This little guy has broken my strict policy of not supporting downloadable content for video games. I recently picked up Little Big Planet on the Playstation 3 and it won me over in minutes. The game is best described as Super Mario Bros. with physics, with a heavy emphasis on collecting costumes and customising your sackboy – for no purpose other than looking at your little guy and admiring how cool he looks in which ever one of the hundreds of different costume variations you decide to dress him up in.
So where does the downloadable content fit in? The creators, Media Molecule, like Maxis before them, have captured the appeal of playing virtual dressup and marketed it to the consumer in a series of individualy priced add-on packs that can be purchased through the playstation store. But while sending “The Sims” on vacation or buying them fluffy pets had little appeal to me, dressing up sack boy as a character from another video game was something I couldnt pass up.
So far ive purchased the following pieces of data, with nothing physical to show for it (other than the stupid smile on my face as I watch the little guys run around on screen)
Not pictured: Metal Gear Solid 4 pack, The Chimera from “Resistance Fall Of Man”, Chun-Li, Guile, Zangief and Ryu from “Street Fighter 2″ and Kratos from “God Of War”.
Sure, they’re fairly cheap. No more than ten dollars for a set of character costumes, and less for individual characters, but it all adds up – and when you consider how pointless they really are, I think I should be feeling a lot more sheepish than I actually do.
