Media Molecule sure got a great recipe for easy cash-in right now. Release a costume pack every week for Little Big Planet and rake in the cash. I’m sure they could do fine with just this. But did this stop them from making some new awesome content? You better believe it!

Having gone through the original Story Mode through and through, finding all the prizes bubbles and acing every single levels, I was left with only the user-generated content to play around with in Little Big Planet. As awesome as it can be from time to time, sometimes the levels are just “meh”. So I was quite happy to try new levels designed by Media Molecule and themed on one of the year’s best game.

LittleBigPlanet has changed. ID-tagged Sackboy wears ID-tagged costumes carrying ID-tagged accessories. LittleBigPlanet has changed…

While last week’s LBP DLC release saw the release of 4 MGS4 costumes, that is, Old Snake, Meryl, Raiden and Screaming Mantis, it saw also the release of the MGS4 levels pack. This is what this is all about. Unless I’m mistaken and I missed something, the pack contains 5 new levels and 1 mini-game level, along with plenty of stuff to unlock like bubble prizes, trophies and the Paintinator.

If you didn’t buy the pack, you’ll still be able to join someone playing through the levels, but you won’t be able to acquire any of the prizes in the levels. I find this to be quite a fair deal for the people unwilling to pay for the content, getting to experience it, but not “own” it.

On to the levels themselves. Each one has a somewhat different style to them. The first one has you inside a truck, going through quickly the equivalent of Act 1 of MGS4, except you don’t do much except read what the characters are saying. That is on your first run through this level. I’m not sure when you get it, maybe at the start of the level, but you can use an ammo hole sticker to “shoot” plenty of targets that will give you bonus stickers and objects. It’s quite hard to get all of them by yourself in one go, I still haven’t managed to do it after 3 tries.

The second level has Otacon train you to use the game’s new item, the Paintinator. A paint gun you can use to shoot at targets that have health bars (yes they added that too, which makes the game go from awesome to awesomer) and at other players, painting them with your set colour, which goes with your character’s theme setting. While the first half of level 3 has you sneaking your way, dodging the light spots, the second half has you shooting guns, with a mini-boss ending.

The fourth level has more shooting and other stuff (I won’t reveal it all, just find out for yourself) and the mini-game is taken from MGS’ famous VR training and has you shooting targets that shoots back at you over you and an electrified sentry that comes in from the side at random times. Final level has you take on Rex “controlled by” Liquid Ocelot. The fight is quite challenging first time around. I feel like I’m going to have a hard time acing this one, and also beating the level under 2min30s, which is one of the trophy requirements.

I’m glad that they did more then just built-up something quickly and put a price tag on it. This level pack is awesome and should be bought by every LBP owner so that MM get’s a positive message and keeps making expansions like this one. The addition of a paint gun, health bars switches, and new types of dangerous items (a very explosive rocket type thing and a laser type projectile) makes for a very complete DLC that deserves more then its low price tag.

David A. Games, Review