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.
KeRaSh
Top 10 for LBP2 seems fair. I expect great community support for this game and will definitely enjoy playing it with my girlfriend.
By the way, did I miss Red Faction Armageddon? I can’t remember seeing it on the list and I wouldn’t expect you guys to rank it in the top 10. Guerilla was so much fun. I just downloaded it from Steam just because it was cheap (5€!). It deserves another playthrough! :D
Rocket_345
Yep you must of missed Red Faction. Can’t remember the number but has definately appeared
BIGAL-1992
Red Faction was #19.
KeRaSh
Ah thanks for the reminder! Too many good games in this list to remember all of them.
icuyesido
Errm, Portal 2, Mass Effect 3, Killzone 3, Uncharted 3, The last Guardian… What else???
colmshan1990
Skyrim? Gears of War? Forza? Tomb Raider? (If it hasn’t already made it)
Origami Killer
that was 9 u both mentioned (and most definataley the 9 left), so just choose the order now :P
kivi95
I thought Gears of war3 had already been mentioned?
BIGAL-1992
@Kivi It has.
colmshan1990
Hmmm, you’re right, it was mentioned.
What about Dead Space?
BIGAL-1992
Interestingly enough, it hasn’t been listed yet as far as I know. Might be in the top 10.
DrNate86
What about Bioshock Infinite?
kivi95
Bioshock:infinity is releasing 2012
jimmy-google
I voted and I’m still not sure what’s in the top 10. I think I could come up with a list of 15 games or more that could be in the final 9.
bigdon23
sounded like a review, im more interested than ever. i want gta in the top 10, that and far cry 3
timecrocop
GTA 5 and far cry 3 won’t be out in 2011
Origami Killer
far cry 3 has already been on the list, number 54 if i can remember but im not so sure
Origami Killer
number 50 sorry
timecrocop
Love LittleBigPlanet, this will be bought on the first day me thinks and deservedly should be in the top ten
Rocket_345
Just played the demo of this and it was amazing . I absolutely loved it. Anything in the top ten is going to be worthy of being there even if i personally don’t want it so number ten is the perfect spot for this.
Kovacs
It’s a valid point. I haven’t mentioned this before but the range of scores of the top 10 are literally all within one full point of one another. As in, if we rate games out of ten here at TSA, all of the top 10 are, technically, within the same “number” bracket. (It’s the minute fractions that have determined their final positions.)
It’s that close.
Rocket_345
Damn. The top ten is looking seriously close now then. I had a feeling the top ten would be close but not that close.
Shaggy2Dope
How about Metal Gear Rising?…or was that not announced for 2011?
R4U Eldave0
Meh, as much as I could see the creation tools in LBP were decent, creating levels was such a drawn out process it sapped all the fun out of it for me. Definately a pass from me.
Rocket_345
Everybody who played LBP knows what the core gameplay is like. The demo was only supposed to show snippets of new things such asd the grapple hook, the creatinator (Rocket Launcher) and those animal things in the second world. I don’t think Media Molecule intended the demo to up the excitement meter but intended to show you some new things.