LittleBigPlanet maker admits PS3 controls annoy even him

October 7, 2008, 2:00 pm by Simon Munk 9 comments

Filed under Gaming Tags: Little Big Planet, LittleBigPlanet, Media Molecule, platform game, playstation, PS3, Sackboy, Sony

Mark Healey, the co-founder of Media Molecule, the company behind highly-anticipated PS3 game LittleBigPlanet, has admitted to Eurogamer that the controls for his own game “annoy” him.

The game sees your “Sackboy” character running and jumping through multi-layered levels, designed by gamers and shared over the Internet. Sackboy can switch between different semi-two-dimensional layers in the game – running behind the legs of a giraffe, for instance, then jumping forward towards the screen to jump onto the giraffe’s tail.

Fans of the game who have downloaded the free demo, now available on the PlayStation Network, have complained about the difficulty of controlling characters moving in and out of the screen. “[That] movement is an incredibly hard thing for us to get right,” Healey has admitted. “There’s times when it annoys me actually.”

The solution? As ever these days, it’s going to be a post-release software patch: “There’s definitely room for improvement and we’ve got the channel to be able to do that as well,” said Healey. “We can refine it.”

Despite the prospect of a post-release patch for an integral part of the game (shame on Media Molecule), LittleBigPlanet remains one of the most exciting (one of the few exciting, frankly) games coming this year on the PS3.

Out Oct 24 | £45| Little Big Planet

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Reader Comments

mediamonkey

10-7-2008

Just a footnote from someone who is on the beta program.

The integral part of the game missing on release is the online co-creation aspect. Multiple creation on the same console, and online co-play WILL be in the shipping version on release.

Jumping in and out of the screen is actually automatic, it doesn’t affect gameplay. Although during level creation screen depth can cause problems with placing objects, which makes you wonder why they didn’t just have everything against a flat plane.

Simon Munk

10-7-2008

Jumping in and out of the screen on the review build I’ve played isn’t quite automatic - it is mostly, and sometimes you need to initiate it. And there are levels where you may not want to jump in and out, but you end up doing so anyway etc.

mediamonkey

10-7-2008

Normally pressing the direction button at the same time solves that problem. Or do you just play like a girl?

Simon Munk

10-7-2008

Cheeky monkey! Yeah, I know that works, but it’s still a pain to have to either not think, or think, about whether you want to shift levels while mid-jump etc.

mediamonkey

10-7-2008

I there aren’t many commenters on this site yet as this site is relatively new. But I am really impressed with how often your posting updates (team of 3?). Keep up the good work! I’m looking forward to James H getting a BlackBerry storm to review.

mediamonkey

10-7-2008

It would be nice if I could correct silly spelling mistakes in my comments (like missing words!) for the odd few seconds.

Simon Munk

10-7-2008

Would be nice, wouldn’t it? But meanwhile - thanks for the compliment on updates. There’s loads of us here. We’re like a giant team of monkeys that, when we’re not knocking out half-decent Shakespeare copies, do Electric Pig updates. We’ll try and keep you right to the minute with the latest tech news (and get chief monkey, James, his Storm as soon as). Ooh ooh aah aah and out.

James Holland

10-7-2008

I’m doing my best! The latest is it’ll be announced at 5am. That’s either a very late night, or an early morning for me. I’ve yet to decide which it’ll be!