The definition of "okay". So much nothing that I really can't even tell if there was a something to begin with. Typically I'd just have a one-sentence review that ends in something like "so it's just a modern sony game" but like let me elaborate, just this once.

I'm a pretty darn big fan of the LittleBigPlanet series of games, as I pretty much gave my entire 11th and 12th year of life playing exclusively LBP2. Doing a spin-off side game where it's just a standard 3D platformer honestly isn't that bad of an idea but the end result is so bland that I hardly can really have anything to say about it. It felt like a lot of the levels were somewhat nerfed in challenge not only to ensure that the little ones can see it through to the end but also to make sure things can still be somewhat parsable with the more hectic multiplayer camera, so I definitely see the thought put behind the design, but it's just so SAUCELESS my dudes! I tried playing both on my own and with randos online and with both I just felt like I was completely on auto pilot the entire time. It's still something that like if you are a kid that only has a playstation and NEEDS to play a mario-like it will get the job done, but that's pretty much the extent of it.

The plot is your typical generic safely-played kids game shit you've likely seen a hundred times by now.

I will say that the visuals are really nice looking, with really good usage of high resolution textures, and lots of well-used lighting and shading to really make the materials of everything look insanely realistic. Obviously different material shading has been done before in other games but the high level of fidelity everything is rendered at here is honestly really impressive and makes things stand out even more, especially if you have a higher-end TV. If there's one thing that I can give this game praise for, it's the visuals. if only the game itself had as much thought put into it amirite

As for minor nitpicks that could only come from a littlebigplanet nerd like myself, I do think it's weird that they gave sackboy a voice for grunts and screams and whatnot when he's been characteristically a mute blank slate the entire time before this game. The way that you could use the triggers to control your characters arms individually is also different and gives less overall expression, though honestly the D-pad being tied to customizable emotes instead of just 4 standard emotions is honestly not a bad idea tbh. Though I will also say that for a game in a series as creativity-focused as LBP, the player expression is very limited. No placeable stickers to color the world or your character plus the lack of connection with any other LBP game in terms of costume parts and DLC just means there's really not a lot to be creative for.

It's just really weird that this game is the way it is. Instead of being any sort of evolution on the LBP series they just made the safest, most shapeless and flavorless blob of goop and put it out as a pretty launch title. It doesn't even have the LBP namesake in its title, too! Are we really just calling this series "sackboy" now??? I mean at the very least getting something wholeheartedly inoffensive in every approachable angle is better than just having yet another sony IP thrown down the drain, so I guess I'll just take what I can get at this point. Near the end of the game, the main villain tries to take over the world by voiding craftworld of all its creative energy by enslaving hundreds of sackpeople to build a machine that uproots the tree that not only serves as a source of creativity but also is the iconic tree in the littlebigplanet logo. For a moment like that to exist in a game like this where the credits scroll through hundreds of names yet the end result deemphasizes creativity in exchange for the most generic 3D platforming with no deeper regards to its namesake though? At least the lack of user-generated content means they can't shadow-kill the servers with no warning, throwing away over a decade of peoples hard work!

PPPLLLAAAAYYYSSTTAAATTIIOOONNNNNNNNNN

Ah, clone hero. This is pretty much as close of an endgame as you can get when it comes to having an accessible casual guitar hero game out there. This shit is the swiss army knife of guitar hero, as it practically works with everything. If you have a 5-fret guitar for pretty much any console, this supports it (some PC fenangling may be required). If you want to play a song from a guitar hero or rock band game, people have converted pretty much every main and DLC song from both series to work here. If you have custom songs for either previous guitar hero clone games or custom DLC tracks for rock band games, you can easily convert them to work here too. The rock band drums and keyboard even work!!! I think that the timing windows are more forgiving than actual guitar hero games but frankly only the hardest of the hardcore players are even really going to notice that kind of thing. The only minor gripes that I have is that there's no rock-band style co-op way to play songs where everyone shares a rock meter and can revive and whatnot, there's no vocals implemented in any form, and the vibes of playing with the game-rendered mocap guitar hero bands and stages aren't preserved as this is primarily just a song player. Also for a lot of custom songs you kind of just have to hope that a custom charter has the same music taste as you because of what I can tell charting new songs is really hard so yeah (where the FUCK are my idolmaster customs?!?!?) Also Also a lot of customs are naturally difficulty creeped to accustom more seasoned players so new players usually have to stick to official rips or customs from people generous enough to do full-difficulty charts. But despite those various gripes, if you want to just get into playing a vast selection of songs either by yourself or in a party group with minimal strings attached, this game is OP. I've spent so many hours with so many different people playing all sorts of different songs with this game, it truly is one of the few games that can honestly bring everyone together in a way that the limited setlists of regular guitar hero/rock band games can't. Part of the reason why I feel like guitar hero hasn't tried another reboot attempt is just from the fact this game borderline invalidates any need for something like that to be made, the fans have basically perfected the platform at this point. Go hunt down an X-plorer and get shredding already, what are you waiting for?!?

From the land targets to protect, the way the screen points in the direction you are facing, and the minimap on the bottom of the screen, this surely is activision-flavored defender. It's certainly less chaotic than actual defender, the controls are a bit more sensical and the game isn't nearly as fueled with a hatred desire to kill your ship as quickly and mercilessly as possible. You have to protect some trucks driving along the ground and there are these planes and helicopters that zip around back and forth shooting these bullets that split vertically to either catch you off guard and kill you or to hit the trucks on the ground. The further you go, the faster it gets, there's not much really else to it. Hell, even the manuals challenge to get in the commando club was pretty trivially easy, as it just asks of you to get 10k points specifically on the easy difficulty (how would they know what difficulty you are on?) 10k is the point threshold to get an extra life so it's really not a high number to strive towards, I was able to crack twice that in only like 10 minutes of learning how the game works. It's an overall solid but pretty literally derivative atari game. This did come out at the same year as the 2600 port of defender, so my best guess was this was an attempt by activision to give defender fans an alternative to buying the atari-developed version.