Guildford, the historical Surrey town located just southwest of London, can rightly call itself the UK capital of videogames. Dominating the town centre is EA's newly built towers, a colossal structure that spearheads the company's European operations and features its own gift shop. Then there's Lionhead, it's studio set in the more leafy outskirts of the town and from where Peter Molyneux lays out his own blueprint for the future of gaming.
Nearer the town's train station, there's a much smaller office, but one that can match either for the impact it's had this year. Formed by a number of ex-Lionhead employees, Media Molecule works its magic above a bathroom shop in an industrial park. The reception is illuminated by a string of fairy lights spelling out 'hello', an aging and magisterial large oak table where the team meet taking up much of the space. It's from here that LittleBigPlanet took shape, the small team that's kept its numbers below thirty masterminded the definitive PlayStation 3 game of the year.
It turns out that many moons ago, Microsoft once had its eye on the Sony published LittleBigPlanet series.
Microsoft in a nutshell. Always tried to poach Sony employees, games, 3rd party games and devices like the depth camera that was turned into Kinect but was running on PS2 before Xbox 360. Wouldn't be surprised they wanted LBP. Just like they worked behind the scenes pushing the MLB to bring Sony's baseball game to Xbox instead of making their own.
https://www.playstationlife...
They didn't spend years trying to develop their own baseball game. They wanted Sony's game.
They're scum.
"However, Healey said Media Molecule wouldn't have felt right doing that, adding it would have been "morally corrupt"."
Major kudos to Media Molecule for being an upright studio with principles.
Great, more stories like this please. Show the last of the zombies holding the line what we've been saying for years: Microsoft is anti competition, anti industry and has no interest in making games at all.
But hey, at least there's an Xbox Games Showcase to look forward to, right?
Well considering SONY just killed the series, LBP would've been dead by now either way. Though MM probably wouldn't exist by now either, so I'm glad they stayed with SONY, hopefully they don't get shut down any time soon or ever honestly.
Times are changing, and these games would have never been made in today's climate.
Every single time someone uses this phrase whether it's music, movies, books, comics, video games, etc it's always the same claim.
The ubiquitous "they" won't allow it to be made. And every decade these claims are made the claimant completely ignores all the "offensive" material that is published when the claim is made.
In ten years, you can write a new article about how you can't make games like Helldivers 2, Resident Evil VIII, Mortal Kombat I, Dragon's Dogma 2, Alan Wake 2 etc etc etc any more.
Dead Island: "The early PC version of the zombie game swapped the playable character Purna’s Gender Wars skill with a prototype name, which shouldn’t be mentioned directly. The skill name made fun of both Purna as a character and feminists."
"Feminist Whore" lmao
ill add one more to the list.
drakengard 1.
its ridiculous tho, especially since they'd still be able to find their place in alot of places in the world. except america of course ha. and maybe Australia.
ppl are so sensitive these days. ha. but it is what it is.
They're not offensive.
And we need another Fat Princess. Fantastic little game!
Some people just have no sense of humour if this sort of thing offends them. They need to lighten up and stop taking themselves so seriously.
Alex DS. from Link Cable Gaming writes: "Is the PlayStation 3 retro? This is a surprisingly hard question to answer as the system definitely has the age to be considered retro, having launched in 2006, over 15 years ago now. But with it being home to so many massive games, many of which still hold up today and in fact were released for the PlayStation 4 when that console was released, make the PS3 a retro console that doesn’t feel retro."
Typically, the term retro is given to items which are at least 20 years old (but not yet 40 years old).
Quick google search
No the PS3 is not yet a retro console. But if you're gonna put 1 game from a series in this list, then LBP2 should be there instead of the original, Motorstorm PR is also an overall better game than the 1st game and to put Tools of Destruction over A Crack in Time is a blasphemy when ACiT is the best game in the series.
It appears we haven't lost him after all; having toyed with the camera in the debug mode of LittleBigPlanet, Alex gives us a taste of first person LittleBigPlanet, and it looks amazing.
Alex Evans: There's no reason why features like this could never make it.
The next few minutes are spent playing through part of a level from this new perspective; and a few others as well, as we're witness to a Gears of War style third person view. Though the 2.5D levels of LittleBIgPlanet understandably mean a first person mode is, for now, something of an eccentric proposition, it goes to show the versatility of the engine, and indeed the team at Media Molecule.
DO IT!!! KZ2 PACK?!
IGN: The critics love it, but initial sales of LittleBigPlanet were slow. Do you think the public at large get it?
Alex Evans: I'm really happy with the sales, because I know how few games turn a profit so quickly. It's a double edged sword. I think a lot of the disappointment comes from hard times and the recession, and then the fact that there was so many insanely big games that came out at once. There's all these different reasons that you could be disappointed with the sales and look at it that way, or you can say we kept pace with the Fallouts etc. Every other game that we were keeping pace with was a third or fourth iteration, and this is our first one.
Kareem Ettouney: It's a new IP, new company and new business model, so reaching the critic was always foremost. We really are very pleased with the perception and the numbers, and this game was always seen as something that would grow.
David Smith: With a typical blockbuster model, a game comes out and everyone either buys it or doesn't within the first couple of weeks, and then it goes off the radar. But we're looking to continually improve the product, such as with the Metal Gear Solid pack. Every few months, and hopefully more often, this thing improves so it stays visible and people stay excited.
Heh, it rightfully can be the capital of gaming.
Especially when you bear in mind that it even has a famous bearded lady. That's not even a euphimism.
She should gain infamousity worldwide.
Anyway, Guildford is awesome, and you see where Fable 2 gets it's architectural inspiraton from.
This game is just getting started, I bet when they release the killzone maps and characters is when the FP view is released. It would be awesome to have more then 4 online in FPS and making your own levels. sort of like Farcry2 but with LBP would be awesome!
Great interview. Glad their happy with the sales...they deserve to have a success.