A Backlog Diary: Part 22- LittleBigProblem's with this game!

I'm bored of games at the moment. I think I've exorcised myself of some demons I really didn't want to get rid of. The demons that say "Come on, let's go online and shoot people". Without that demon, I have the other demon that makes a similar suggestion, only it doesn't involve going online... AAAAAANYWAY...

A big part of my lethargy towards gaming is probably the games that are lined up in the backlog. I acquired SSX on Xbox 360 the other day, and had about twenty minutes of fun with it before realising I didn't want to play again until the next day. It is a game that appeals to me in short bursts, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, until you have five other short-burst games on the go. Ultimate Marvel Vs Capcom 3 offers up it's Heroes and Heralds campaign, which is perfect for me due to how shit I am online. Similarly, Soulcalibur V offers a rather different take on the fighting genre, but again is best for ten minutes after breakfast and before work. LA Noire can be a bit of a drag if you do more than one case at a time, and already, I feel myself tiring of it. And then there's ICO HD, but I'm not talking to it right now...

So with all that going on, it may be a while before I finish anything in any respect. I have set myself some goals for the fighting games; on UMvC 3, I want to win 15 online matches, even if I lose one hundred times. I think this is reasonable, considering I’m new to the franchise. However, with Soulcalibur V, I’d like to win maybe 50 matches, but this will require renewal of gold membership. Add to this the campaign mode that follows Patrokolos or whatever he’s called, and that should keep me busy, if I can just get into it.


The Console Backlog

But hey, I finished a short burst game the other day. LittleBigPlanet is, as you all know, a 2.5D platformer for which the main focus of the franchise is “Make it yourself, bitch!”
To familiarise myself with the game though, I first headed into LBP’s story mode. The story part of that sentence is a large stretch of the imagination, but I can forgive this, considering it wasn’t Media Molecule’s ambition to give us a riveting insight into the mind of a battle-hardened warrior made of left over sacks. What I will criticise, however, is just how badly this game controls. It might be that some people can handle it and forgive it for this, but I’m not one of these people. Additionally, the difficulty of the game is inconsistent, in that it’s a freaking breeze right until you get up to one of the last levels; The Bunker, which features an electrified spinning wheel of death which will have you restarting the level several times until you master it. Did I feel rewarded for my persistence? Erm, no. Just fed up. I like a challenge, but when a game throws one at you in the middle of nowhere, has you stumble on it over and over, and then not give you the opportunity to retry that bit more than three times before hurtling you back to the beginning of the level, I start to get pissed. And what’s worse, that was it. No more difficulty. I barely lost a life after that. If the Story Mode was supposed to inspire you with its actually surprisingly drab level design and colour scheme into making something of your own, mission failed, because I didn’t.

But I did give it one more chance. I decided to download ten of the best rated user created levels. And boy was I surprised at the ingenious level design exhibited by the LBP community… no I wasn’t. There was a Call of Duty: Modern Warfare level which barely worked, an Uncharted based level which failed to amuse, and a handful of others that made the Story Mode look like…fucking… Shaft by comparison!

Is this being too harsh? Am I just not the target audience for this game? Should I expect less from the gaming community? Ah, bollocks to that chain of thought, I found it piss poor, and I’m not going to sugercoat it. Even Stephen Fry couldn’t save this. Maybe I’m looking in the wrong places for good levels, and maybe LittleBigPlanet 2 will be better (I’ll soon find out, as it’s in the backlog from being an Xmas present). But as it stands, based on my experience, Sony ought to take this feather out of its cap, and stick it down its trousers where no one can see it. It gets a 4, for bad controls primarily, but also a bad single player, and the lack of accessibility to the better user-created levels, assuming they exist. The art style is cute at first glance, but after a while, your eyes just glaze over.

Next time… something.

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The Villainthropist