Review – LittleBigPlanet PSP

Rating - 9.0/10.0 - 9

Being a big fan of LittleBigPlanet on the PS3, I was over the moon when I heard it would make it onto the PSP. And having been playing it since release, I can say I’ve not been disappointed.

I pre-ordered my copy of LBP for the PSP from Amazon. It arrived on the day of release and that was it, I was set :-) Prior to release I had read that they’d had to seriously chop the game down in order to squeeze it onto the PSP. The chops were apparently, a reduction in the number of depth levels from 3 to 1 and a lack of multiplayer facilities in game (understandable really when you consider there is only one set of controls and a comparatively slow processor in comparison to the PS3), so I was, to say the least, a little concerned about the game and how it would play out when compared to the PS3 version which I love so much.

But, I’m glad to say, I’ve not been disappointed.

I’ve lost count of how many hours I’ve been playing. Playing through levels, then going back and replaying them to get all the prizes and ace them and I still have a whole bunch to do. I’ve not tried creating anything yet, but I can say this…

The lack of multiplayer facilities hasn’t damaged the game, it’s still a great fun game to play, on your own (I play it in my downtime at work – I’m using the Pomodoro Technique so I play a while during the post-focus cooldown period) and the supposed reduction from 3 levels of depth to 1 hasn’t materialised… yes, the number of levels has been reduced… to 2. But to be honest, I haven’t really noticed it.

The levels themselves are pretty challenging, organised in the same way as the original game (as groups of levels created by various story characters), I’ve played my way through 31 (20 main and 11 mini) levels and I believe I still have one or two to go.

Graphically, it’s obviously not going to be up to PS3 standard, but it still looks great. Customising your character is a little more limited than the PS3, and creating levels is a little different since there is the concept of static and dynamic objects. Static objects stay where they are placed and cannot move during game play (a bit like stick something with a blob of dark matter) while dynamic objects can move (this is simply a mechanism to reduce the physics processing required to manage the level). There are no global options to control lighting (or at least if there are, I couldn’t find them) and sound effects are organised as individual items instead of being grouped into different speakers as they are in LBP.

Despite these changes though (which were to be expected given the massive gaping void that exists in terms of pure processing power between the PS3 and the PSP), it is a great game. So, if like me, you’d like to get a dose of LBP on the move, it’s well worth the investment.

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