Reviews// LittleBigPlanet (PS Vita)

While I'm on about touch controls, I know they're the big new thing with the Vita, but they don't need to be pushed down our throats. The story mode planet has to be moved and levels selected by touch. This feels imprecise compared to d-pad navigation, but there is no choice to use more traditional controls.

Perhaps this will be dealt with in an update before launch, but for now the novelty of having to move between d-pad and face buttons to touch panel and then back again wears thin quite quickly.

In Create Mode the same sort of frustration just don't seem to appear. For example, the functionality of moving objects between layers and making them "fatter" or "thinner" is controlled by a pop-up panel that is activated by holding down the left shoulder button. This feature has the option to use the thumbsticks as well as touching the panel directly. The exception is using system menus, where the touch controls have no alternative.

I did wonder if I was being a bit stick in the mud, having played all of the previous three games way, way past completion. So, I quickly turned to my on-hand playtest subjects. Subject A is 7 years old and subject F is 10. They have both played the PS3 games to death and F has put a lot of time into the PSP game.

Once handed over, my Vita vanished to the bottom of the garden until I was summoned to help with a particularly difficult bit, being dismissed very quickly after.

In short, they both loved the game, although A found it a bit difficult to get into having not played the tutorial levels. However, F rocketed through the first set of levels and passed my then level of progress somewhere in the middle of the second set in very short order.

They both thought the touch controls were fun, especially the in-game parts. F was very happy with them, saying they were the best things about the game. So, maybe I'm just out of touch.

See what I did there?

Oh suit yourself!

I may seem as if I've been picking out the bad parts of LBP:PSV and to a certain extent I have, but the ones listed are the only bad points I've come across while playing the game. The rest of it is spot on perfect.

The new set of developers have taken Media Molecule's vision of Play Create Share and embraced it wholeheartedly. In addition they have crafted an amazingly captivating game that only suffers any criticism at all due to comparisons to its relatives on the PS3.

In short, if you have a Vita get this game, if you haven't got a Vita, don't take too long considering if you should get one, there's a very compelling argument for the purchase that goes by the name of Little Big Planet.

And, yes! Stephen Fry does the narration again.

Pros
+ It's Little Big Planet!
+ Very good platformer
+ Online multiplayer
+ Infinite replayability with content creation and sharing

Cons
- Small screen camera issues
- Often troublesome touch controls
- No alternatives to touch controls in some places

SPOnG Score: 9/10