First off, I wasn't sure which forum I should post this review in.. This forum or the GU Gaming forum. Anyway..

My wife and I picked up the game of the year edition of Little Big Planet this past Saturday. For $30 at Best Buy it was the best money we didn't spend, that we spent. To clarify, we used our $30 gift card on the game.

What is Little Big Planet you ask? Well, it's the world that is made up of all of Earth's inhabitants' imagination. Through a cerebral umbilical cord, our dreams and imaginations are what created Little Big Planet. Well, that's what the games intro video said.

We've all seen or heard of this game. I'll admit, when I first saw a commercial for it on the TV, I was not interested. But it still gained popularity like a sackboy riding a skateboard down a ramp. My wife had some interest in this game long before we got our PS3, and I even told her I'd get the game for her if she let me get the PS3. She was sold. Flash forward many many months, we finally get a PS3, the 'hype' (if we can call it that) for LBP died, and I ended picking up about 5 other games prior to this one. Getting this game also gave us a reason to pick up a second controller. Normally I would have held off, but since we essentially got this game for free, I justified paying the $50 to get the controller. So, as soon as we got home, we popped the game in.

Now for the game play.. we start out as a sackboy. Pretty simple. He/she/it is small, cute, and very animated. Throughout the tutorial levels, we find out that you can pointlessly control parts of sackboy.. Like his arms, facial expressions, head and hip movement. All by pushes of buttons, moving of the analog sticks, hitting the d-pad, or tilting the controller. Your sackboy is also very customizable. Now, in the regular version of the game, unless you buy add on content, you are pretty limited on customizing sackboy's looks. Only a few different types/colors of material his skin is, a few different eye types, clothes, etc. But, in the Game of the Year edition, we start out with many different costumes.. Anywhere from Count Sackula (dracula), a werewolf, zombie, Metal Gear Solid characters, Mozart era costumes, an animal themed costumes. As you play through the levels, you either find or win/earn more costume types. Some are harder to find/get to than others, but that helps keeps the replayability at an all time high. To me, this aspect is probably one of the funnest parts of LBP. The combinations that are available are countless. Ok, enough about sackboy himself.. The game play and style are actually VERY simple. This is the type of game your whole family could sit around the TV playing. Think Super Mario Brothers. You basically run, jump, and swing through 3D levels as a side scrolling game. There are some puzzles as you work through the story mode, most that require 2 players to complete the puzzles. Now, you don't need to solve said puzzles to get through the level, but you'll be leaving some items behind.

What makes this game so great is the customization. No, not of sackboy; Although when you play online there's almost 100% guarantee that no two sackoys will look the same. Players can create and 'publish' their own levels/campaigns. What I mean by publish is put on the LBP's servers for all to play. Or at least all that have internet access. The system put in place is pretty good, too. Players rate others' levels, and if they deem them worthy enough, they 'heart' them. Basically, favorite them. You can also heart players as well (much like the subscribe feature on YouTube). Bottom line, if you create a good level, you'll be a popular little sackboy on LBP. There are also custom packs you can buy on PSN.. Like the Pirates of the Carribean pack. Which will give you a Pirates' campaign of levels to play through and a slew of costumes for your sackboy. I saw a Sonic the Hedgehog pack last night that I am ITCHING to buy. While I don't have the patience or ability to create a good level, I still had a blast messing around with MyMoon (what LBP calls the customize level part of the game). Just don't go looking for any published levels from me.

The multiplayer part of this game adds alot more to the replayability. For example, after playing through the first 'zone' of the story mode with my wife, I blitzed through 4 more zones (again, think Mario Brothers.. there's multiple levels per zone). Now, as I played them, there were about 2 or 3 puzzles per zone that I couldn't complete without another player with me. Sunday night, both my wife and I jumped in LBP and continued where she left off. This would be my 2nd time around these levels, but the incentive of getting the items I missed my first time around was more than enough for me to be ok with it. And I'm not one to replay a lot of games. After starting to get my wife caught up to where I was in the story mode, I decided to check out the online community. I jumped into an online game with some players, on a custom level, and instantly had a blast. I couldn't believe how much fun I was having playing such a stinking simple game. And to add.. This is the first time my wife and I have been able to play ANY game that we both love together. We both were into WoW and EQ2. Both had our own accounts.. But because of hardware issues, we never had the chance to actually play together together. And the console games we both enjoy, are single player games. Well, until Little Big Planet. Last night while playing together.. We had some seriously memorable times. Stuff that I personally will never forget. Just like the memories of the first time playing through Super Mario Brothers for the NES with my mom and dad and watching them beat it.

Simple, but very entertaining. No wonder it won so many awards.* I know I'm 2 years late on this.. But in all seriousness, better late than never. Especially with this game.

5/5 stars. Bottom line.. If you have a PS3, GET THIS GAME. If you don't have a PS3.. Consider getting one and then.. GET THIS GAME.

*LINK: Leads to LittleBigPlanet's awards website. Just a list of awards the game has won/earned.

Gamefly delivered this on Wednesday and I tried it out last night. it's rather fun and enjoyable as a different kind of game. My daughter wanted to play it which is why it found it's way in my game queue. Although after playing it a little last night, I think it might be a little hard for her since she hasn't figured out she can press the left stick to make the character run and push the x button to jump while running. She kept getting frustrated but maybe I can get her to understand the simple thing there and we can play together. definitely need to play this with my wife, who thought I'd be doing a lot of pelvis thrusting with my sackboy when she heard the game explain how you can do that.

How old is your daughter again? I can see how this game would be more complex than the NES Mario Bros (with the grabbing and dragging bits).. but still it has the basic gameplay. We haven't played this in awhile (I finished the story mode, but have at least a few more items to get from just about every level) due to WoW and such.. Found out that we can be playing on our PS3 and actually can play online with 2 other people.. That's pretty cool/neat.

She's 4. will be 5 in two weeks. she does better with super mario on the nes though. I think it might be because her hands are a little small for the controller. she can reach all the buttons and still has to look at them to see where they are. She really liked the skateboard race that we unlocked and thought it was funny when I missed getting on after pulling it to start and then she some how flipped the board upside down. I was trying to figure out the creator thing so I could maybe make a level or 2 we could play.