Customer Reviews

LittleBigPlanet Karting (PS3)

5 star:		(27)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

This is a faithful entry in the LittleBigPlanet (lbp) series. Its more multi player focused compared to the previous LBP games simply because platforming is more single player friendly. Yet the single player mode is lots of fun given that its a kart racer. There is also a variety of story mode game types alongside karting to keep you interested. RC races (think micro machines) to battle modes and F1 pit stop style races are included. The focus is playing with others and the game has a feature to keep your party connected and flowing through a vote system when you finish a race. This does the job well and the host can always manually change tracks if necessary. Voice chat works great and text messaging is also possible in the traditional lbp pop up way.

Lots of options and a very powerful create mode that is fully 3D from the ground up. It is possible to create certain game types not possible in LBP 2. A good example being you can make a natural starfox 64 style game in 3D or a Jungle Strike with 2d view. There are water/boat racing tracks made by the community. Tower defense and other game types can be made. Weapons can be customised and creators can share weapons through levels. There is a mario kart weapon packs making the rounds. The shells are larger and the question mark power ups are not transparent but its surprisingly close.

Karts are fully customisable. You can change suspension to a floating/flying kart to a tank kart. The game shines here. Costumes are the same as previous LBP games. You will be able to use the same costumes unlocked in the other games soon after a patch.

The karting is closest to Mario Kart and comparisons were already inevitable. The power ups are very similar(and customisable) as are the kart handling aspects unlike Modnation Racers. You have a slide(like Mario Kart) to boost feature and can spin in the air to boost(think stunt to boost in MK). In fact there are lots of Mario Kart homage tracks and power up packs already thanks to the strong customisable nature of the game. The game seems to do very well at functioning as a mario kart hd of sorts! A good exmaple being Moo Moo farm on youtube.In LBP 1&2 platforming was very different from Mario Bros. due to the very different controls and feel. LBP karting on the other hand does not have this issue. So its worth pointing out that the makers are on to something different here. At the same time this game is hardly just a homage to other racers there is a huge amount of original content being made and its up to the individual how they enjoy this game.

The quality of tracks are great. The ones in the story mode are fun but there are fantastic tracks already released by the community. Thankfully there are more themes in create than what is shown in the story mode and can be mixed up to create more original looking tracks. The community is already proving to be inventive on day 1. This will help keep the game fresh for a long time. LBP.me integration seems to be working and everything is running smoothly. Finding good tracks seems to be easy so far given that most will never step into create but want to enjoy what is out there.

As for the negatives:
Costume compatibility with other LBP games should have been included Day 1. Its a great feature and includes dlc costumes.
Glass materials need to be more glass like(create mode). As it is I prefer other materials to try and recreate the same effect.
More complex(but also more powerful) than Modnation Racers in create. Maybe more ready to use objects would help beginners?
Karting games are not long term single player focused. Buy this if you can play with others or online.

Overall this game exceeded my expectations. I thought it would be good but not quite as fun as the best kart games. Glad I was wrong. Its now one of my favourite multiplayer games on the PS3 but also a good offline family game. If you enjoy karting games then this game is a safe bet.

The gameplay is slow, the graphics are correct but i expected more. There is a creation mode and its good but the probleme : the races are boring so it's not very appreciable in race. a little disappointed
and be aware that the title was not developed by Media Molecule, who made both Little Big Planet, but "United Front",not very well known ....
So yes, it looks like Little Big Planet, we find the music, the colors, the style, the look, but the build quality is not at the rendez vous: the game is not fluid at all and the racing sensations are totally absent.
if you're a fan of the serie, it's ok, but if you want a game of fun and fluid karting, go your way!

Gone down well as a Xmas pressy, As usual with LBP very interesting and engaging, they particularly like the fact you can build your own tracks. However, niggling problem - its Move compatible, but not something we bought this for, If you have a move controller or Eye switched on, it looks for the move steering wheel and wont progress. You have to quit, switch off the controllers and unplug the eye. Took us a while to work this out so be aware. Otherwise would have been 5 stars

OK so I love Mario Kart on Wii, it is one of the best kart games ever. I tried Sonic All stars transformed and was pretty disappointed, mainly by the characters that have zero personality, and the game trying to be more than it is. This game however is a simple kart racing game with battle modes as well. I was never really a fan of the battle arenas on Mario Kart and it's a pretty similar story here although some of them can be quite good fun and possibly not as frustrating as Mario Kart. The racing including the online racing is fun and kept simple, I played a number of racers in a row online and didn't really noticed any slowdown or lag and they were as much fun to play online as Mario Kart is on the Wii.

I also have F1 racing stars which I also like although the tracks are more interesting on LBP karting. From the recent crop of kart racers I'd rank them as follows.

1. LBP Karting
2. F1 Racing Stars
3. Sonic all Stars transformed

If you loved Mario Kart on Wii either LBP karting or F1 Racing stars will be a fun game for you, sonic is more on rails you can't for example go off track even if there are no barriers. Sonic is also arguably a more difficult game and maybe more suited to people with more patience than me. Sonic also suffers slowdown. I prefer to simply pick up a game a play without having to try over and over again on the same track to win or get within the top 3.

First off, I'm a big fan of LittleBigPlanet. This game does justice to LittleBigPlanet fully. It is extremely customizable, very good content creation tools and highly polished artwork and animation. Almost anything the original developers did in this game, you can potentially do as well. The tools are included.

Where it falls short is the actual racing. The game physics is bizarre, if you get knocked from behind you just come to an abrupt stop. The AI will always screw you over with multiple hits and always finds you when you don't have an item to defend yourself. So instead of a party karting game where you want to knock about and race freely, the odd physics and poorly balanced weapons and items makes this one of the worst karting experiences on the PS3. Even when you win, you do not feel you won because you raced well. You feel you won because you were lucky.... And this is my biggest problem with this game in that it's just no fun (especially against AI).

The multiplayer can tend to be better when there are other humans playing and without any bots. Even then there are issues with weapon balances.

It is sad, I really tried to love this game but the actual karting is a huge let down. Absolutely no complaints on any other part of this game, but I think they went too much for customization and trying to sell the game on the name of LittleBigPlanet than make the actual karting fun.

If you are looking for a fun game with countless hours of replay value and customizations, creating levels and the whole LBP experience get it by all means.

If you are looking for a solid karting game with fast racing, fun drifting and proper kart physics... skip this by all means.

Man, IGN wasn't joking around when they gave this game 4.5/10, this game really does suck, the controls are broken, everything in this game are broken, this game is not worth your money, buy Modnation Racers instead or Sonic & All Stars Racing TRANSFORMED, if you want a better racing game, I should remind myself that should not buy any games that are rated 4 or 5/10.

Finally a Kart game that is as entertaining as Nintendo's Mario Kart is! Really fun when played with with friends. Quite long loading times though.

It was the right price and it arrived on the right day. Great fun game to play with the kids

my 6yr old is a LBP fan and spends hours developing levels. this is now one of her favourite games as she loves designing the tracks and then racing around them with her friends.

Bought this for my 10 and 8 year olds who loved it. They love lbp games and this is a great addition to the franchise. Would recommend.