Figure 1 - I created this image in Microsoft Paint. I also made it extra shitty on purpose to prove a very stupid point.

This is one of the few assurances the internet offers aside from an abundance of viruses, porn, and opinions. You can almost guarantee that when somebody posts a picture of something remotely interesting or unlikely on the internet that someone, somewhere…

…will claim it was “Photoshopped.”

I’ll start off by noting for the purposes of this article, the terms “Photoshopped”, “Photoshopping”, “Photoshopper”, and “internet trolls who live in their parents’ basements” are being used to reference situations in which others may use them, and I am not endorsing their use. Why the disclaimer?  I’ll get to that later.

A few months back, I posted a photo, which, at the time, I did not think would garner much interest. The photo was of a sealed package of Fig Newtons that, upon inspection, revealed one of the Newtons turned the opposite direction of the rest.

I must have been hurting for material.

Nevertheless, I thought it was at the least somewhat funny, so I took a picture and posted it. The post became wildly popular, and by 2Lincolns.com standards, that means about 384 people visited the post.  Self deprecation aside, it was actually a lot more than that.  With popularity comes both admiration and scrutiny, and the comment brigade began. Many just enjoyed the post for what it was: a simple glitch in normalcy.  A few others, whom some would refer to as “internet trolls who live in their parents’ basements”, claimed I was a “Photoshopper” who in the act of “Photoshopping”, had “Photoshopped” the image. Some claimed to be experts, stating that they had, um…”examined the pixels.”

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Figure 1 - Adorable little collection of polygons, isn't he?

When I first picked up LittleBigPlanet for PlayStation 3, I had an idea of what I could expect. I had watched the videos from all of the video game conferences, and read the articles, tracking the progress of this incredibly unique game.  I expected the revival of the 2D platformer with flavors of the third dimension. I expected a robust level editor with intuitive controls–originally thought unlikely on a console–making the game seemingly endless with potentially infinite amounts of user-created content.  I expected a fun multiplayer game that would appeal to many different types of gamers of all ages.

I got all of those things.

What I also ended up getting with LittleBigPlanet was a more challenging experience than I had planned on. Granted, completing all of the story levels wasn’t a huge challenge, but with the introduction of trophies on the PlayStation Network, completing a game no longer means simply reaching the end.  After playing through the story mode, a new challenge was found: the “Play” trophy.

In LittleBigPlanet, when you beat a level without using any of your lives, you have “aced” the level.  The “Play” trophy requires that you ace every level in the story mode. Acing most levels requires understanding their puzzles and having the patience to time your jumps wisely, just like any platformer.  The biggest challenge came on the levels with bosses, as well as some of the levels later in the game. The genius in design of these levels is that the challenge is not born out of the obstacles or bosses themselves, but their place in the levels.  There are few things more frustrating than navigating your Sackboy through one deathtrap after another only to die during a boss fight or an end of level obstacle.

I never thought a game so cute would cause me to swear so much. Yes, I just said “cute”.  It’s a word I usually avoid, but have you seen a Sackboy (Figure 1)?  There were many stages difficult to ace, but if I could only talk about one, the decision isn’t hard.  I’m speaking of course of…

…The Bunker.

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