Finding Spectacle, Power and Memory in the Videogame ‘Little Big Planet’
The entire premise of this game is to use it to create your own. It’s made to be able to construct anything your imagination is limited to. This invokes a high sense of power, especially as you can upload your creations online for other gamers to experience and rate in a five-star scoring system. This also gives you a reputation within the community as a good or bad level designer.
Little Big Planet
With this power comes a certain amount of responsibility. You are literally limited to your own imagination (and knowledge of the games technical requirements) which can be a bad thing in some cases. For example, it’s very easy to notice custom user-made levels which have the September 11th attacks as their theme, having the character (you) control a plane or something similar. The character you control is an incessantly cute humanoid sack called ‘Sackboy’, but simulated genocide is still simulated genocide, no matter how adorable. It’s pretty clear that the game wasn’t made for these kind of intentions, but if certain crazed people are given this power, they will use it. In one productive case, someone proposes to his girlfriend using the game, having created a level for her to play. Quite a spectacle.
You need to know all the workings of the game to have your level creating skills at their full potential which means the game will put itself into your head if you take the time to memorize everything you need to know to play it properly. It’ll stay there too.
