The Escapist 2008 Holiday Buyer's Guide

The Escapist Holiday Buyers' Guide: Kid At Heart

LittleBigPlanet (PS3)

Forget for a moment that LittleBigPlanet is a delightfully entertaining platformer, as charming as it is challenging. Forget that it's not just a fun single-player experience, but also offers some of the best co-operative gameplay that doesn't involve guns. Forget that its easy-to-use editing tools mean the only barrier between you and the level of your dreams is your own imagination. Forget that new content for the game, including user-created levels from all over the world, is readily available on the PlayStation Network. Forget all of that and give LittleBig Planet to the gamer on your list because it is condensed happiness, a doubleshot of joy. It is exuberantly and unabashedly playful, walking up to the grim realism adopted by most modern titles and giving it a great big hug. A celebration of the frog-catching, cookie munching, mattress-bouncing child in all of us, LittleBigPlanet is the kind of game that reminds us why we got into gaming in the first place.

Up next: Throw down with a hedgehog, a princess, and a mercenary.