Little Big Planet Review PSP

Little Big Planet has never been a game about an engaging story. It was basically a tutorial of all the gadgets and tools that can be used to create mind-blowing levels with a GUI based level builder. The story has always been just humorous filler to alleviate the fact that the player was indeed being taught how to use the level creation tools. The PSP version of Little Big Planet retains the charm and visuals of the original, while allowing players to still create their own content for distribution online, but removing multiplayer play. Even on the PSP, Little Big Planet still packs a big punch.

Graphic and sound:

Little Big Planet for the PSP, actually looks very similar to its Playstation 3 counterpart. The game has always had simplified graphics, which allow it to be easily ported to the portable console and retain almost all of its capabilities from the home console. Visually, the game looks almost identical to the PS3 version, with its quirky stickers and sackboy. Level sizes vary from fairly small 5-minute adventures, to engaging large 30-minute explorations.

Little Big Planet has never been known to use real speech in its dialogue, instead it uses a guttural speech similar to the Sims, supplemented with text dialogue. Background music does not interfere with gameplay and actually enhances it with catchy little tunes that will entice the player to replay certain levels just to hear the music track all over again such as in the Australian world.

Gameplay and controls:

Little Big Planet for the PSP has 7 worlds with 23 main story levels and 8 bonus non-essential levels. Users can also create their own levels for distribution online and download levels created by other players. There are tons of stickers to collect through the story mode for use in user-generated levels later. There is also a news channel within the main menu to see what new patches or items are available in Little Big Planet. There is no multiplayer in Little Big Planet for the PSP unlike its big brother on the PS3. The game has only a foreground and a background unlike the PS3 version, which also has a middle ground. As a result, switching the player between the foreground and background is fairly easy on the PSP. The game is fairly short if the player does not collect 100% of the stickers, but the second to last level will test even the most experienced Little Big Planet players with challenging obstacles that provide instant death time and time again. Overall, the game is much easier than the PS3 version, but it is still very fun.

Overall thoughts:

Little Big Planet on the PSP, retains much of the functionality of the PS3 version, but removes multiplayer. Many players have complained about this feature, but it honestly does not hurt the gameplay much. We would have liked to see PS3 to PSP connectivity such as developing levels on the PS3 and transferring them to the PS3, as creating levels on the PSP is a bit cumbersome. The story is very humorous and the gameplay is solid with absolutely no bugs in the story mode on our play through. Little Big Planet PSP is very fun and addictive to play and highly recommended as a purchase to add to the few gems that the PSP has to offer.