One of the most popular games among the Ripten E3 crew (check out our last day of E3 podcast) has to be Sony’s LittleBigPlanet.

Honestly, when I first heard of the game I wasn’t too interested. In fact, I wasn’t even going to play it at E3, but Chad told me to. Thanks Chad, because it easily became one of my favorite games of E3.

Developed by Media Molecule, LittleBigPlanet is a side-scrolling action game that focuses heavily on player-enabled customization. From creating your own character to customizing your own level, almost everything in the game can be user-created, leading to an unlimited amount of possibilities.

As soon as I got my hands on the game, I was impressed and having fun with it. The controls were easy to learn and only used a few buttons to interact.

I played with two other people, first trying out a mini-game that had a series of platforms coming from the bottom to the top. The objective was to keep dropping down from one platform to the other before getting smothered with toxic gas at the top of the screen. I’m guessing there will be tons of mini-games just like the one I played, making LBP a fun party game.

We then went on to play an actual level, which relied heavily on co-op play with different puzzles and strategies. There were all sorts of obstacles on the stage we played, like rolling logs on fire and swinging sponge-looking thingies that we had to grab onto to swing over to the next area.

Although the game relies on co-op gameplay and brainstorming with each other, it’s also a race to the finish, complete with points and grabbing items and goodies.

As you’re progressing through a level, each character will be awarded points by collecting these bubble-looking things and at the end of the level you’ll be placed in order of who finished the fasted, just for bragging rights. Oh, and you’ll want to be the quickest to grab all the customizable items like stickers and equipment for you characters.

Oh, and LBP is finally a game that really uses the Sixaxis controller! When you’re playing the game, you can move the Sixaxis to shake, bobble, and make your character dance around. Even better is the ability to control your character’s arms with the L2 and R2 buttons, smacking around the other players for purely no reason. Funny shit.

Each player was able to customize their character mid-game, everything from changing outfits to face paint. You could also change the landscape of the level mid-game, like adding stickers to the wall. Again, the game is all about user-created content.

My favorite aspect of LBP has to be online and sharing experience. Not only can you hop online through the Playstation Network to play with three friends, you can also upload and share all your created levels to the LBP community. Once you’re online, you can check out all your friends’ created levels, play on them, and even edit their levels to your liking and make it your own.

Overall, LittleBigPlanet looks wonderful and the gameplay is incredibly fun. I played for about 15-20 minutes and I just fell in love. For a game that I had no intention on playing, I was blown away.

Be prepared for tons of fun and laughter when LittleBigPlanet comes out for the PS3 this October.