embraced by the public at all. Even Grand Theft Auto flopped, I don't expect success from smaller games. There will be a LBP sequal. Who knows, maybe it will be announced this year at E3. And when it comes, I will look forward to seeing if improvements to the gameplay have been implimented.
I don't know what you've been reading that says that DLC hasn't been embraced by the public, but I don't believe that to be the case. The Lost and the Damned surpassed 1 million downloads - I wouldn't call that a flop.
ReplyDeleteI've only played the PSP version of LBP, and I'm enjoying it so far. Supposedly they tightened up the controls a bit from the PS3 version, especially the jumping. I have no point of comparison but I found the controls and jumping to be plenty functional (though it's obviously not Mario). The collision detection can be wonky, which isn't good for a game that often requires you to grab, pull, and throw objects. I've been impressed by the level designs thus far, and they've had a decent amount of variety that I haven't felt bored yet. Last time I checked what user-created levels were available, there were literally only 20 or so. My guess is that that won't be a huge source of new levels for me. I haven't tried the creation stuff yet; I figure I might as well beat the story mode first so I can have as much unlocked to use in making levels as possible. Taken strictly at face value as a 2D platformer with just the built-in levels, the PSP LBP is a success for me, and I still plan on the PS3 version being among my first handful of games for that system. But I'll certainly have my expectations reigned in accordingly.
Yeah, and I wasn't slamming the game, I gush about it generally when I talk about it, but when I got to the later stages, I just realized the gameplay just wasn't doing it for me. if you took a Mario game and replaced it with black background and white stick figures, it would still be fun. This wouldn't be, IMO. But it's definately a game worth owning and playing on the PS3. And I still want the PSP version. And I'd imagine the downloadable options are better now. In the PS3 version, the presentation is weird and they only show you a small handful of levels, and it's not immediately intuitive how to get more.
ReplyDeleteAs for Lost and the Damned, The original GTA4 sold 7 million copies on 360. So 1 million downloads isn't great. Also 1 million times $20 (the cost of the game) =$20 million. Remember Microsoft paid $50 million for (what turned out to be timed) exclusivity. You have to think given all that that expectations were much higher. Rockstar has even said they should have released the game sooner, they waited too long.
Still, I don't think that is enough to back up your rather bold statements about the supposed apathy toward DLC in general by the gaming public.
ReplyDeletePlus, I believe that most of that $50 million was just to help ensure that more people bought the game for 360. How many multi-platform owners do you think bought the PS3 version knowing that exclusive DLC was coming for 360? I don't think Microsoft actually believed that that DLC was going to turn a $50 million+ profit; I don't know that most full-fledged games even earn that much profit these days barring the really, really big titles. And sure, it's finally coming to PS3 now, but look at how much later it is. GTAIV is basically irrelevent now as far as these types of things go; just look at how little fanfare and attention the story of the DLC coming to PS3 even got.
ReplyDeleteWell it's hard to get a clear picture on things because DLC numbers aren't released and publishers aren't usually keen on admitting sales of anything were below expectations. But I've read quite a bit along those lines of DLC being underwhelming. I'll try to pass you a link next time. That's why stuff like Rockband still has yearly updates even though they could easily release those songs on DLC. That's why Resident Evil gold came out as a new game and DLC at the same time, and Super Street Fighter 4 is a new game instead of DLC, and the 2nd time Rockstar learned from their mistake and released Ballad of Gay Tony on a disk along with Lost and the Damned. I think the best testament as to how DLC is doing will be the PSP2 that may get announced at E3. If they go back to some kind of media-based format suplimented by dlc, I think that will be a huge statement. Again, the PSP go official numbers aren't released, its sales are combined with the regular PSP, but it is interesting to note that PSP sales really didn't increase when the Go came out. According to Game Informer sales actually decreased.
ReplyDeleteWell Rock Band still puts out boxed products every year to make more money. They'd do that even if song sales were doing phenomenally. You really think that we'd still just be getting updates to the original Rock Band even if DLC sales were through the roof? And Super Street Fighter IV is a boxed retail product because that way they can charge $40 for it, rather than 10 or 15 just for a character pack download and free patches that make the gameplay tweaks that they are making for Super. But then, Capcom has always been that way - How many "special editions" of various Street Fighter and Resident Evil games have we seen that were released for full price or close to it? I think that's part of the issue, too, is that Japanese game companies are still not sure how to approach DLC. Just look at this snippet from the Resident Evil 5 page on Wikipedia and tell me that they didn't make things way more convoluted and complicated than they needed to be: "During Sony's Press Conference at Tokyo Game Show 2009, Capcom announced that Biohazard 5: Alternative Edition would be released in Japan in Spring 2010 for PlayStation 3. As a full retail disc, the new version supports the new PlayStation Move controller[39] and includes a new scenario titled "Lost in Nightmares", where protagonists Chris Redfield and Jill Valentine infiltrate one of Spencer's estates in 2006.[40][41][42] Capcom U.S. has announced that the new content will be released in DLC format for Australia, Europe and America.[43]
ReplyDeleteAnother edition outside of Japan, entitled Resident Evil 5: Gold Edition will be released as a full retail disc, comprising the "Lost in Nightmares" episode as well as the newly announced "Desperate Escape" episode included. In this episode, players will control Josh Stone and Jill Valentine as they journey to assist Chris and Sheva.[44] There will also be two costume packs that will be included on the disc and 8 new playable characters confirmed for Mercenaries mode (thus retitling the mode "Mercenaries Reunion"). Alternatively, for those who do not purchase the Gold Edition, both episodes as well as both costume packs will be available as DLC, with 2 of the 8 new characters bundled with each downloadable item. This means that by buying all four DLC, players will then already own all of the content on the disc. However, this only directly applies to the PS3 version, due to the fact that the Xbox 360 version will not contain all DLC content from the start. The Xbox 360's disc will instead come with a download token, allowing for a free download of all of the DLC while the PS3 version already has all new content from purchase"
Huh??
I just wants me some horse armor.
ReplyDeleteI know you're joking Jon, but you know damn well you'll buy horse armor if they release it for Mass Effect 2. There's no horses in the game, but that won't stop you.
ReplyDeleteOoooo...
ReplyDeleteI can just imagine some nifty ablative armor-plating DLC for the Mako! Or perhaps the Commander Shepherd reinforced cod-piece.
But yeah, Bioware better not sniff this thread or it's a lock for Dragon Age: More Stuff.
By the way, I was right re: Little Big Planet 2. It was supposed to be announced at E3, but it's leaked out now. It's definately coming, not sure if it's this year or not.
ReplyDelete