LittleBigPlanet

You’ll build a lot of, er… things during your first few days with LittleBigPlanet. If the public beta has proven anything, it’s that the world’s first inclination is to build an object – be it cube, arrow, or penis – and attach engines to it, just to see what happens. The initial stages will be spent dropping weird objects into barren wastelands and experimenting with how physics affect it once you hit the gas. Try setting up a winch that propels Sackboys hundreds of feet into the air and then into a wall of spikes at breakneck speed like a fuzzy-felt trebuchet. The options are virtually unlimited.

In spite of Media Molecule’s amazing demonstrations of what the creator is capable of, it’s still a monumental feat to pull together your misguided experiments into something resembling a level. Yet, every stage in LBP is built with the same components that are on offer in the creator, and every world Media Molecule has crafted could be replicated on your own time. Yet, perhaps the greatest giveaway that Nintendo had no hand in LBP’s creation is the quality of the levels already on this disc – they exist more to demonstrate the power of the tools than as fun levels to complete. We got the impression that Media Molecule are better app-makers than game-makers at times, seeing as the campaign levels are a very mixed bag indeed.

Rome wasn’t built in a day, and neither are the finest creations in LittleBigPlanet. It’ll be hard graft to build Insomniac-quality, or even Media Molecule-quality levels, but it’s possible. Critically, giving life to worlds is fun; LBP’s level editor could have been a cumbersome chore, but instead, it’s as much fun to sit and build as it is to run around the completed work. The Popit menu (tap Square) works beautifully, every new object comes with its own tutorial, and a tap of Start will let you jump into and play your level at any time.