Gerbera Tetra:  I picked up two games that I had been practically holding my breath for.. ok robots don’t do that but you get the idea. Little Big Planet and Fallout 3 came out on the same day due to a biut of a music faux pas. Apart from their release date and my anticipation these two games couldn’t be more different. I logged a few hour with each game to get some first impressions.

Little Big Planet-
This is quite possilby the cutest game ever. Many games shouldn’t worry though. It’s not saccharin, fluffy little pony cute. LBP is more disney-ish, peter pan-like .. umm, kinda kingdom hearts pooh bear cute. It kid freindly and accesable but at the same time smart and grown up [but not adult] fun. If you wanted to reduce it to one word = charming.

I want a Sack Boy doll.. really!

However all is not love. This game is a hugably charming platformer that puts a smile on your face ever second of game play. This make the loading issue all the more frustrating. Any time the game needed to access the hard drive for any reason the game froze or chugged very slowly. I mean so bad I wondered for a moment if I’d gotten a bad copy. But it seems it’s not just me. But this may all be worked out soon.

So far 9/10

Fallout 3-

“War never changes” but Fallout does. The previous two Falliut games were Rpg’s full of dark humor and combat in a soul grinding post-apocalypse world. This one keeps the world but tosses the Rpg.. sort of. If you’ve ever played Deus Ex you might feel at home here. The Rpg elements are blended inot a first [or third] person shooter very well. You can even use the V.A.T.S. system to freeze time, choose your targets and have the whole action animated by the game. So anyone could play this, even if you really suck at FPS games. No really, it’s dead easy and your skills really matter so it’s still very Rpg in most ways. What you will not get are major party interactions. I’m told you get a dog later but that’s all. You do get quest and rpg style interactions in the game that make it feel very like an Rpg.

So far 9/10

Here’ the thing..

I expect LBP to gain in strength and have very long legs. This is in large part to the make your own levels system. You can create, share and play levels till the end of time with this game. I fully expect level editors for platrformers to become common [but not normal] due to the smoothness of LBP’s creation system. The good news that the mod community has always produced amazing content for any game that has this kind of flexibility. But of course there are always some asshats. Fortuanlty the developers saw both angles of this, there is rating system to puch good levels up and a ‘good grief’ button to swiftly report offensive ones.

I have an opposite fear about Fallout 3. Bethesda has an issue with tedium. I’ve loved both Morrowwind and Oblivion.. up to a point. The initial rush of exploration, quests and options faded over time with a world to large and to copy cat to thrill after 20+ hours of gameplay. I think the influence of Fallout will fix this for the most part. You can auto travel to place you’ve discovered and the lore of fallout lends a dark humor that makes the game more tolerable in the long run. I hope.