GC 2008: LeipzigBigPlanet

The PlayStation booth at this year's Games Convention has around 30 consoles set up for attendees wishing to get hands-on with LittleBigPlanet. There's no danger that anyone won't know where to find it, either, because there are posters for Media Molecule's surefire hit all over town. We have a meeting scheduled with the developers on Friday at which we'll hopefully be seeing something new, but in the meantime yours truly couldn't resist checking out the version of the game that's on the showfloor.

The two premade levels on show are the same ones that were at E3 unfortunately, but this was the first time that I've had a chance to make anything for myself. Playing alongside a guy from Media Molecule we decided that we'd each make cars which, while not a very adventurous project, did afford me an opportunity to see a lot of different features in action, such as bolting objects together, using motors to make them rotate, and assigning other objects as switches to turn those motors on and off. Some of the level creation controls definitely took me a while to get used to, but I definitely feel like, given enough time, I could make some fun levels. I guess we'll find out a couple of months from now.

At one point during the demo, the Media Molecule guy (I wish I could remember his name) took a photo of me using the PS3 camera and, seconds later, it had been pasted onto a tree in our level which I proceeded to knock over with my car. Seeing how easy it was to do something like that made me realize just how massive the potential for creativity is in LBP, but it also made me realize how easily people could abuse it. It's happened with SingStar, it's happened with the Spore Creature Creator, and I just had to ask how MM and Sony plan to deal with it.

The answer I got was, I'm pleased to say, very reassuring. Firstly, it was pointed out to me that it's simply not possible to be as anonymous online within a PS3 game as it is on the Internet. Offenders can easily be identified and, I'm sure, prevented from contributing to the LBP community if they choose to abuse that privilege. Secondly, and I hope I'm remembering this correctly, I think the plan is to incorporate a feature similar to that in SingStar whereby if you find something objectionable you can take a screenshot of it and submit it to a moderation team. In that way, offensive content will inevitably sink to the bottom in the same way that great content bubbles to the surface. I think I'm looking forward to seeing what kind of stuff other players come up with even more than I'm looking forward to creating stuff of my own.