LittleBigPlanet Karting Reviewed By Ben McCredie

Rating: 80% (Ratings Key/Explanation)

Sackboy returns for a leisurely cruise in this solid-yet-uninspired karting spin-off of it's revered predecessors, LittleBigPlanet 1 and 2. Developed by United Front Games (ModNation Racers, Sleeping Dogs), LittleBigPlanet Karting places the player once again in the role of the hessian hero "Sackboy" as he is tasked with retrieving stolen items from the nefarious "Hoard", a gang of thieving racecar drivers who simply wish to hoard everything for themselves. Invariably, our burlap bruiser decides that the best way to do this is to beat them at their own game!

Opening with an enjoyable introduction by Stephen Fry (as per previous LBP titles), our sacky saviour is then placed in his "Pod", a cardboard vessel he uses to travel from planet to planet in the "Craftverse". Upon selecting Story mode, players will control the tenacious textile over 71 racetracks of varying modes and environments, such as a time trial through a desert safari, a battle in a king's court, or a typical race on monster island.

Item/weapon pickups litter each track, presenting the player(s) with opportunities to blast their opponents sky-high with a missile, launch themselves forward on a rocket-propelled boxing glove, or "fast-forward" themselves along the track. A nice twist to the typical Mario Kart 64 style of combat is the ability to actively defend oneself from incoming attacks. As long as you have a weapon loaded, you can direct it backwards and (timed perfectly right) destroy any incoming projectiles. The works rather well, however it would be an understatement to say that the AI in LBP Karting are trigger happy. It was rare to not regret firing off my missile at the enemy in front of me, as the ass-hats behind me would seemingly time their assaults for when I had no method of defending myself.

The tracks themselves are well designed, maintaining the cute-yet-slightly-disturbing artistic style of the LittleBigPlanet series. Unfortunately none of the tracks are particularly memorable. Though graphically beautiful and successfully maintaining the "imagination" theme which is central to the series, none of the tracks managed to capture my imagination or leave a lasting impact.

Part of this due to the fact that each "World", containing a dozen or so tracks, is designed to be thematically similar. This causes each track to lose it's sense of uniqueness as it's adjacent tracks would be set in the same environment and merely be variations of the track you just played. This problem is compounded when levels seem to miss opportunities for unique environmental threats.

The cliche' moving walls and lava pools are definately present, but seem a little too predictable for a game based on using your imagination. One mechanic of various tracks that I did find interesting was the Grapple hook, which would be used to grapple overhead corks and "Spiderman" across gaps. Unfortunately this was extremely simple to execute, so the novelty had worn off after the 5th grapple swing and did little to alleviate the banality of the tracks overall.

Collectibles are ever-present, as per the previous titles. Players can find stickers, objects, colour pallettes, textures and dress-ups littering each track, with some hidden behind moveable walls or at the peak of jumps. Unfortunately these collectibles are unusable on the tracks themselves, and are instead used to decorate the interior of your Pod and to customise the appearance of Sackboy. Thankfully the customisation to Sackboy is, like LBP 1 and 2, limited only by your imagination.

It's fun to plaster the crafty crusader in sunflowers and googley eyes, then laugh as what appears to be a colourful and springy shrubbery tear up the track in his kart whilst shooting missiles at the comparatively bland members of the Hoard.

The collectibles were also used in a new mode that left me very impressed - "My Moon". Extremely similar to the create-a-level "Forge Mode" of recent Halo games, My Moon puts the creative tools in the hands of the player, allowing you to design and create a full race track from scratch. Using a paint roller you "roll out" the track, easily ascending above or descending below ground level. The overall theme of your track can be altered, and minor additions are made by placing environmental objects you've collected in story mode. Modes of play and rules can also be customised (making it possible to create your own battle-arenas, as seen in the story mode), and interestingly collected objects can also be used to create your own weapons, however the possibilities for weapon customisation is fairly limited (functionality wise). Created content is saved to "My Earth", and can be uploaded and shared with other users and sometimes featured for everyone to see.

On the technical side, LBP Karting definitely succeeds. Graphically it's as beautiful and as enchanting as it's predecessors, and certainly no effort has been spared on lighting and distance blurring. The audio and composition is excellent, being varied and wonderfully cheery, with some of the tunes playing during races being downright funky. I found myself putting the controller down at various points all so I could quickly look up the name and artist to a particular song featured.

LittleBigPlanet Karting is one of those games that leaves you wondering how much better it would have fared critically if it had been released a decade ago, when Karting games weren't as stale as they seem to have become. It's a wonderful game in its own right, but lacks the originality (and therefore staying power) of landmark titles of the same genre such as Mario Kart 64.

The power to create seems to be it's saving grace, and it'll be interesting to see what comes out of it's community, such as faithful recreations of Mario Kart 64 levels. Overall a quality racer that manages to combine imagination with the solid groundwork already laid by the genre. Definately one for fans of the series.