Sackboy hits the PSP. The weird and wonderful world of little big planet bursts into life on the PSP. SCEE Cambridge has taken over the port to PSP and the good news is they have taken out very little in fact it is incredibly similar to original PS3 title. Some small changes include a tightening of the controls to restrict the “floating” feel that annoyed so many in the PS3 version and also it now has only 2 dept planes rather than 3 so moving in and out isn’t as fiddly. All good things.

By no means is this a straight port in fact SCEE Cambridge has created 30 new levels that span over 7 different regions of the planet including Australia, Asia and the Middle East. Plus once you have completed the story mode you can always crate your own and download new user made levels just like the PS3 version.

Graphically it is brilliant it is full of all the wacky colours, creatures and outfits that made the original so good. The size of your sackboy is quite small at first but you soon get used to this. In fact the only thing I missed from the original was the ability to stand and have sackboy wave at you using the analogue sticks !!. You can use the direction buttons to get sack boy to recreate a few set expressions and adding L1 to the Dpad will get sack boy to do a set of set movements.

The create levels side of the game is just as good as the original with a massive selection of materials. It does take a lot of time and effort to create a level of any kind of a decent standard.  Once you feel you have a level that is up to scratch you can then share it with near by PSP systems using the ad-hoc feature or go online and upload it to the world wide web. Downloading new user levels is a simple process that gives endless lifespan to the game.

The one major omission from Little big planet PSP is the lack of any kind of a multiplayer feature at all. Developers claimed that while the PSP could do it the game physics engine would suffer. While it is a blow the end product is good enough to overcome it.

Overall a great game and another good reason to get a PSP. Its fun it offers a nice mix of pick up and play with long term gaming experiences. Graphically it’s very impressive and LBP shows how good games can be if they are developed specifically for the PSP system rather than old PS2 ports.