3/31/2009 - LittleBig Contra: GAF collab preview

If you have a game like Little Big Planet that has a level designer, you can pretty much expect levels to be designed like those from video games of other franchises. There are plenty of levels that mimic those of the Super Mario Bros. and Mega Man games for example. But it wasn't until the Metal Gear expansion pack that gave Sackboy the ability to shoot a gun (albeit a paintball gun). This paved the way for what is perhaps one of the coolest collaborations of the gaming community ever. Yes, that would be the recreation of the original Contra game:



Each level of the game was handled by a different designer or team of designers. What amazes me is how they recreated the pseudo-3D parts of the game where you're going down the corridor. Stuff like this really shows the creativeness of the gaming community.

12/11/2008 - Sack to the Future (3 videos)

It seems like most of the people creating levels for the PS3 game, Little Big Planet, are creating levels based on other video games. There are plenty of Super Mario Bros. levels and Mega Man levels. That's to be expected since those were side-scrollers just as Little Big Planet is. Games of other genres, such as Mortal Kombat and Shadow of the Colossus are represented too. These levels based on games can be problematic because they could be yanked from Sony's servers at any time for violating copyright laws. There has been much controversy over this, and in my view, I would hope that the various game companies out there would be lenient in their intellectual property protection. After all, most of these levels are tributes to great games, and I would think that they would be flattered by the hours taken to create such intricate stages.

If all levels based on games were to disappear, however, I fear that levels based on movies would be next. Here's a series of levels based on one of my favorite trilogies of all time: Back to the Future. The great thing about these levels is that they are surprisingly accurate in telling the story of the three movies:







I only wish they could have included the musical score from the movie!

10/21/2008 - Little Big Computer

What better use of my 400th blog post than to feature a truly incredible video. Little Big Planet is a game coming out for the PlayStation 3 that will rely on user-created content to drive its replayability. Users can create their own side-scrolling levels for others to play, and as you can imagine, there will be plenty of mediocre levels out there, some vulgar levels, but there will be some very creative levels as well. It will actually be a lot like YouTube where only the best stuff will be promoted to the front page and favorited by the most people. I think Little Big Planet and YouTube will go hand-in-hand where we see videos like this that show off cool levels. I don't know how someone will be able to top this however:



Yes, that is a fully functioning calculator built with the level designer in Little Big Planet. As listed in the description, the creator used 610 magnetic switches, 500 wires, 430 pistons, and 70 emitters in creating the "level". Now that's pretty hardcore. If I were this kid's math or science teacher, I'd give him/her an A for the year.