Since mother nature decided to dump 15cm of snow on us here in Ottawa between yesterday afternoon and this morning (and we’re not quite done yet) I was happy that I already had my copy of LBP and was not about to head out for anything in particular. Snow in November was becoming rare enough, but 15cm in October? It’s going to be a long winter.
There were issues all day with the online servers for LBP, some times they were up, and other times they were down. I have no doubt that they did not know about how popular their game would be, after hyping about it for 2 years. They were having issues a few days ago – before the game had actually been sold to anyone aside from pre-order.
I spent a lot of time going through zones I’d already played through, trying to get all of the rewards. I managed to get the garden to 100% completed – this means not only discovering all of the stickers, materials, and clothing bits in every zone, but also finishing each one without dying. This feat became a LOT harder to do in the Savannah. There are a few zones that I dislike, anything with moving ghosts that like to stomp on me, as well as crocodiles (and there were lots) and buffalo.
I went through a million tutorials on how to build zones, and I’m thinking that I may actually need to buy some sort of manual on how to do it all because I am going to forget. That, and I can’t actually READ the buttons that pop up that they tell me to use. Time for a new TV.
Randomness: The radio is playing Christmas music. Ugh.
Ok, anyhow. I am still amazed by everything you can DO in this game. I haven’t moved on to the wedding scenes yet, just the first two. I’ve been trying to get 100% in each level. Each time I play through I find something I missed the first time, a hidden room, a ramp, some extra stickers and building materials. A few things to keep in mind – never follow the direction arrows the first time through. There’s typically *always* something behind those.
I’ve seen a few other people’s creations, including a level 1 super mario brother’s level, that was a LOT of fun and very cute. One interesting aspect is that you can vote for other creations, and give them a rating out of 5 stars. Some levels are just plain.. plain. They focus on giving you a trophy of some sort. For example, fastest speed. It’s a zone that launches you by a rocket and you fly through the air (typically dying at the end). You unlock a trophy for flying so fast but that’s all there is to the zone. Another was to gain 1,000,000,000 points – and the entire room was filled with the little bubbles you step on to gain points. Again, not much to the zone.
The co-op is still done very well in zones that have it planned out though. Since the game is still brand new to release, I imagine that over time the selection of player made zones will get better. I would love to create one, and I have an art themed one in mind, but I really need to learn the controls better first. Remember, I haven’t been playing PS3 or video games for my entire life. It’s never too late to learn!
A Pixel Nomad 