The idea is that it’s a mini adventure that asks you to use the create tools to get through the levels. The new Popit Puzzle Academy is, it seems, a way to blur the lines between playing the story and the create mode. The constraint of the thermometer in creation is replaced by a more simple idea: keep going until you run out of hard drive space, and you can lead your creations into other levels in a similar way that the main story hubs are stitched to levels. You’ll find bounce pads that propel you into the vast background and then back again, with sticker bubbles to collect as you do so. This plays out into the story levels, too. This time around, part of the hook for the user generated content is the ability to design on sixteen layers, instead of the previous three. It makes sense, sort of, because the idea is that once unlocked, you can go back and reach areas you couldn’t access previously, but it’s also a bit odd to lock them away behind progression, since they are one of the big new additions. In fact, the story has you unlock each character one by one. Each character has specific levels that they are useful in, and it’s a bit of a shame you can’t switch at will. Swoop is a bird, who can fly and, well… swoop. Toggle is a heavy guy, but hitting L1 will change him into a tiny but fast character, offering two very different uses. Being a four-legged friend, Oddsock is faster and can wall jump – the levels specifically designed for Oddsock play like good Sonic levels, as the world falls apart, chasing you out of the level as you jump frenetically from wall to wall. Oddsock is a cute dog-like creature who somehow manages to appear more mentally vacant than even Sackboy – but who plays differently to Sackboy. There are some even better ones that I won’t spoil here, but good lord they’re a lot of fun. These tools are stored in your sackpocket, which is accessed by hitting the circle button, and are a genuinely great addition to the series, and really tie into the terrific level design. Then you find the gun that allows you to shoot a small orb at a specific blue area, and instantly warps you there (think the Portal gun, only more linear in use). The first (The Pumpinator) allows you to suck (L1) or blow (R1) blue objects, and is fairly simplistic. Larger hub-levels give way to the core progression levels, but they are crafted so well, with specific skill-sets and tools in mind. In fact, such is the quality of the level design, that not only did it have me refer to them, to a much confused wife (still, poor soul – she endures so much), as “Nintendo quality” due to the excellent ebb and flow they possess, but also had me question the fact they could even have been made in the level designer. Yet somehow, Sumo Digital (who, let’s face it, have phenomenal pedigree at this point) have not only captured the magical whimsy of Media Molecule’s beloved universe, but also managed to create some of the best levels the series has ever seen. And after a dull, overly hand-holding tutorial that had me incredibly concerned for the third major console LittleBigPlanet (but fifth game overall, not counting the Karting one), it was the refreshing ice-breaker that was sorely needed.īecause there’s a real danger that, this many games in, putting out a cross-generation title that isn’t developed by the creator of the series, things could have gone wrong. But then I looked to my wife, and she seemed to find it equally funny, as did my kids. His upper-class, immediately identifiable voice just caught me out. I smirked, and felt immediately very stupid as to how much this had amused me. There was a moment, early on in LBP3, where Hugh Laurie’s character, Newton, referred to me as something like “Chappy, Chappy, Chap”.
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