John "wardrox"
Editorial, Article Saturday, October 11th 2008

19 Comments

I’ve been spending a bit of time playing with the LittleBigPlanets over the past few days, and am mildly impressed. Partially due to the enjoyable tones of Stephen Fry, and partially due to the apparent charm the game has. But after playing through the tutorial a couple more times and hopping online to try out a few levels, my perception has begun to shift.

Small things in LittleBigPlanet have slowly started to make me feel uneasy. The more I think about it, the more the game becomes downright unsettling. So read on for my 5 reasons why LittleBigPlanet is creepy as hell.

1. You can make your Sackperson kill themselves voluntarily

This is what first got me thinking about the darker side of LBP and is unavoidably featured in the tutorial level. The Sackpeople which you create and control will willingly commit suicide at the press of a button. Perhaps if you get stuck and can’t find a way out, or maybe if you’re bored and have a darker sense of humour. Either way, your Sackperson will happily oblige to your bidding and make their small, fragile bodies explode.

2. They live inside our imagination and dreams

As the opening cinematic explains, LittleBigPlanet is a place created entirely by our imaginations. An innocent enough proposition until you have a think about what your imagination often presents you with. All those private thoughts you have. The more I dwell about this, the less I realised I want a little brown bag running around, over and under my most intimate ideas.

3. The door is open for you to walk into anyone’s idea of fun

One of the biggest draws that LBP offers is your ability to go and see what other people have made, to see what fun ideas they have. But this is the internet. Have a think for a moment about the truly shocking things you have seen or heard about which emanate from these tubes. Is it really a comforting thought to know that at any moment you might be confronted by 2 Sackgirls 1 cup?

4. You can emote your Sackperson, but only one emotion is happy

The way I was animating my Sackboy was very fun, seeing his cute little face so happy at the end of a level was rewarding. But why is only one of the emotions happy? The rest; sadness, fear and anger, don’t set an overly positive tone. Are the Sackpeople suffering from depression for 75% of their time? There is something slightly off-putting about knowing you can make your Sackperson run the entire length of a level, crying.

5. Everything apart from the Sackpeople is dead (and even that’s debatable)

Although during the campaign you are told you will meet all sorts of characters, none of them, apart from the Sackpeople, are alive. And even that’s a stretch as you are continually reminded of their Frankenstein-esque cloth construction. The tutorial has you working for a King. A King who although is just a cut-out, you will still happily risk death for in order to do what he says.

I came to realise early on that the Sackboys and Sackgirls of LBP are clearly insane, but were they the only ones? I was happily controlling the mind of an apparently insane character, disillusioned in a pretend world, all within a videogame. Once this dawned on me, I began to worry; was it really just Sackboy who was demented?

So there you have it. LittleBigPlanet is a very entertaining game, and one with a lot of depth. But be carefull how much you think about it or it may just put you off. Now if you don’t mind, I’m going to go build a padded LBP level and have my Sackboy rock backwards and forwards in it.