He's waiting to finish it for Half-Life 3 so it can take the number 1 spot on his list.

19. LittleBigPlanet 1 and 2

Some games are experiences, moments in time that you can’t ever recreate. These are usually online games where the experience you had with others was a big part of your love for the game, something you can start up today and recreate. In 2008 Sony released on of their most experimental games, a sort of game creator tool that is part platformer. With the level of playfulness and ingenuity of a Nintendo game, developer Media Molecule created LittleBigPlanet, a game that celebrated the joy of playing and creating a game.

The motto was simple, play, create and share; sure you can say games have had user created mods for a long time. There are open engines that allow anyone to make games but never had it been presented together in one easy to use package. A package that made the experience of creating and sharing as game like as playing the levels themselves. A series of excellent tutorials narrated by the lovable Stephen Fry were a joy to get through. Little by little the game introduces new concepts to you, eases you into making a simple platformer and eventually giving you the tools to make almost anything that fit the restrictions of this mostly 2D physics based game. Imagination takes over and ideas never thought possible started to be created. LBP started as a make your own platformer but quickly became an exploration of the creativity of a user base, an outlet for some who didn’t have the means to create games on their own.

To top it off there was a great full length platforming campaign. Yeah yeah it has floaty jumps, there was a lot of mocking about that and yet the games level design is phenomenal. Level after level of new ideas specifically made to inspire players to look at the tools a certain way. It’s a fantastic platformer on its own with clever boss battles and themed worlds. It had plenty of secrets that allowed you to unlock new items to use in your creations, a great synergy between the campaign and create mode.

What made me deeply fall in love with this game though was the way you can simply explore user levels like a YouTube channel and you can do so online with others. The beta in particular was magical, it was unlike anything I have ever played. I found a great crew of other players from gaf and we would explore these brand new creations every night. Since it was the beta everything was fresh, the first time you saw someone create some insane boss as a dragon using these simple tools was mindblowing. Then someone made working calculator, what? Someone made some top down battle games. The rules started to be broken, what I thought was possible was just the beginning. I was in awe of the creations more so than playing them. Yes there were a TON of stinkers but there were some genuinely inspired levels as good as MM made.

I spent close to a hundred hours making my own level, Vertical Velocity. I did not want to make a traditional level, this was free flowing and let you tackle multiple objectives in any order. The tool set isn’t exactly the most intuitive so learning to build the level was a challenge of its own, like a giant complex puzzle. I was completely hooked but the effort it took to make just one was exhausting. I could not imagine the hours put in by the greatest level creators.

As time went on we got very cool add ons that added much needed new gameplay mechanics the best being the MGS level kit which gave us a gun and shooting. Now metroid like games were possible to make. MGS characters would fill the levels with classic music from the series. It was just the start of a million tie ins that saw pirates of the Caribbean to marvel, sonic, and so much more.

A few years later we got LBP2 which increased the amount of gadgets five fold. Gravity panels, crazy goo that makes you move quick, jet packs, bouncing pads, it added so many excellent ideas. Again MM packed LBP2 with a tremendous campaign that highlighted all these new mechanics and was a blast to play. Then the community got hold of LBP2 and that’s when the insanity began. LBP2 ushered in some of the most awe inspiring creative levels I have ever seen. Genuinely great platforming levels, cool strategy games, fun arcade shooters, space sims, it was crazy. Creators became stars, many got hired by MM to work on future games, never have I seen such a connection between a developer and it’s community.

LBP1 and 2 are special games, the campaigns are still traditional enough to pop in and play but they are not why they are on this list. It was that blast of creativity, the boldness of a unique vision on consoles where a developer trusted a community with the tools to make a  gaming ecosystem that exists a collection of games and art. Since we have moved on to LBP3 and now dreams going back to play LBP1 and 2 levels is more of a novelty now but for that time it was one of the best gaming experiences I have ever had.

I was never able to find any decent player-made levels, which is weird, as PC mods are often great.

However, the co-op component was fantastic, and the floatiness actually added to the silliness when playing with friends, rather than being frustrating.

Meh.