[PS3] LittleBigPlanet Impressions

[AntShaw]

So my first impressions...

I haven't payed a whole bunch of attention to this game over the last 12 months. I had an idea what it was about, saw a couple of videos here and there, but knew this was going to be a game to pick up. My wife does enjoy to play some vid games, and I figured this one would be right up her alley. She loves the Lego games, R&C, etc.

As soon as we turned it on, and started going through the intro credits she was hooked. We were waiting for 2 of our friends to come over, another husband and wife tandem.

The interface, and controls were straightforward, easy to use and to navigate. It didn't take long to get used to going through the levels. I felt it was a good mix of game and tutorial to get you going. We played through the first 3 levels.

It was fun, to a point.

It was great working through the levels, trying to collect all the items, and working through some of the basic puzzles/physics blocks. I didn't find much advantage playing co-op yet, as there was only one puzzle that required both people. Other then that it felt more like a race to get through the levels. But, that's OK. Not really sure how the points work, but she did get mad that my guy won each level. Do you get points for collecting items? finishing first?

I could really care less about dressing up my guy, but at one point I stepped away for 5 minutes, and I come back and lo and behold, my guy was wearing some bunny ears, a dress and a fu manchu. Wife had the evil sh!t eating grin on. Was worth a chuckle.

The only gripes I have so far are that the music so far is rather annoying. I didn't check, but I assume you can't use your own playlist in the game. That is unfortunate. The other is jumping back and forth between the different 2D planes. Do you need to push up and down while jumping between them? Or do you need to be at a low point to jump back and forth? Both of us struggled with this through the first 3 levels, and even when we were done I am not sure we both have that portion down. While it grew tiresome at parts having to jump and jump, it wasn't enough to take away from the game, yet.

I did like the visual stylings of the levels so far. I like the pacing of the game. There isn't a rush to beat the levels, so we did have some fun exploring, and trying to find items. We haven't found any of the puzzles 'hard' per say yet, but some did require a little bit of trial and error. I'm OK with that so far. I do have a problem where I lost my patience when I have to do that ALL THE TIME. I have to say I was a little concerned after reading some of your posts about that, but not a problem yet.

Much like the dressing up of the character, I have really no interest in making any levels. BUT, I do look forward to checking out some others levels they have created. I'm sure once we work our way through the levels built in, we will be looking to others more often.

With that said, it comes down to the fact that we had FUN playing. I look forward to working though the game some more, and checking out some 3 and 4 player co-op. By the time our friends came over, we were about half way through the 3rd level and we were finished at that point. So we didn't get to check out that portion of the game. It is unfortunate as well that the servers were down.

Overall, we were pleased so far. I don't see myself ever playing LBP by myself, as I would get a little bored with the gameplay, but being able to play with someone else makes it infinitely more fun.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

So my first impressions...

It was great working through the levels, trying to collect all the items, and working through some of the basic puzzles/physics blocks. I didn't find much advantage playing co-op yet, as there was only one puzzle that required both people.

Proper coop play is pretty limited overall. The game really needs some specific coop levels. This was my first idea, and my mate and I may end up building some, though with all the stuff to make, and so little time, we'll see. Other people have had the same idea :
http://uk.gamespot.com/pages/image_viewer/frame_lead.php?sid=6198654&img=2&popup=1
However, this entry only received 3% of the votes, so clearly the conventioanl gamers interest in coop levels is slim, which implies most gamers making levels won't value coop highly either

Other then that it felt more like a race to get through the levels. But, that's OK. Not really sure how the points work, but she did get mad that my guy won each level. Do you get points for collecting items? finishing first?

The bubbles are points so whoever collects the most wins, and there are bonus points for winning races.

The other is jumping back and forth between the different 2D planes. Do you need to push up and down while jumping between them? Or do you need to be at a low point to jump back and forth?

Yeah, it's tricky. Jumping automagically moves you to the 'right' plane, prioritising height. You can descend a level if it's in front of the level you are on by pressing down and jumping. If there are other levels higher or at the same height, or the level you want to drop onto is not the frontmost level, and you want to jump down...you can't. As an example in the MGS sneaky level, there was a lift. Viewed from the side it'd look like this...

SB    |      
__    |    __
      |    
      _

SB is Sackboy standing at the front of the screen on a ledge. In the middle plane is a lift going up and down. At the back is another ledge. Pressing down and jumping kept SB on the ledge, he wouldn't descend to the lift plane as it was behind the plane he was on. Jumping up moved SB onto the back plane. I had to time the jump so the lift was above the front plane so when SB jumped, he'd automagically be moved onto the lift plane. This took several tiresome minutes.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Am I too late?

BTW, does anyone know where the extra suits are? It says to check PSN for any DLC but I can't find anything and I'm sure there was supposed to be a couple of free suits for the first week or so?

My guess is they'll appear on the PSN update on THursday.

 

[Gradthrawn]

Just finished up Fable 2, and was able to pull myself away for LBP. Didn't get into to deep, but what I saw I was quite pleased with. Noticed that even your "Pod" seems to be physics based, as you can get it to rock back and forth with a little persistence.

I was really surprised by the intro (the one about the dreams). They should be using that for the commercials. It captures what LBP is about and it does it in a commercial time-frame. The current SCEA commercials I've seen fail to inspire. I thought Gamespot did a better job of advertising the game as a whole with their commercial, and it was about their exclusive Kratos DLC.

 

[upnorthsox]

Got my copy last night after going to 6 places which was a bit shocking here in xbox country (btw, not as shocking as 5 of those places having Wii's in stock with a couple having pallets of them out). Anyhow, as I suspected the 10 yr olds immediately took over and I never got to touch the controller. I'll end up having to play myself early in the morning but so far it appears to be exactly what we expected.

 

[goonergaz]

My guess is they'll appear on the PSN update on THursday.

Sounds about right cheers

 

[Shifty Geezer]

To all those LBP owners, are you aware that you may possess the evil Islam-hating version? Some stores were selling the recalled version. The link points to a difference in SKU codes, but I'd have thought it'd be obvious from the existence of any singing in the offending track or not.

 

[patsu]

If you compare LBP grabs with EyeCreate grabs, it's clear the game is messing about with the images, and it's not a hardware fault.

Hmm... that doesn't make sense. Why does MM need to mess with the images ? Is the PS Eye working with 320x240 or 640x480 mode in LBP ?

 

[obonicus]

To all those LBP owners, are you aware that you may possess the evil Islam-hating version? Some stores were selling the recalled version. The link points to a difference in SKU codes, but I'd have thought it'd be obvious from the existence of any singing in the offending track or not.

I know I have it. I bought it through an importer, and they had shipped copies before it was recalled. The song really loses a LOT without the lyrics, it's a pity.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Hmm... that doesn't make sense. Why does MM need to mess with the images ? Is the PS Eye working with 320x240 or 640x480 mode in LBP ?

As far as I can tell, neither really. The captured images I saw on the Beta were dithered, almost like a magazine print exhibiting Moire patterns. Perhaps this was a poor attempt to make them look like print cutouts, to fit the style of the game more? But you needn't take my word for it. EyeCreate is free. Capture your room in LBP. Exit and look at the same image captured on EyeCreate, where it actually looks really good. Then come back here with your own ideas as to why LBP is so rubbish in this respect!

 

[patsu]

As far as I can tell, neither really. The captured images I saw on the Beta were dithered, almost like a magazine print exhibiting Moire patterns. Perhaps this was a poor attempt to make them look like print cutouts, to fit the style of the game more?

I didn't try PS Eye in the beta (Took a quick picture and moved on). Can't imagine why they'd want to fudge with the PS Eye input. Your explanation is plausible though.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

It is?! I can't rightly think of any explanation I'm happy with

 

[tha_con]

My theory is just to conserve memory. When you start messing around with user generated content like that, you want to keep file sizes down, and since the levels can be published, they don't want to fill their servers with huge levels.

This helps to keep their server load low, as well as making levels more accessable in a shorter period of time.

I think that, overall, has more to do with the tampering with the quality of the image, rather than some stylistic choice, etc.

 

[eastmen]

My theory is just to conserve memory. When you start messing around with user generated content like that, you want to keep file sizes down, and since the levels can be published, they don't want to fill their servers with huge levels.

This helps to keep their server load low, as well as making levels more accessable in a shorter period of time.

I think that, overall, has more to do with the tampering with the quality of the image, rather than some stylistic choice, etc.

Yea but do they really need to upload textures and other things that are already on users discs ? couldn't they set it up in a way so they know what texture goes where based on the names for textures and only haveto upload things created by players and the text info kinda like the halo 3 replay feature ?

Also storage space is cheap these days. I picked up a 1tb drive for $130 bucks the other day.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

A 512x512 pixel texture at 50% JPEG compression is only 50kb and doesn't look too bad. JPEG2000 will likely get better results. Put a limit on how many photo textures can be slapped into a single level and you aren't asking much. Plus the quality in game doesn't reflect high compression. It's bizarro dithering and poor exposure, rather than blocky JPEGing.

 

[tha_con]

A 512x512 pixel texture at 50% JPEG compression is only 50kb and doesn't look too bad. JPEG2000 will likely get better results. Put a limit on how many photo textures can be slapped into a single level and you aren't asking much. Plus the quality in game doesn't reflect high compression. It's bizarro dithering and poor exposure, rather than blocky JPEGing.

Well, it absolutely could be some custom compression technique.

You have to think about it though.

If a given snap shot is 25KB, (off the wall estimate) and a user has say, 30 different snap shots in a level, then that's 750KB.

Now consider the possibility of that level being extremely popular, and getting around 10,000 playthroughs. That's about 7GB right?

So they've effectively used 7GB of bandwidth for one level, out of the thousands that could potentially become available.

The problem is, each time you play a level, it is streamed to your system, not downloaded and saved, so if you play it once, then return to it, it is being 'sent' to you twice. I can imagine their system can take quite a hefty toll on servers (as has been evident thus far) as the player is always connected to them.

I just think it has more to do with making their servers effective and effecient, and reducing file sizes to save money. I just don't think it has much to do with artistic direction or anything else, rather, it was a business choice. Plus, this will allow you to use more images without filling up your thermometer quickly.

 

[Quaz51]

A 512x512 pixel texture at 50% JPEG compression is only 50kb and doesn't look too bad. JPEG2000 will likely get better results. Put a limit on how many photo textures can be slapped into a single level and you aren't asking much. Plus the quality in game doesn't reflect high compression. It's bizarro dithering and poor exposure, rather than blocky JPEGing.

i think PSeye stickers is more like 256x256 max and maybe 128x128

 

[hoho]

A 512x512 pixel texture at 50% JPEG compression is only 50kb and doesn't look too bad. JPEG2000 will likely get better results.

I once did some tests with JPEG2000 and found out that given same file size JPEG2k can be a lot nicer looking. When going for similar visual quality JPEG2k was around 5-10x smaller, depending on image.

Only problem was decoding bigger jpeg2k images took ages. IIRC it was around 1-3 seconds for a 2kx2k photo on single-core 3GHz P4.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Well, it absolutely could be some custom compression technique.

You have to think about it though.

If a given snap shot is 25KB, (off the wall estimate) and a user has say, 30 different snap shots in a level, then that's 750KB.

IIRC Quaz has said that files are already in the megabyte range. Limit the images to 10 per level, use smaller images at 256x256, with reasonable compression, you're talking a couple hundred kb extra. That has to be better than offering a totally gimped capture system that isn't decently useable offline without even sharing images.

...so if you play it once, then return to it, it is being 'sent' to you twice.

How is this any different to a website though? Add a little cacheing of levels and Sony are no worse off than Gamespot when it comes to image browsing by lots of users.

Plus, this will allow you to use more images without filling up your thermometer quickly.

The actual quality of the images means the impact on the thermometer is none - no-one will use photos . Creators already have to balance their use of varied materials and ingame stickers to stay within budget. Offering photos is no different, in giving users an extra choice where to invest their resxources.

Also, isn't the new online service LittleBigWorkshop going to offer sticker creation?

 

[patsu]

Gamepro Interview

http://www.gamepro.com/article/news/207695/sony-confirms-new-levels-for-littlebigplanet/

GamePro: Will Media Molecule continue to release new levels?

Eric Fong: Yes, Media Molecule is continuing to add to the player experience with new levels, costumes, materials, and a host of other content.

...

Would you consider adding an option to more radically shift the perspective of the camera, say for like a top-down shooter?

Not a present, but there are certainly creative ways you could do something similar with the current perspective.

Will "power-ups" or "weapons" ever be added?

In our opinion, the spirit of LittleBigPlanet was to "figure ways around obstacles" and less about blowing stuff up, though certainly a player can already create their own experience to include missile launchers and the like.

When will users be able to "sell" their creations for real money, as promised?

There are still a lot of details that need to be worked out, that's pretty much all I can say at this point.