Stuff I love:My Mac. Sorry, it's a snooty Apple User thing to say, but I started window shopping for a new machine earlier today and realized I just plain didn't need one. Back when I was a hyper gamer, everything in my machine would've been painfully old after a year and a half. Yet I've had my little Mac for well over a year and a half and I haven't had to reformat the thing once. I used to do that at least once every 6 months in my previous life. I might be lucky enough to go computer shopping once I head back to school, but honestly, I think I just need a big monitor more than I do new hardware.
Stuff I don't love:LittleBigPlanet. Yeah, the first level is outrageously charming, but now that I'm 4 worlds in, it's just another platformer. Thanks to my newfound hatred for The Internet, I'm also not interested in user-created levels, either. Imagine my surprise when every comment left on every level is "Play my 6 new Super Mario levelz!!!" Nor do I have the desire, or the time, to make my own platformer levels.It doesn't matter how many palettes or options or tools they give you, it would never be enough to satisfy a truly creative desire, no matter how many raving reviews come in saying that it's a "create your own.. thing" tool instead of a "create your own platformer level" tool. The reason editors for games like Warcraft III are so good is that they're built on top of phenomenally deep games - something LBP isn't. Warcraft III managed to spawn levels and modifications so good that they became their own genres, "games" like Tower Defense (now its own genre of game within iPhone games) and DOTA (whose developers are moving into full-blown game making).LittleBigPlanet, however, is at heart a platformer, and the bulk of its creations are Super Mario Bros. homage levels as a result. I don't doubt the possibility of a few gems coming out of its online level-sharing system, but there's doubtlessly going to be too much nonsense to sift through.This is why we pay people called game designers money in order to use research, intellect, and talent to make games that are objectively good. LittleBigPlanet is objectively good, but at this rate I may not even bother to finish the game that's actually on the disc. There's nothing to look forward to at the end of the road.
