LBP also known as “LittleBigPlanet” is a platformer video game released in 2008 on October 28 for the Playstation3. The producer, Media Molecule, goes by their tagline “Play, Create, Share”. This tagline is the concept of the game, which creates an online community. LBP is a multiplayer-based game that encourages players to play with friends and other players! The game has had other 4 releases such as LBP, PSP, LBP2, and LBP3. There are a couple of spin-offs, like LBP Karting. Their official latest spin-off release is Sackboy’s Big Adventure, it had a different formula compared to earlier games. Throughout the years, in 2011 Media Molecule had stopped working on the LBP franchise and let Sumo Digital work on the game stated earlier, LBP3. Media Molecule had moved on from LBP to work on other game projects. Some of the games they have released were Tearaway and Dreams. Tearaway has a few similar traits of creativity. The paper-cut art style of the video game gives it a nice crafty atmosphere. As for Dream, it also takes a toll on creating and sharing ideas.
The main aspect of the game is to play the main story, and as you go and unlock new levels, the more materials and creator tools you unlock. Then can always go and create anytime you want by going into the main menu and choosing to create a custom level yourself. By creating a level, you gain all the creator tools you unlocked on the story mode by completing the levels. You can use these tools to build and create your original levels. There is also sharing, where you can share your creations with the community and have other players experience playing your levels. There are a lot of genres of games that can be played and shared. Some examples of these genres are RPs, survivals, puzzles, and challenges. There are also tutorials, which can help players create their levels and objects. The amount of creations you can share is endless. Another creative aspect of the game is to add customizable bots/ NPCs that can make a level more sociable if you’re playing alone. There are also elements that can make a level more advanced and unique. Some examples of the type of levels you can create are 3D platformers, movies, adaptations to games from other franchises and classic platformers. One of the problems that the online community has is the “copy” option for community levels, which could discredit an original creator of a level, and have this level spread and reuploaded by many other players.
On September 13th, 2021, online services for LBP 3 had returned from being shut down. Meaning, that LBP and LBP2 were permanently shut down, and online playability was no longer available for the first two games. However, there was one shutdown that had occurred to prevent attacks that were taking place. What were the attacks, and from whom were they from?
The group that was trying to help retrieve the servers said that the reason for the shutdown was to prevent an attack from DOS. This attack was made by hackers that could send harmful messages to players. The effects of this shutdown had affected many players of the game because there was no online playability and they couldn’t upload any levels. Plus it made it impossible to play community levels. But the bright side of this was the fact the group behind the LBP team had gotten the servers back online. Learn more about the team in this article from IGN about the server shutdown. You can also look to LBP Union for more information.
As someone who has played all 3 LBP games, it’s gotta be some of my favorite games. I got to see how each game progressed and improved on its creative elements. I can see the ups and downs that each game had. But they were all still enjoyable to play with. Especially with a friend, family member, or just an anonymous player. The first LBP game was more a simple 2D platformer game, because being one of the first games, it’d probably be less advanced compared to the later releases. LBP was enjoyable to play as a kid and still is, something that made it more enjoyable was the online community. There was more than just a “Story Mode”, that made it more fun and exciting. LBP2, released in 2012, was one of the best for me. I didn’t play this one with a sibling, but it was still enjoyable. The creators of the game have added more possibilities to make more levels advanced, More tools were added, including some good story plots to their main story mode. LBP3 being one of my favorites, has a lot of problems when it comes to online accessibility. The game had a handful of errors and glitches that had always taken place in the 3rd game of the series. Turns out, I wasn’t the only one who had this problem; but almost every player of LBP3. One of the problems that I’ve experienced was a corruption error, that could delete your saved data. This only happened once, but some difficulties that have always taken place were the loading screen. The loading screen always takes more than 1 minute to load, sometimes it’ll even just freeze on a frame. The difficulties did affect how everyone viewed the game, but it was still playable. My time playing these games was fun and very entertaining and gave me great childhood memories.
