Freakyforms Deluxe: Your Creations, Alive!

LittleBigPlanet players can be broadly divided into those who prefer to create levels and those who prefer to play them.

For me, creating levels with a PlayStation controller was too imprecise and too time consuming. Freakyforms Deluxe: Your Creations, Alive! avoids this issue by letting you use a stylus to make your mark on the weird world around you. In doing so it brings the thrill of creation to the naturally uncreative.

It's just a pity that once you've created a level the paucity of gameplay prevents you from really enjoying it.

Taking form

You start by creating your Formee, one of many characters of your own making that will populate the simple, construction paper-like landscape. It's here that you're introduced to the bulk of the creative tools - a straightforward set that allows you to make almost anything you put your mind to.

Dragging and dropping geometric shapes with the stylus, you quickly build your monstrous but cute Formee, aided by dialogue boxes that pop up just when you need a push in the right direction. The basics (such as the prerequisite of every Formee needing a mouth) are laid out immediately, but there are helpful suggestions to spark off ideas too.

Though it's little more complex than Microsoft Paint, it's a flexible system. Want more speed for your avatar? Stick on a set of wheels. Want to ascend into the skies? Slap on some wings. Everything makes sense in its context: bigger Formees are heavy, and creatures with long legs can stride over smaller gaps in the world.

When you decide to step out into the adventure portion of the game things are similarly uncomplicated, but here that's not so welcome.

It's a small world

There's just not a lot to do. You move your Formee about entirely with the stylus, interacting with other characters that offer up simple quests. These range from collecting a specific type of item to carrying the character to another location. All very easy, all very dull.

There's little difficulty, with navigation about the world your main challenge. A map is on hand to give an idea of where you are, but it's too easy to mess up a jump with the touchscreen controls.

If you feel like it you can head into a dungeon, where a barebones RPG battle system is grafted onto the main platforming gameplay.

It's underdeveloped, and your progression doesn't carry from one dungeon to the next. In fact, the whole title lacks a reason to keep playing, other than to unlock new parts for use in the Creation mode.

With very little gameplay and few incentives to continue, there's simply not enough meat here to sustain your interest. Which is a shame, because you can easily and intuitively make some excellent creations (and share them through StreetPass).

If you're primarily a creator, there's plenty to like - particularly if you can't be bothered with LittleBigPlanet's fiddly controls. But if you're more interested in playing then you'll get a lot less out of Freakyforms Deluxe: Your Creations, Alive!

Freakyforms Deluxe: Your Creations, Alive!

You're not buying much of a game with Freakyforms Deluxe: Your Creations, Alive! but if you're of a creative persuasion, that shouldn't stop you from taking a closer look
Score
Peter Willington
Peter Willington
Die hard Suda 51 fan and professed Cherry Coke addict, freelancer Peter Willington was initially set for a career in showbiz, training for half a decade to walk the boards. Realising that there's no money in acting, he decided instead to make his fortune in writing about video games. Peter never learns from his mistakes.