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.

The best way to describe The Bunker is “Shit!  [Pause], [Restart Level]“. This is a level that requires memorization, perfect timing, patience, composure, and well, some luck.  With some practice though, one can make through most of the level unscathed.  This is good too, because most players will need many tries to get past the last two obstacles, which I call “the wheel of are you fucking serious” and “the conveyor belt of I thought I was done”.

Figure 2 - How many Sackboys had to die for this I wonder?

The wheel is really concentric wheels rotating clockwise with electrified traps throughout. You start in the center and have to keep pace with the rotation, jumping over an electric floor amongst pieces of material you can grab.  After dropping into the second wheel, you’ll have much of the same thing, only walls will be presented in your way, making timing important.  The outer wheel is the real hell. There is a checkpoint as you drop in, but that’s quite the moot point now as you don’t plan on dying.  The main challenge in the outer wheel is jumping.  Because the wheel is spinning and you’re running against it, your jumps are much shallower, as well as harder to time and control. You begin by jumping over electrified hurdles, and finish out by jumping on cascading platforms, over electricity, while the wheel is moving, and trying to drop down a hole at the end.  You only get one chance because unlike the inner wheels, there is nothing to grab onto, and the end is completely blocked if you don’t make it down the hole.

The first time I finished the wheel unscathed, I let out a big sigh of relief. This was quite careless.  I had beaten this level before, obviously without acing it, and I knew what was coming.  I was but one obstacle from acing the level, and in a moment of carelessness, I exited the wheel by dropping down the hole…and landed on an electrified light on the conveyor belt below.

“Shit!  [Pause], [Restart Level]“.  Take 15 minute crying break.

The conveyor belt is deceptively difficult.  It moves to the left almost as fast as your Sackboy can move to the right, making it incredibly hard to jump over obstacles and run under impending doom. This also makes it necessary to react instantly when you’re dropped down from the wheel.  As I remembered my second time through the wheel unscathed, the belt requires that you’re running to the right from the moment you drop down from the wheel.

At the end of the conveyor belt awaited an acing of The Bunker, and the “Play” trophy, as it was the last level I had yet to ace.