Given the beta test a go, the design of Media Molecule’s ‘Little Big Planet’ for Playstation 3 proves practicality and simplicity (and an immense understanding of physics) go a long way.

The story mode is basic: 3-D graphics with 2-D platformer style levels, and a itsy, burlap ‘Sack Boy’ performing standard jump, push and pull functions.

The only limitation in LBP is your creativity.

Some teardrop-shaped black rubber, ‘peach floaty’ material for a beak, wings and bulgy eyes, and I’ve birthed a penguin with pogo stick legs.

It’s as though the Media Molecule game designers created a musical instrument-of-a-videogame with nearly endless possibilities. LBP deserves this fanfare hoopla because of its ingenious option to create your own levels and share it online.

As well as playing the 50+ level story campaigns’mdash;multi-player co-operatives optional’mdash;LBP offers a series of Create Mode tutorials that turn the player into game developer.

Mastering the Tool Bags and machinery, resizing and placing items, and editing does take awhile, but this only heightens the already extensive replay value. People can challenge themselves to get the most online hits for their levels.

The planet is one infinite compilation of childhood playground and new age Legos. Want to build a dissolvable Trojan Horse? Recreate your favorite ‘Super Mario Bros.’ level? Have hundreds of thousands of players comment on your design?

It’s the 2.0 of videogames. The robust physics engine accounts for Sack Boy’s reaction with the level’s makeup: skateboards, jetpacks, tumbling rocks’hellip; Things Newton would drool over.

Dress Sack Boy however you want (handlebar mustache, white neck ruff, bunny ears), and then compare costumes with players’mdash;if you like them enough, add them as friends.
This must-own comes at a time where that extra video game cash goes to lost stocks. A game with continually fresh levels is exactly what we need.

Sony Playstation has found its ‘Halo,’ going as far as making Sack Boy their new mascot.