Review – LittleBigPlanet 2 Move Pack; AKA Sackboy’s Post-Horrific Moves

If you are moved by moving and using your moving limbs to move, then you might share with many people a certain fondness for something called the Kinect. No, I’m joking. It’s the PlayStation Move.  Riper than Paul McCartney’s facial complexion, the new Move Pack for LittleBigPlanet 2, utilising the gimmicky wonders of motion control, will put more than a smile on your face and possibly your anthropomorphic motor system.

Subtitled “The Rise of the Cakeling”, this new story, which links to the main game’s plot, manages to bring forth a new intricate atmosphere while you rush around searching for ever-obscure prize bubbles containing ever-obscure prizes with ever-obscure meaning.  The occasional staple or ant may zap your insatiable-but-decaying thirst for a stuffed Popit, though you’ll probably be having a lot more fun with the levels and mini-games that show up alongside – like discarding one of your own friends for one of their friends because they have a really nice moustache, or eating a sandwich containing cheese churned from the residue of one of the Green Giant’s nipples.

You’ll begin with a lovely introduction from Stephen Fry who buggers off and leaves you with a very strange (though delightful) woman to guide you through in the medium of rhyme. Soon enough you’ll try the new power-up, known as the Brain Crane, which allows you to pick up, toss, twirl, tip, torture and have tea with “grabbable” objects.  It bears a cunning resemblance to a ghostly physician’s head mirror and initially seems to do the same job (ooh, shiny).

You’ll be searching for the malevolent “Cakeling” in this fun-sized adventure, as you comb a massively protruding forestation, a humbly haunted mansion, the mouldering underground and the summit of a cake factory for signs of his whereabouts, having fun with your new toys and collecting keys all the while.  Yes, keys.  While the escapade depicting the onslaught of a vibrant sackbot army closing in on a ghastly cake “sliced” aptly into five edge-of-the-seat-warming-but-not-by-bowel-irritation-parts may not be your cup of moving limbs, the fine array of innovative puzzles and brawls placed strategically north and south of each story piece will most definitely cause kinetic energy (and kinetic energy to the lungs to the people around you as they gaze whilst holding back their laughter at your appendage-flailing failing).

What? You’re not impressed? Well, I never.  Don’t worry, if you’re one of those artsy-fartsy tarts who carts their cartoons in rooms of looming prunes while they judge and begrudge your artistic sludge, then you should poke your peepers into the new paint function of the Popit which allows you to tint your blank canvas with colours only the gods may comprehend… and become damn arrogant about it and all.  Here’s one of my more pretentious works, named “Lunar Protrusion” for some reason.

It’s not a particularly fantastic work of art, so shush. While my devilishly revolting picture may not set the bar for products of the paint tool, please bear in mind that my artwork is generally revolting. If you haven’t already guessed, I have taken the liberty of drawing the pictures in this review with the paint tool because, I don’t know, I like a challenge.

Not a fan of the visual arts?  Perhaps you should take a step into the lovely replenishing waterfall of new bits and bobs in the music sequencer – they’ve only gone and brought more stringed instruments and idiophones for you to create a big wedge of your level’s atmosphere, and for you die-hard Chopins there’s even a function to allow triplet notes into your compositions.  Enthralling?  You bet your Wagner it is. Can’t bring Bach the musical vibe?  Don’t get Strauss-ed out. Sometimes it’s too much to Handel.  Mozart-ists don’t even know their talent.  While Media Molecule have added four official modifiable music tracks, they’ve even added a few music sequencer tracks for you to get a feel for the music sequencer’s new functions or even steal melodies and stick them in your own songs like I did.

So, for a price tag of £6.29, is the Move Pack particularly worth it?  Of course! The superfluity of bloody brilliance is more than enough to keep you occupied for at least six years. But if you’re new to the LittleBigPlanet scene, or if you don’t currently own a PlayStation Move controller, then you’re looking at starving for a few days to come up with the riches, and by the time you have the money, you won’t be able to Move.  A vicious circle?  I say a vicious cross-circle-square-triangle.

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