My Creepy Little Big Planet Date

I was recently given Little Big Planet 2 for my birthday. A rare novelty because I hardly ever buy new games and certainly not within a month of the game’s release. Sixty dollars is a ridiculous price for a game. It's kind of short but it adds a hell of a lot of new gameplay mechanics. It's almost half 2-D shmup now. In the first Little Big Planet, I ignored the online community in large. I can count the number of times I actually played in the same level with someone on one hand. In about half the levels that there were prize bubbles that required multiple players to get, I figured out some way to get most if not all of them by myself. I'm that kind of online player. In WoW I never joined a guild. Everyone knows If you join a guild, you can go into dungeons and get better loot and equipment. It’s standard procedure. Teamwork or even competition is generally rewarded in video games. The problem is the dual edge sword. You might want to join a guild simply because of the allure of getting fabulous glowing armor with bigger numbers but suddenly you have some guy trying to e-mail you a thirty page Acrobat PDF of rules and regulations you have to adhere to to stay in the guild. Sorry, no. I play video games to have fun. Sometimes that even includes playing an awful game. I don't play video games to subject myself to a bunch of tedious obligations. I like loading the game, doing what I want to do in the game and then turning the game off when I want. From what I had gathered looking at in-game pictures and playing a couple hundred community levels in the first game, the LBP community was largely comprised of furries, goths, emos and shemales probably in the range of 10-18 years old with an evenish gender split. Yeah I know, sounds great, right?

Little Big Planet 2 makes it much easier than the first to just spontaneously end up playing in a level with someone. I started letting people into my games and decided that it wasn't so bad. I even made a couple of friends. Not real friends; people that made friend requests to me. I checked their PS3 profiles and reveled in the fact that I had more trophies than what was probably a couple of thirteen year olds.

I played several levels with, (we'll call them Clingy5150,) who seemed unusually friendly and a little strange in general. Their profile basically said that they could only play on weekends. Sounded like parental rules to me. Whatever, it gives me a big window if I just want to avoid them for some reason.

A week later, I log on and am putting the finishing touches on a level I'm making. Seconds after getting into my level, I get a request from Clingy to join me. Here we go, I thought. The unsolicited pestering at all hours begins. I'm not about to let someone join me in a level I'm creating because they'd either be bored watching me place sound effects in various places or they'd be running around and screwing stuff up. I let the request timeout and continued working. Later when I was bored of building, I wanted to play and decided to ask Clingy to join. He/she did and I sent us to a level which had a multiplayer prize bubble puzzle which I hadn't done yet.

About half way through the level, Clingy starts having self-esteem issues about his/her in-game performance and put on the crying face. I gave them a little reassurance and wonder why I'm having to do this in a video game. They ask if I don't like them anymore. Jeez, I'm trying to have fun here, not immerse myself in relationshit drama. Thinking that this is about me ignoring them earlier, I explain that I was building a level. They seem fine with this explanation. We go into another level and they start having a self image breakdown, complaining about how no one likes them and telling me to be myself. I wasn't really sure what they meant by this.

Once we're back at my pod again, Clingy starts talking about how no one will be their friend. I tell them that I'm their friend and immediately begin to feel weird about it. I'll seriously do just about anything to diffuse awkward situations or at least get them to shut the hell up for two seconds even if it means doing something else that’s awkward…

Clingy says to me, "We're more than just friends." Okay... That was an interesting response. I follow them to their pod and they change the pod view to something more romantic. The term 'cyber' pops into my head. Suddenly I realize that that Little Big Planet literally has everything needed for anyone's elaborate role playing fantasy. Hell, they even let you film movies now. I'm starting to feel rather uncomfortable at this point.

Clingy asks me to kiss them. I paused for a moment. Is this normal? How should I know? Can sack people even do that? Why would they want to? I grabbed them because that’s the one of two interactive capabilities that isn’t violent. I kind of maneuvered the controller around for the head. It had all the eloquence of mashing two sock puppets together.

Well, that felt wrong. Can we... play a level now? After much browsing in the community levels, Clingy finally chose one. Finally! The talking’s over and we can do video games again. The level loads. We get in a car and drive to... a restaurant? What kind of level is this? Clingy sits down at a two chair table and pretends to eat the blocky food which sat there. OH... MY... GOD... I don't know which to be confounded over first; the fact that people make levels where you're supposed to go on a virtual sack person date or the fact that I'm on a virtual sack person date in one of said levels. I've seen some weird-ass levels but this is just... Why do I feel like I'm playing pretend with a little kid? Probably because I am. Either that or it's some grade A chat roulette trolling from a frat boy.

After dinner, we went dancing. Well actually we just flailed our limbs about on a disco dance floor. Then we drove away. Once we were back at Clingy's pod, he/she told me to change my appearance. I was dressed as a male detective from the future, kind of like the agent guy in Heavy Rain only with skin that constantly changes colors so sort of a Rorschach from Watchmen aspect too. Clingy just had a red dress and blond hair. They told me to change to what I looked like when we first met. Okay... I did and they got upset. They said that I didn't look like that. We're both girls now. I distinctly remember being my girl character (which I main as) when we met because Clingy somehow changed my skin color to tan instead of the green plaid I had it set on. He/she also made my entire pod red with stickers. Thanks, Clingy.

It is kind of messed up that you become acquainted with someone and then suddenly they switch genders and start wearing a green space suit with a feathered boa. I looked at all four of my saved costumes and tried to figure out what the hell they were talking about. My options essentially look like the following…

Daria or Enid from Ghost World

Rorschach

Zidler from Moulin Rouge

MCA as he appears in the Beastie Boy's Sabotage video.

Why would they want me to be any of those? Wait, do they think I'm someone else? Because that would make so much sense!

Suddenly two of Clingy's furry friends that he/she was with when I met them, appear in the pod. Oh good, now maybe we can go do something fun. (I never thought I'd be saying that about furries.) I can hear them slapping the hell out of me while I'm typing something out. Clingy says "Stop it. That's my BF."

Okay, I thought. It's way past time to leave. One of the furries responded, "That's a girl." I pressed the power button and tossed my PS3 out the window. Well, that’s enough LBP for today.