Borkachev on 12 August 2008
- LBP is not innovative (which I agree)
You're right in a sense, but to say that is to miss the point. If you break it down, just about everything that LBP does -- level creation, physics-based platforming, charming art style, cooperative gameplay (though I'm not so sure about that last one in a platformer) -- has been done before. What's different about LBP is the way it brings them all together in the right way, at the right place, at the right time.
There have been platformer creators before. There may even have been heavily physics-based platformer creators before. But there hasn't been a heavily physics-based platformer creator with a hyper-realistic-yet-cute art style with compelling, cooperative gameplay in the age of social gaming on an online console.
If you doubt the importance of those last two points, I'll explain. Almost everyone enjoys creating things, but without a ready way to share those creations with others, it gets old fast. Game maker programs on the PC have addressed this with exporting features that let you upload your creations to the internet, but it's not the same as a console. What LBP can offer is an instantly-accessed, living, centralized community that connects you to virtually everyone who owns the game. That opens up a world of possibility both to share ideas and to gain inspiration from the ideas of others.
For a crude analogy, try this: there was always downloadable video on the internet, but it took YouTube to turn it into a phenomenon.
- It's doesn't promote creativity because a player only has a limited amount of space for their own creations (debatable, but I kind of agree)
Huh? So any medium with limitations doesn't promote creativity? Like a painting canvas? Like a 5-minute CD track? Like every creative medium in the world?
Maybe you meant it's too limited, but there's no basis for that assumption at all right now. Pretty much all we've heard from journalists about the limit on the level creator is that it's "large" and "probably bigger than most people will need." On top of that, you can string levels together for effectively infinite space.
