Had the opportunity to play about an hour's worth of LBP online the other day with Bill. Reactions are a bit mixed, though they do sway towards the positive. Being the first PS3 game I've played online, I quickly discovered how much the 360's voice chat was missed during a game. When it works, it works very well, and becomes part of the experience. Not having it on the PS3 was glaring from the outset. However, it does lead to an interesting phenomenon: trying to silently work out the multiplayer sections of the various levels without talking. Using a bunch of trial and error, a few sackboy (never gonna get used to that) gestures, and the occasional jumping up and down in the same spot to signify importance, we were able to solve most, if not all, of the various challenges the game presented. Now, it doesn't hurt that Bill is super smart, what with his UVA physics degree and all. I just follow his lead. (Tip: find really smart people, and ride their coattails as long as possible!) Maybe Europeans are used to things like this, since everyone speaks their own version of the base language, but for us Americans, doing without talking just ain't natural.

So far the levels have been fun, perhaps a bit easy, but very fair. Repeated exploration is invited once you reach the end, and find out you only found 34% of the items. Maybe they aren't so easy after all. The depth possible with the level creator is very clear (when they aren't getting deleted by Sony), and I look forward to trying out some of the better user-created ones.

Still, I didn't feel that overwhelming love for the game that many other reviews seem to have. It's fun, it's light, and it lets you play how you want to, as a producer or a consumer. But, at least early on, it's still a platformer, only a few steps up the evolutionary chain from Mario. Get from Point A to Point B. Collect the stars/coins/thingys. Reach every nook and cranny, or beat your best time. It might be a great game for the nostalgic 30something. It surely is a wonderful introduction for the 30something's kids to the way they did it "back in my day!" But for you humble narrator, it fell a little flat.

Don't get me wrong; I'll keep playing. If you have a PS3, you owe it to yourself to give it a try. But maybe the hype was too much. Everyone knew to take Peter's Fable II hype with it's requisite salt. It could be that they just transferred the unused portions over to LBP.