Alrighty, I just put in a good six hours with the game.

Upon starting, you get the total-darkness followed by the run through a simple level while the credits roll. Simple, funny, and unexpected.

My initial impressions were not as good as I expected. The game lacks a certain sharpness that I thought it would have; it looks a bit too soft. The first few levels do a nice job of explaining the game mechanics, and the second level introduces you more to the three-level depth and pulling objects.

At this point I was starting to dislike the gameplay mechanics. It was a bit difficult to pull objects from the front while running towards is, since Sackboy wants to sidestep around it. Going into each different 3-D space is somewhat tricky, and the jump button (at first) did feel too floaty...I felt like I was not jumping high enough, and too slowly.

Then I got to the third level, and the game started to pick up steam. I was able to grab onto some windmills and be tossed upwards to the next one, and it was a blast. The LBP theme kicked in and it finally started to click with me. Jumps became easier, moving in the 3D space was not as difficult (though still a bit tricky) and overall I was really enjoying the game.

I think had I played LBP at PAX or somewhere for just thirty minutes, my impressions would be mixed...definitely not 100% positive. Six hours later, it's one of the best platformers I've played this generation, easily.

But let me back up a bit. I dug into the creation mode, and it took me about two hours to run through all the tutorials. The cool thing is that each tutorial takes about five minutes, and you unlock a ton of stickers and a few new objects, so you never feel like you want to just get to the level making. The BETA flaws showed up a bit; one tutorial was spoken in Japanese (if it's intentional, it's hilarious, but I dunno if it was, hah) and I don't like that once you complete the requirements of the tutorial (bolt this item here) you don't get to mess around in the level anymore...you're booted back to the level you were at.

The videos in the game are heavily compressed, though that's easily attributed to the downloadable nature of the game right now; it'll be much better to watch once it's on BD. There's tons and tons and tons of voice over, which makes the game much more enjoyable to play during the tutorials.

So, I was off to create my own level. I had something in mind: create a monster that was in a skateboard-like tube ramp that would be skating around. It didn't work as well as I hoped. So, I stared to mess around...and created a glass crescent moon with a piston and rope. I accidentally created a Sackboy launcher that was automatically powered...so I saved it as it's own object and placed three or four in the level. The result was a REALLY cool launcher that was it's own happy accident...and now I'm making my level around it.

The amount of options are staggering. While I wish there were more lighting options in the beta (only a star is available for lights, phooey) you pretty much have all the fundamental mechanics ready to go. You have switches that activate with a pull from Sackboy, or activated when Sackboy gets close. You can also create a color-key card button that won't activate until a card of a matching color is brought close to it; you could escort an object somewhere, for example, and gain access to a secret room if you make it all the way through. There are buttons that go off when a certain sticker is applied to it, buttons that are two and three way switches, and more. It's huge.

So, what if you don't want to create anything, and just want to play? It's still a lot of fun, but you'd be missing out on a vital component of the game. I'm positive that you wouldn't enjoy the game as much as people fooling around with the creation program.

The game deserves the hype, but it's shifted my perspective a bit. It's not exactly the kind of game I think casual players will be able to grasp within minutes of playing like I thought it would be, but it's so much deeper for hardcore players than I ever thought would be possible. Unbelievably amazin'.

A super exciting thing happened today! The beta trial went live to thousands of people, mainly via eurogamer.net. In fact, I believe you all briefly brought down their site! WOWZERS! At the moment the feeling in the office is somewhere between unbounded excitement and mild panic - personally I think I’m losing my mind (in a good way!) Had to bash out a few songs on our newly acquired office copy of rockband just to de-stress while the beta downloaded in the background! just had our first few playthroughs with some of you people and with some of the levels that have been published.

What AMAZES me is how good the first ’sketches’ of levels are. it took our testers at least a few weeks of heavy create before incredible levels started appearing. and now something cool for you all to think about: you’ve only seen the first 3 levels Remember, this is a *beta* to test our servers, NOT a demo. Can’t stress that enough! So, what’s is so cool for us to see, is that you haven’t even seen the amazing story mode yet, which serves as inspiration, and yet the levels going up are already interesting. I can’t wait to see what y’all do when you see the full game, and start cranking out levels.

Also, since it’s a beta, it’s already quite an old build. We have some cool new stuff that’s been in our private test for a few days, I won’t give it all away but there are things cooking such as 5-star ratings, (much) better performance and less lagginess, better online stability, better UI for publishing, faster downloads…. so in a way playing this version is simultaneously exciting and an odd throwback to a couple of weeks ago.

Finally, to everyone who has supported the game, played the game, left comments, posted levels, and really got into the spirit of LBP, understood it, and well, enjoyed it, it makes me incredibly proud! Thanks for all comments and constructive feedback, we’re listening and we already have *stacks* of stuff lined up for the beta, and the full release. If you liked the first 3 story levels, the other 50 odd levels are going to blow you away HOORAY! I AM SO EXCITED!

ok I’ll stop now.

FINALLY PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT ABOUT BETA KEYS:

PS sorry but beta keys and their distribution are actually entirely in the hands of Sony. MM have no control over this, so we can’t help if anyone wants to get on the beta trial, I am certain (100%) there are more keys coming SOON but we’d recommend checking the playstation forums and all the usual places for news. In fact, even MM hasn’t received our own full set of keys yet - we’ve only got about 10 between us all so far! (ok so we can play the game anyway, but, y’know, in case it makes you feel better!)

Ok, online impressions.

So I made my level, it was ready to go, and I invited a few GAFfers. While I'm not really an online gamer person...I wasn't expecting how truely awesome this was going to be. It's remarkable to see three people playtest your level right in front of you...it's just crazy. And it's a hell of a lot of fun.

Races, something that looked a bit lame in the videos I've seen, is actually a ton of fun. Most of the online levels up right now cater to the LBP 4-player parties, and some of them are pretty brilliant (none of them are quite on the scale of a full-fledged level just yet; it's mostly fun runs and experiments).

What's even more awesome is the online persistent world of LBP. You can see a ton of levels on the main hub, and see how many people are playing each one. It was cool to see a few people in my level as I jumped around with my LBP chums, and it even alerted me when someone beat and rated my level.

Loading/downloading times are super quick...it feels like a regular game load, and I forgot that it was even downloading the new level for the party. When people join the game lags up quite a bit and gets nutty for a few seconds, but once everyone is in it's a fairly smooth ride.

You can choose to play online levels either by yourself or online, where you'll join up with whatever strangers are in the level at the moment. There's a full list of leaderboards and you'll be able to tag the level with lots of keyphrases like "ingenious" "cute" and "Braiiiiiiiins..."

I absolutely cannot wait till tomorrow after work to play more, and to see how my (rough) level is doing. What an amazing game.