Grant Brünner: Bassguy

Thanks to Sony’s little whoopsie, I got two free games for my PS3: LittleBigPlanet and inFAMOUS.

I downloaded LittleBigPlanet from PSN, and I went to launch it. The first thing I see is a screen yelling at me to download a game patch. “But,” I said to no one in particular, “I just downloaded this game less than one minute ago. Why aren’t you already patched?” Good question. So good, in fact, that I still have yet to find an answer to it. If you know why, I’d be happy to hear the details.

I sat through the patching process, and then I was able to start my game. Let me just say that if any developers want to win me over right off the bat, add some tongue-in-cheek narration to your game. It’s a good formula. “More like this” as the kids say.

The gameplay is comprised of basic platforming and puzzle solving with a metric ton of hand-holding for people new to the concept. It has a solid underpinning, but it focuses heavily on collection. That bums me out a little bit. I’m not really a fan of the “Gotta catch ‘em all” style of gameplay. I just cannot bring myself to care about collecting virtual stickers. Maybe I’m just becoming an old man, but a little bit of story couldn’t hurt the sackboy.

It’s an incredibly charming piece of art. It is nice to look at, but I just don’t see myself spending much time with it. I have other games that I paid actual money for that I don’t have time to play. I guess LBP will have to sit on the back burner for a while.