Of course, there are a few Trophies that you won’t earn over the course of normal gameplay or level creation. And of course, that’s prompted a slew of enterprising level-makers to create stages that serve no other purpose than to give you those Trophies as quickly as possible. Like everything else on LBP, though, not all of these are worth your time. Some deliver more Trophies than others (although most of them offer the same set of rewards), some are better designed and a select few are actually fun to play.
To give you a better idea of what’s out there, we’ve combed through some of the highest-rated cash-in levels, rating them for both fun and Trophy yield on a four-Trophy scale.
By fords30
What it is: A giant, diamond-encrusted bowl of score bubbles, plus a secret area.
What it offers: 8X Multiplier!, 20X Multiplier!, Hi Score
Now this is exactly what a Trophy-whore level should be: quick, to the point and lavishly appointed. Sporting a jetpack and a huge, diamond covered trophy full of free points, this stage feels like LittleBigPlanet’s champagne room, delivering a massive-seeming reward right now, for free, for no other reason than that it loves us.
In reality, its score-based Trophies are a little meager when compared to some of the other entries on this list, but floating around and grabbing all those score bubbles was so much fun that we hardly felt cheated. It also goes the extra mile of including a “secret area” that – while not necessary to the snagging of Trophies – is still moderately fun to find. Bottom line, this is an excellent way to knock out the score Trophies and have a good time doing it.
Fun:
Trophies:
By Deathly_Shadow (we guess…?)
What it is: A series of quick “challenges” – a rapid hoist, a pit full of score bubbles and a really fast car - meant to deliver particular Trophies.
What it offers: 8X Multiplier!, 20X Multiplier!, Incredible Height!, Incredible Speed!
See, this is what happens when you make your Trophy-whore level freely copyable by anyone: all the other Trophy whores will gank it, republish it unchanged and try to pass it off as their own in the hope of getting more Trophies. As of this writing there are more than a dozen versions of this level floating around the LBP servers, and not all are the same – the best and most popular is by user Deathly_Shadow, whose version fixes the Hi Score deficiency in all the other ones that we’re about to gripe about.
As a prize level, the “Cardboard Box” is just a little too complex for its own good, requiring players to walk through longish stretches of emptiness and set off a needless bomb that showers debris into the score-bubble pit. And speaking of score bubbles, what’s the point of creating a huge pit full of them if you’re not even going to throw in enough to earn a million-point Hi Score Trophy?
All of that would be forgivable if the level was actually fun to play, but apart from an over-too-quickly rocket-car sequence, fun is in short supply here. As is, Cardboard Box requires just a little too much effort for not quite enough reward.
Fun:
Trophies:
By EliteCAT
What it is: A quickie level that launches you up a chute and into a giant basin filled with prize bubbles, before dumping you out onto the level goal.
What it offers: 2X Multiplier!, 8X Multiplier!, 20X Multiplier!, Hi Score, Sackbird, Incredible Speed!, Incredible Height!
You’ve probably already got one of the “seven” Trophies this level offers (the 2X score multiplier can be achieved as early as LBP’s first Story level), but rest assured that it does exactly what it promises in giving you the other six. The only problem is that it does it with almost no input from you, and consequently almost no fun. It gets the job done (while still being pretty), sure, but even if you’re just looking to earn an empty reward in a hurry, there are more enjoyable ways to get your Trophy rocks off than this.
Fun:
By emlk3199
What it is: A motorcycle-looking vehicle, a few ramps and a whole lot of flames.
What it offers: 2X Multiplier!, 8X Multiplier!, 20X Multiplier! and 100X Multiplier!, which doesn’t exist.
As of this writing, this “Trophy” level doesn’t really deliver what it promises; nonexistent Trophy aside, the motorcycle is just as likely to smash you against the burning ground as it is to hit Trophy-worthy speeds, and when we reached the end of the stage, the machine just bulled all the waiting score bubbles out of our reach and charged directly into the level’s exit. Even so, the stunt-bike action was a lot of fun – just don’t expect quick rewards from this one.
Fun:
Trophies:
