Every gaming generation has its landmark titles. Mario, Sonic, Lara. If you’re really lucky you get a whole bunch of them in one era. Like that time when we also got Zelda. We didn’t know what to do with ourselves with the excitement.
This generation, the seventh (if you’ve been counting), has been exceptionally good to us. Classifying an iconic or watershed game is harder said than done, however. You don’t just cast theses laurels around willy-nilly. What qualities qualifies such a title as a contender for hallowed membership into gaming’s illustrious history? Do we look to the property’s sales figures as a benchmark of influence? What about critical acclaim? Does an iconic gaming IP need to be world renowned?
Sackboy may not be as recognisiable as the likes of the aforementioned plumbers, hedgehogs and busty grave-robbers, but to the burgeoning entertainment medium that is gaming, he personifies what this generation is all about: creativity. LittleBigPlanet literally changed the rules of gaming. Of course, user-generated content is hardly a new concept, especially considering the fact that modders had been toiling away at their own gaming creations for decades, long before the burlap buddies appeared on Sony’s PlayStation 3 console. What LittleBigPlanet did, however, was make such an activity instantly accessible, and hence resulted in developer Media Molecule influencing their milieu as far reaching as humanly imaginable.
LittleBigPlanet, by its very definition, is almost unsequelable. Its concepts of play, create and share were supported by an endless deluge of content, not only from the budding level designers who were now utilising the building blocks Media Molecule had provided, but also due to new and ever-evolving content the studio itself released into the wild. It was an organic phenomenon, a game that, if user-created levels could be regarded as quasi-canon; complimentary facets of the game that were oftenjust as good as the “real thing,” you literally could never finish. It is a game that is boundless, audacious and shamelessly inventive. The only limits LittleBigPlanet put on its communal architects were the constraints of time and patience.
Though that’s not entirely true now, is it? For all its virtues, LittleBigPlanet is a platformer cookie-cutting machine. Yes, new functionality like the paintball-gun added a new, and colourful, dimension to the playlist but, in general, playing, creating and sharing would always be confined to one genre. Apart from the true, and rare, avant-garde lunatics who really pushed the premise, of course.
Media Molecule’s Alex Evans once famously said that they would never make a LittleBigPlanet 2. How could they? How could the inventors of something so novel, so genius and so liberating ever attempt to better a creation that is literally a giant toolbox for others to go on and create with? Like all great inventive geniuses, however, they realised that the challenge is not in making something you’ve already made but just better in its own right, but creating something better that completely reinvents the rules yet again.
In essence, LittleBigPlanet 2 is a supercharged, multi-dimensional version of the first game injected with godlike omniscience. In comparison, LittleBigPlanet was merely a demigod; a lowly daemon to what its bigger, bolder brother can come up with. Unlike its predecessor, LittleBigPlanet 2 doesn’t change the rules, it completely re-writes them. The fact that the scope of the game now encompasses pretty much any genre and not just the lowly platformer is enough to warp minds. Creative people are literally salivating in anticipation at what they’re going to create with LittleBigPlanet 2. For the rest of us, we’re simply drooling on ourselves at the prospect at what these nascent game designers have got up their infinite and magnanimous sleeves.
Not many games get to change the course of gaming history. LittleBigPlanet already has that accolade. We can only imagine what LittleBigPlanet 2 can accomplish.
BIGAL-1992
LBP2 at #10. Really?
Stitch
I suppose we already know what were getting with LBP2 to a large extent, as unmissable as it is. Wait and see what #1-9 are too!
kivi95
Killzone 3
The last guardian
Mass effect 3
Skyrim
Batman:Arkham city
Uncharted 3
all does games must be in the top10?
Apnomis
Batman Arkham City was at #16, but you’re onto something with the rest of the list IMO.
kivi95
yeah it’s really hard to remember all the 90games so far.
Cant think of any other game.
DRCD1
I bet Portal 2 should be on that list
Apnomis
Good call I forgot about Portal 2, and I don’t think that’s featured yet…
retro_
Half Life 3 would and should be nbr 1
ARUMIR
I have said it many times, you can’t forget Monster Hunter 3 that would be interesting to see if a PSP game actually makes it too the top ten proving that it can take on its console counterparts.
Rocket_345
Dead Space 2 should be another.
Aquastyle
Such an amazing start to 2011 with LBP2, cannot wait. But what’s it doing at #10?
Dan Lee
Whilst I’m pretty sure everyone respects what LBP2 will achieve, it’s not to everyones taste.
Aquastyle
Yeah, I’m fully aware, just had to say it! :P
Dan Lee
Then, sir, you must perish by my blade!
Origami Killer
cant wait, i love LBP its so awesome
gazzagb
I can spend hours watching LBP videos, the creativity of some of the creators is simply amazing.
project84music
LBP2 is shaping up to be truly awesome, I can’t wait to get my hands on it. Same goes for the demo, which is taking its sweet time to download!
Kovacs
Pretty much every entry from here on in is going to receive the obligatory “WHAT?! Why isn’t this higher?!” comment.
Mathematics doesn’t lie. A lot of people voted on this list and hence a lot of tastes and preferences influenced the final pecking order. All it takes is one person who hates FPSs or RPGs or LittleBigPlanet to throw the list off compared to what you, personally, would have voted.
For the record, LBP2 wouldn’t have been in my Top 10. Not because I didn’t like LBP (read the text above, I obviously did) but because, in the grand scale of things, I would place ten other games ahead of it.
A final word about the top 10. Remember: we voted on this list back in October when certain titles were not announced. Just because a certain title isn’t in the list doesn’t mean it wouldn’t have been if we had voted on it.
kivi95
so no:Uncharted 3,Skyrim or Mass Effect 3?
BIGAL-1992
Unless they were held back by an NDA, then I’d guess so.
Kovacs
I’d rather not say! Just wanted to point out that some titles naturally didn’t make it.
Like … SSX: Deadly Descents. I can reveal here and now that it is NOT on the list but I’m sure it would have been if we knew more about it at the time.
Crouchy03
i can’t believe this is at #10…thought it wasn’t gonna be on the countdown list when your countdown went by #30..
Kovacs
And your first comment, I believe. Sounds like you’ve been hanging around in the background, all taciturn and elusive until now.
Welcome to the mad-house.
Awayze
I bet it’s going to be an Xbox 360 game at number 1 or a game that was on the Xbox 360 ie ME2.
UC3 should be at number 1. It’s by far the best single player game.
bunimomike
You already got an angry mob ready and some burning torches with pitchforks poised at Kovacs’ throat?
Kovacs
Angry mob with burning torches and pitchforks? Yeah, I’ve had to learn to get used to that of late.
:D
Awayze
Lol no >_<
Dan Lee
Might even be a Wii game. You never know.
Kovacs
Anything I say in response could potentially give something away, and I’ve worked too damn hard on this feature to do that now.
If you think a 360 exclusive tops this list then that’s fine. It’s not like it’s not possible.
UC3 should be #1 because of its single-player? Sure, why not. I loved UC1 and UC2. Sounds like something logical to me. We’ll just have to wait and see.
:)
bunimomike
Good placement. Expected it to be a snifter higher but I’m not allowing for other consoles/platforms. However, LBP2 is basically a suped-up ritalin-starved, super-sized version of LBP so I don’t think it deserves top spot.
Great article, Lee.
Kovacs
Appreciated.