New and first icon from Sony : Sackboy

It was quite a big suprise from Sony PlayStation 3 when the company presented this new platform game : LittleBIGPlanet. It is really far away from all these violent, war and horrors games which we are used to know since a while. As if a return back to childhood, LittleBIGPlanet brings a very interesting world where gamers can do almost whatever they want, in a childish environnement.

To begin with, let's present the hero of this fantastic interactive adventure : Sackboy. He represents a cute simply random puppet. But what is genius with this hero, is that every players can create it with different tools that the game offers. This idea is very original because it allows the gamers to share this puppets with others and to make the character constantly evolve. But it isn't restricted to Sackboy. Gamers can also create Sackgirl ! And to add a very personnal touch, we can tell to the character how to react in front of a situation, give him feelings, and interact with other players. Using internet included in the PS3, players can meet and make friends, and even fall in love with Sackboys and Sackgirls. It creates a little community. But it doesn't stop there. As we can customise the character, we can create our how levels and share it on internet, and download it to play on different gamers' one. The game gives all the tools used to create environnements, obstacles, goals and entertenainement to the players, which is very well seen because everyone have the possibility to invente their own level. Today, games are fixed in non-evolutive levels, which gives a short gaming life after finishing it. Just like the characters, the levels are constantly evolving, and it gives to the game an eternal durability. The graphics and the evironnement are taken out from a child imagination, which add this funny and friendly atmosphere to the game. From there, we can almost guess why the title is LittleBIGPlanet ^^. The concept is based, in fact, around the community.

Economicaly speaking, Sony's hopes are in the hand of this game. In fact, it is the first time the company decided to have a proper icon, like Mario or Sonic. Due to an old policy of not having a mascot, maybe in the goal of not being like the others, Sony thought twice about this project. They see in Sackboy, as he is customisable, a way of promoting the PS3, and show others faces, despite its very high price (around 360€...). But it a risky attempt, because as seen before, gamers are used to play Role Playing Games, violent games etc... and a return back to childhood with a platform game is a bit odd. But as it is out just before Christmas, maybe it is a marketing attempt, in which children are the target ? But beginings seemed to be a bit hard. In fact, only for a song where two lines of the Koran are said, the Muslim community asked Sony to review the game, or retire it from the market. Just before it was out, Sony had to recall it, remplace the song, which cost millions.... But now, the game seems to a good future in front of it :-).

For more informations, see also the official website