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Posted September 25, 2014 by Zeth in EGX
 
 

Little Big Planet 3 Hand-on Preview

LittleBigPlanet_3_logo
LittleBigPlanet_3_logo

Nothing stirs the smile muscles like a Little Big Planet game. Just the sight of uber-cute Sackboy and friends will leave a stupid grin on most faces. When Sony announced Little Big Planet 3 was coming at this year’s E3 conference excitement was high and expectations even higher.

lbp3

Coming not from Media Molecule, but instead Sumo Digital (responsible for earlier add-ons for LBP 2) this third outing for Sackboy and friends will introduce a raft of new characters each with a unique set of abilities to offer.

For example Oddsock is a four legged dog like character who has the ability to wall-jump and run much faster than other characters. Big Toggle is, as you might expect, a large heavy character that is ideal for weighing down platforms or activating switches.

What this should do is offer up a new dynamic for the franchise – taking it from physics platformer to more physics puzzle-platformer. With this knowledge in hand we settle down to play some Little Big Planet 3.

lbp3-1

First off the game is looking superb on PS4. There were a few hitches and glitches with frame rate but that’s not uncommon with a release title, even one this close to its release date. Sackboy’s new crew all look cute and suitably ready for merchandising. They each handle differently enough to let you know which character is best suited to what task. For the most part things were silky smooth and the “float” from previous iterations of the franchise seems to have been toned down a little once more allowing more precision in the control of you characters.

Level design appears to be larger and much more adventurous than previous outing with much more emphasis on puzzling your way through sections. For instance using the new character Big Toggle you can hit L1 to make him go super small, thus allowing him to jump higher, or super heavy allowing him to weigh down switches or act as a counterweight.

Using this simple weight mechanic allows for several puzzle permutations. Turning to the heavier incarnation will result in Big Toggle dropping to the bottom of a water area, then a quick flick of L1 and he’s small and light this shooting to the surface and exiting the water with momentum enough to carry him over an obstacle or up a ledge.

It’s the simple use of mechanic like this, along with others for grabbing objects or drifting on feathers that make Little Big Planet 3 that little bit different from its predecessors.

lbp3-2

That said if you’ve played any of the previous Little Big Planet titles you will be immediately at home with the core traversal mechanics. As before you make your way through the levels, passing respawn checkpoints until you reach your end goal. Along the way there are clear bubbles filled with materials that you can use to customise your sack-creature to your hearts content.

With Sumo having been around for so many years and pulled off more than a few great titles of their own (the Sonic & All-Stars Racing series for one!) have more than reasonable confidence that they will pull Little Big Planet 3 out of the bag when it’s released on November 18th/19th on the Playstation 3 and Playstation 4.


Zeth

 
Zeth is our EU ninja and Editor in Chief. He's been writing about video games since 2008 when he started on BrutalGamer. He's pretty old and has been a gamer since he played Space Invaders as a young boy in the 80's. His genre tastes lean towards platformers, point-and-click adventure, action-adventure and shooters but he'll turn his hand to anything.