This is the first main instalment not developed by series originator Media Molecule, and it shows in little ways. One example: the music isn’t quite as upbeat or energizing.
What it's about: Sack Boy, a cloth doll, has adventures in patchwork, arts-and-crafts-inspired worlds.
Why we should care: Three new playable characters join the action, with four players able to play onscreen at once.
Genre: Platformer.
What happens in the first hour: We're greeted with a video of children making crafts. Series narrator Stephen Fry is back to tell us how our Cerebrum-bilical cords lead into the Imagisphere. With this kind of imagery and terminology, Pink Floyd really should be playing in the background.
A tutorial gives us the basics on how to control Sack Boy and reminds us that the D-pad controls his facial expressions. After numerous LittleBigPlanet games, it's still not clear why that's useful.
All of a sudden, Sack Boy is sucked into a black hole, which leads him to the planet Bunkum. Newton, a bloke with a lightbulb for a head, has brought him here to help defeat a group of Titans. If they fail, the planet's nightmares will become real.
Newton sounds a lot of like Daily Show alumnus John Oliver, although a quick Google search reveals the actual voice to be House star Hugh Laurie. House can apparently do a good John Oliver impression.
Newton gives us our first mission: we must rescue a tin of tea from Nana Pud, an old crone who is up to no good. To do this, we get the Pumpinator, a gun that both sucks and blows air. Seriously, the developers listened to a lot of Pink Floyd while making this game, right?
The Pumpinator is cool, as Sack Boy can use its blowing power to spin wheels that activate platforms, or suck objects to move them out of the way.
The first boss battle is against Nana Pud's Guardian. He lurks in the background of the screen and tries to swat Sack Boy with his giant hands. We have to spin wheels with the Pumpinator to warm up some heating elements on either side of the screen, all while jumping those hands.
The idea is to get the Guardian to swat his hands into those heating elements, thus burning himself out of the desire to attack. It's not hard, so thus ends level one.
Trying to kick off level two brings up a choice: do we want to play it solo, or join in with other players online? I try the multiplayer option, but I'm rejected. Fortunately, I've played with others in earlier demos so I have a good read on the mode.
The other characters – a bird named Swoop, a size-changing sack puppet named Toggle, and the dog-like Oddsock – add different capabilities and puzzle-solving features to the game. Swoop can carry other characters while flying, Toggle can weigh down pressure pads or get into tight squeezes, and Oddsock can run fast and jump up walls. Sack Boy himself can also now climb special walls and grates.
Four-player co-op is now de rigueur for platforming games – it's been established in the Rayman and Mario franchises – so LittleBigPlanet is playing some catch-up here. From my experience with the new mode, it's well implemented and adds a new, manic dimension of action to levels.
But back to the single-player level two. We're sailing up a river to meet Marlon Random. The subtle reference is clever. Our target compounds it when we meet and he says, "Marlon Random is the name, method acting is the game."
Level two is a cross between a saloon and a casino and we get our second nifty gadget: the Blink Ball. It's like a soccer ball that, if tossed into glowing portals, teleports Sack Boy into those portals. It's useful for getting around obstacles and obviously inspired by the game Portal itself.
That pretty much sums up the first hour overall – the experience feels like any of the previous LittleBigPlanet titles, with some liberal borrowing of ideas from other games.
Highlights: More of the same cartoonish wackiness the series has come to be known for. The level-creation mode is deeper and easier to use.
Lowlights: This is the first main instalment not developed by series originator Media Molecule, and it shows in little ways. One example: the music isn't quite as upbeat or energizing.
Time-suck factor: The levels are surprisingly long so it's not the bite-sized game it should be. Otherwise, the level creator can take over your life.
Worth more than hour: Probably. It feels like a retread despite the co-operative multiplayer, but it's still the most broadly appealing platformer this holiday season.
Peter Nowak