I spent the night here trying out the level creator on LittleBigPlanet. It’s a real time-consuming thing, but in a fun way. I spent two hours and I barely got much of it done. Most of the night was experimenting and figuring out what to do. It’s probably going to be considered “simple” to most of the created levels I played already. I played levels based on “American Gladiators”, “Ninja Warrior”, and “Ghostbusters”. Along with them, there were some real innovative levels that involved escaping prisons, storming castles, and just some real creative stuff. Two levels weren’t even levels. One was created by a guy who figured out how to make sound with the switches, and re-created the background music to the Airman level in “Mega Man”, and a calculator that actually worked. The amazing thing was with these two levels is that you can see the switches and triggers that make it work. The attention to detail and amount of work blows my mind. Look on Youtube and I’m sure there are videos of the levels. Unfortunately the creators of the game are turning into Youtube and cracking down on questionable levels due to copyright stuff and content, but also like Youtube it is possible to find what you are looking for. I feel humbled as far as my level and how it’s going to look, but hopefully it works out and people will like it.

I can’t wait for my copy of “Mirror’s Edge” to arrive from Amazon. I chose this week to stop going to Gamestop after my experience today at lunch. I went to the Gamestop at the south street seaport to get a copy of “Motorstorm: Pacific Rift” (which I’ll talk about it in a bit). When I got there and asked for the game, the guy wouldn’t’ stop trying to sell me a used game they had. I said I wanted a new game, but he kept trying to push the used game on me. They do this since they make money off of used games than new games-since they don’t have to pay the game companies as far as used games. Finally after a couple minutes of this crap, he reluctantly got my “new” copy of the game, which was the disc, put in the case on the wall, and sealed in plastic…..well before he got to it I said forget it, and left. I wanted a new, ORIGINALLY SEALED game, and he said what he was doing was normal and ok. I left the store after explaining to him the misleading and probably illegal practice he was doing. I am not sure if this is a new thing, but I never saw it happen before. After a little back and forth, I left. I then went to J&R and got my game. It sucks Gamestop is monopolizing the game store business, but I will never go to their stores anymore. If I want a game, I’ll go to Best Buy or order in off of Amazon.com. Another thing to look up on Youtube or the net are the videos of ex-Gamestop employees talking about some of the practices of the company. It will amaze and maybe anger people.

Like I said, I got the new “Motorstorm” game, called Pacific Rift. It’s a lot like the first game-where several different type of off-road vehicles race on courses with several different paths, some are better for some vehicles than others. This version of the game has more than just desert races, but tropical races in jungles, volcanoes, mountains, and beaches (the premise of the game is that all the races are all held on a tropical island). The game looks amazing, and the diversity of the terrain blows away the first game. The developers improved everything about the game, from the load times, to the frame-rate, and how you progress through the game (all of which were really pains in the asses during the first game). This year also has online racing, which I haven’t tried yet but I hear it works well. I played a little of it tonight, but time issues meant I couldn’t play a lot.

It’s a good time to be a fan of videogames.