Little Big Planet Karting | Review
Developer: United Front
Publisher: Sony Computer Entertainment
Platform: PS3
Release Date: Out now
Little Big Planet’s Sackboy has established himself as one of Playstation’s most recognisable icons and with the success of the Little Big Planet series it was no surprise that United Front Games and Sony would be releasing another game featuring the little knitted man. This time around Little Big Planet is taking Sackboys world of endless possibilities and introducing Karting. This isn’t the first time a popular series has taken the carting route, such recognisable fan favourites as Super Mario and Crash Bandicoot have also had carting games. The real question is can Little Big Planet carting go head to head with these classic Karting titles?
Developed by United Front Games who had made Mod Nation Racers a game at the time that was often likened to LBP so it comes as no surprise that when they teamed up with Media Molecule a LBP Karting game was of the cards.
Little Big Planet carting as the name suggests takes players into the traditional kart racing experience and this wouldn’t be complete without weapons for players to pick up in order to incapacitate the other racers, these weapons ranging from projectiles to EMP’s to Grenades and more ludicrous ones.
Weapons can be fired both in front of and behind you either to incapacitate the other racers or fired in order to destroy an incoming projectile fired by another racer in order to avert a most unfortunate outcome. The game keeps to using the trademark Pod as the games hub for the player to customize his/her sackboy/sackgirl and kart and for accessing the story of the game. In a rather strange move rather than giving a separate menu for the online aspect of gaming the online or ‘versus’ levels are unlocked once a level has been completed in the single player story mode and are placed next to each individual level. Those along with the challenges all web together into a bit of a messy view at times when navigating the levels. Players who have save files from either Little Big Planet or Little Big Planet 2 get a little introductory bonus which is great to see that the guys behind Little Big Planet try give long term fans a little something.
The story behind the game follows the ending of Little Big Planet 2 in which Sackboy faces off against the Hoard. The Hoard are stealing and collecting all of Craftworld’s prizes just to simply hoard them away and it’s up to Sackboy to race the Hoard and get back all of Craftsworld’s prizes.
This game has the familiar feel of the Little Big Planet series, the controls for the driving are responsive but the levels feel a little dull at times. The time when this game shines is in online mode where players go head to head in races with their own customized Sackboys/Sackgirls and you can show off and race in your own custom created race tracks. Once again it is the creativity in these games that really brings them to life and lets you have a lot of fun. The only downside to the online part of the game as mentioned above is the fact that the multiplayer levels are thrown into the story mode menu rather than giving multiplayer its own menu to access from the Pod. This is a minor issue but nevertheless it irritated me.
Overall Little Big Planet Karting is a solid entry into the series, while it may not feel as great as Mario Kart Racing or even Crash team racing it still holds its own for different reasons and is worth checking out.
SCORE : 6.5/10
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