The games that will define PlayStation 3

LITTLEBIGPLANET

What is it?
First shown at this year's Game Developers Conference, LittleBigPlanet is a physics-happy side-scrolling puzzler set in a charming cartoon-like world.

You control a little woollen doll-thing, which can be given its own unique look, and aim to manipulate the world in tandem with your buddies to finish each level - or just to see what happens next.

Why should you care?
LittleBigPlanet is magic. It had jaded hacks smiling like giddy toddlers with its oh-so-cheerful visual style and toylike gameplay. But its innocent appeal doesn't mean it's just another game for kids - it's a title with subtlety, incredible levels of depth and a wealth of brain-taxing physics gameplay.

Sewn together by the leftfield creative minds behind cult PC game Rag Doll Kung Fu, LittleBigPlanet is both an incredible coup for PS3 and proof of Sony's interest in unconventional, stimulating gaming.

The game effectively enables you to use the Sixaxis like a puppeteer, with a hold of L2 and R2 making each stick control a separate arm. Or - get this - you can make your little doll frown with a touch on the D-pad, angle the Sixaxis to tilt its head south, and then make it lumber along in a gloomy plod. That's enough to make us grin while we write this, and there's so much more besides.

But it's actually also a world-building game, and the potentialof what this means is so huge we have to retire to a dark room whenever we think about it for too long. Especially when you factor in the ability to trade levels you've created over PS Network.

Or what about the fact that you can build co-operatively with your friends in crazy, laughter-breeding real-time. Or the way this co-op manipulating will be woven into the gameplay by developer-devised challenges, or... ah, time for another lie down.

When can you play it?
Sony has potentially PS3's most exciting game on its hands here, so there's no chance of a rushed release - even if LittleBigPlanet fulfills its potential to become a poster-game hero for attracting new owners. A launch in 2008 is reasonable, with a teasing demo hopefully hitting the Network this year.