DISCLAIMER: This review is not a review, it's a bumbling, messy rant I wrote at 2 AM. I apologize in advance for any grammar and spelling errors, as well as the occasional nonsensical sentence.

It has truly been some time since a game has so fully captured me to the degree that Little Big Planet has. There is something truly special about this game that is only shared with some of the best I’ve ever played, in fact, the last time a game was able to make me feel anything like this would have been my first playthrough of Super Mario Galaxy. I don’t Think I can ever truly, properly put it into words, but I'll certainly give it a try.

Before the actual review I’ll start by saying that I don’t have any nostalgia for this game, In fact, my first time ever playing would’ve been the day before writing this review. All of my opinions stem from very freshly playing through the game and experiencing everything it had to offer for myself.


This may be a fairly generic statement, but I think everyone can agree that today’s world has more than its fair share of misery. These past few months for me it's felt like on a global level there have been historical levels of suffering and wrongdoing happening all at once, and there is nothing I can do about it. When combined with the smaller stresses of simply living your life, it can be easy to accidentally start to live with a dark cloud over your head. This is not to say that I’m a miserable person or anything, It's just that I feel we sometimes forget how important it is to smile. I am of the opinion that we need more ways to spread positivity and happiness in the world, and that is exactly what Little Big Planet is. Little Big Planet completely counteracts everything negative I just mentioned on a personal level in nearly every way. It feels so purely created with the sole intention of bringing childlike joy and wonder to the faces of all who play it. From the animation to the music to the gameplay, everything feels so lovingly, passionately created to be the absolute best it can be. One of my favourite things about all forms of media, be it traditional books, comics, movies, tv, or games, is that they can give you such intense emotions that you would normally be unable to experience in ordinary life. Through Seething anger or incredible sadness, I’ve been affected by many of the things that I have watched, read, and played, but there is one thing even the best of movies and games are often not capable of, something that makes them truly stand out above the rest if they can accomplish it, and that's them being capable of transmitting pure, unfiltered joy to the same degree that they can other emotions. Throughout my whole playthrough, Little Big Planet had me grinning ear to ear. It's the first time in so long that I’ve been so completely invested in a game, that I’ve spent so much time in a game all at once, that I’ve been willing to give up doing anything else to actually find time to play, and since I’ve had my love for video games so overwhelmingly re-ignited like this. For all that alone, I will likely forever remember Little Big Planet and consider it one of the all time greats that I’ve played, But there is still so much more to discuss here.

Before even discussing the gameplay, there is so much to appreciate about Little Big Planet. Everything feels meticulously handcrafted, because it literally is. This game at its core is a level editor that all players have the ability to use, and the developers truly mastered everything about that level editor and managed to produce levels for the story mode that wouldn't feel out of place if they were found within a real, purely 2D triple A platformer. Within these levels there are representations of cultures from all over the world that are so obviously lovingly represented, and they have great humor to go along with them. This game genuinely made me laugh a few more times than I would have expected. The sackboy that you explore the Levels with is also an incredible addition to this game. Each sackboy exhibits so much personality and is so excellently animated. Something about their expressions just makes their emotions feel so real. The Developers really went above and beyond when it came to allowing players to fully express themselves without even speaking.

Speaking of player expression, the one part of this game that I’m really devastated I’ll never get to experience is the online. Exploring an infinite amount of community made levels with my friends and other people while being able to fully express myself and have fun at the same time seems like it would have been an absolute dream. I get hit by a little wave of sadness everytime see the crossed out online buttons on my screen, but even without them I had plenty to love about the game.

The campaign mode is spent helping numerous troubled characters throughout the earth in any way you can. Often just seeing how the developers had crafted characters and made them feel so alive through the crude level editor was enough to make me laugh, but it was also very charming. Every step of the way you are offered encouragement and witness so much creativity it's hard to not just constantly smile. Alongside just being fun to play through, these levels feel like they would be excellent inspiration for anyone who would have tried to truly dedicate themselves to the level creator as well.

In terms of actual gameplay, this is definitely the weakest part of the game, but still fun. It controls like a standard 2D platformer, with the sole issue being that sometimes sackboy feels a little bit slippery to control, putting you in the occasional situation that will feel a little unfair. Otherwise though the level design is so clever that the game never gets old. There are so many gameplay concepts and ideas featured within them I almost wish there were more levels so I could have seen them more fully explored. The game does get more difficult towards the end, but even with the slightly awkward controls I never felt it was too unfair, despite having to redo some levels a fair few times. What it really shows is that this game's potential for level design is more or less unlimited, something that would have made it all the more amazing when the servers were still up and running.

The music (partially composed by the guy who did spiderverse btw) was also a key factor to my enjoyment of this game. Almost every track is so uplifting and happy it felt like it was directly planting energy into my soul. Somehow these songs make me feel nostalgic despite having literally never heard them before yesterday. There are just so many different instruments and styles of music that all collide together in this game, making it one of my favourite gaming soundtracks of all time. Maybe I’m just weird but there were even 1 or 2 very oddly nice tracks that even made me tear up a bit.

In conclusion, Little Big Planet is just kind of a perfect video game to me. The combination of its endless creativity, interactive community, fun gameplay, and amazing music gives me the impression that it was lovingly created with the sole purpose of spreading Joy throughout the world, something we can always use more of. It's very rare that something is able to make me feel the childlike wonder I experienced while playing this game, and I'm so grateful I just randomly happened to check it out. Everything about it feels so human; you can clearly see the overwhelming passion behind the game poured into every nook and cranny within it, something I’ve only really been able to notice in a very small few of the best games I’ve played. In my opinion, more games should strive to be as joyous and as pleasant an experience as Little Big Planet. I definitely feel like this is a game everyone should try playing at least once in their lives, because if for some reason it strikes the same chord with you as it did with me, you’ll never regret it.

In my personal opinion, one of the hardest video game genres to screw up would be the run ‘n gun genre. I have talked about it plenty already with plenty of games, whether it be with franchises like Contra or with standalone games like Ninja Commando, and so far, based on what I have remembered playing, I have been mainly positive about it. Sure, not all of them have been incredible games, but most have managed to keep the gameplay fun enough, and even if they don’t do anything to really advance the genre, I could still say at the end of the day that these games are good enough, to where you could play through them once, have a good time, and move on with your life. However, as I should’ve expected, every video game genre, no matter how popular or simple it may be, always has to have at least one dud lying amongst the many winners. That dud, from what I have experienced, would be Ikari Warriors.

I had only heard of Ikari Warriors in very small doses before, with my first time ever hearing about it being from the AVGN episode on it, and I have seen it from time to time while looking through SNK’s lineup. I had wanted to try it out for a while, because despite the fact that I heard it was bad, who knows, maybe I would end up liking it where others didn’t. And besides, that AVGN video was on the NES version, so why don’t I just try out the arcade version and see how that one is?

one arcade playthrough later

Yeah, you know what, AVGN was right, this game kinda blows. Sure, for the time it came out, it is pretty impressive, and it does implement several elements that other run ‘n gun games of its kind weren’t doing at the time, but alongside all of that is the bad side of what the arcade has to offer at its absolute worst that I have seen so far.

The story of the game, from what I gather, is that these two random army generals have to storm the Ikari village in order to kill who I presume is Mecha Hitler and rescue your colonel before it is too late, which is good enough of a story for a game like this, I suppose, the graphics aren’t anything too special, looking exactly like Capcom’s Commando (which is appropriate, considering this is a clone of that game), and not really doing anything too impressive, the music is good, all things considered, and it is cool how it changes up depending on where you are at in the game, despite it all being one continuous stage, the control is… something, to say the least, which I will get into in a little bit, and the gameplay is pretty basic for the time, but, to its credit, it does innovate in places Commando was lacking in.

The game plays almost exactly like Commando, where you take control of either Colonel Ralf Jones or Second Lieutenant Clark (two names that just strike fear into the hearts of many, as you can tell), storm through Ikari Village in one giant level, which does work for this type of game, shoot up every single enemy soldier, tank, and helicopter that will try to stop you in your path using either your guns or a batch of grenades, all while viewing it from a top-down perspective, gather plenty of powerups and vehicles to help you gain an advantage over the enemy forces, and take on all the bullshit that Mecha Hitler has in store for you. It is all pretty basic stuff, and it does make you wonder why you would play something like this over Commando, but to the game’s credit, it does bring new stuff to the table that Commando didn’t.

Throughout the game, you can locate various powerups to help you out through the game, along with additional ammo for your guns and grenades. In Commando, you only stuck to just one weapon the entire time, which did make things pretty repetitive, so it is cool that this game offers plenty of ways to change up your firepower… even though I never was able to keep these changes for that long, but still. Alongside that though is definitely the best element of the game you can take advantage of: the tanks. These babies are absolute MONSTERS in this game, with you being able to take control of one and blow everyone away, and as long as you avoid all explosions, grenades, and what have you, nothing stands in your way of total domination of this village………. that is, except for the limited fuel that the tank has, which does kinda suck, but you do find plenty of fuel canisters lying around, so you won’t have to worry about that running out most of the time.

However, you will have to worry about plenty of other elements that this game has to throw at you, such as the EXTREMELY ROUGH control. Now, when I say it is rough, I am not referring to the basics, because when it comes to moving and shooting, you can perform these actions just fine. But, when it comes to aiming and going in different directions such as diagonally, GOOD GOD, it feels absolutely horrible. Not only do you move way too slowly, making dealing with enemy fire always feeling like a gamble half the time, but the way you aim is so finicky, to the point where I can barely rely on it to stay aiming in a certain direction. Maybe it works better with an actual arcade machine, but since I am stuck with the Arcade Archive’s emulation, I will never know.

But anyway, going back to that thing I said about enemy fire, that leads into my next huge issue with this game: ARCADE SYNDROME. Good god, this has got to be one of the worst cases of arcade syndrome that I have ever seen in any video game. The way enemies will gang up on you and try to shoot you down, coupled with the amount of explosions that will be happening around you, it just feels absolutely relentless most of the time. And on top of all that, you have limited lives, so if you die and get a Game Over, you have to start the whole thing all over again, which completely drained me of my will to life numerous times. This isn’t a complete game killer, as there are times (I’ll be it very brief times) where you do have the upper hand against your enemies, and the game itself is pretty short, but either way, it is still unbelievably painful to try to slog through a mess like this.

Overall, despite making what should be a better Commando with powerups and tanks, SNK instead ended up making Kaizo Commando, which is saying a lot, considering Commando was already hard enough as is, but this game takes it to a whole nother level. The amount of enemy fire at once is absolutely ridiculous, there are obstacles that you can’t see until it is too late a lot of the time, you have very little room to maneuver to avoid oncoming fire, and again, you have limited lives, making beating this game a test of stubbornness and will in the worst way possible. I don’t recommend anyone plays this, unless they feel that most other run ‘n gun games are way too easy, because trust me, this game will challenge you and then some. But hey, I will admit, it is still cool to say that I ended up killing Mecha Hitler at the end of the day…………… someone is probably gonna correct me and tell me what his name really is, but I don’t care. It is Mecha Hitler in my canon, so I will say that to claim that I helped stop World War III.

Game #401

a red hot reminder that a game doesn’t need to have a complex plot, deep interwoven systems, or cutting edge graphics to be a masterpiece. it simply needs to let you hit a little frog with a big hammer. we lost something grand when game soundtracks moved away from that solid gold Saturday morning cartoon, super bouncy Y2K almost-ska that coated even the most inconsequential of menu screens of the games of the late PS1/early PS2 era like Super Monkey Ball, Chocobo Racing and of course the legendary Ribbit King. it’s not worth the triple digit price tag you’ll pay if you want to get it physically, but i dare you to show me a video game that is. you’re guaranteed at least a chuckle every time you line up a shot and launch that low-poly amphibian skywards (provided your brain’s synapses are still capable of firing off the neurons needed to approximate something like joy). extremely smokable game.