#04 - LittleBigPlanet (PS3)
As guessed, of course, by Kantor :P
2008 was a good year to buy a PS3. After holding onto my PS2 for longer than the generation lasted (with a little bit of last-minute help from Gamecube), I invested in a PS3 in 2008 for it finally getting 3 big games I wanted - Metal Gear Solid 4 was the big daddy, WipEout HD Fury was a factor, and in amongst these two giants was LBP, a game I didn't really know much about but was hopeful would be 'quite good'. As you can see from its place in this list, it far, far surpassed those expectations.
LittleBigPlanet is just... it's just great. I'm really not too big a fan of 2D platformers and I've heard many a complaint about LBP's 'floaty' controls, yet I think they actually work in its favour to make the game more accessible. No jump feels too impossible. In any case, the story mode for the game is one of the sweetest I've ever played. I mean, how the hell do they make me feel emotionally attached to a stuffed teddy bear who has lost his family? It's short, but there are plenty of unforgettable levels on your first play through that really make this shine over the other LBP games. And there's just so much interactivity with your environment - grabbing things, pulling things, sliding down things, jumping on things, putting stickers everywhere, it's just fantastic.
But the campaign is just the tip of the iceberg. The community levels are what really made this game for me. Every week from when I bought it to when LBP2 came out I would check the community levels to see some great new uploads. There's some seriously fantastic stuff on there. From original series of levels, to tomb raider clones, story level clones, RPG's, pretty much any kind of platforming level you can think of is on there. And it's all thanks to the wonderful community which got built up because of LBP's fantastic creation tools. Which I won't get into in too much detail for now, but suffice to say they're tricky to learn but fantastic to use when you finally make a functional, working level.
Everything about this game is just fantastic. Easily my biggest surprise, favourite new IP and even favourite game of the current generation. I can see why Sony turned this into one of their main IP's, it's just far too good not to expand upon.
Instead of a screenshot finishing my post, here's a video of my favourite LBP1 level in action:
