Back, Sack and Crack.

Woe betide the gaming blogger who runs out of games to play on his Shame Pile. There is so little to write about this week, I'd considered not even bothering.

Well, apart from my new found love and appreciation, not only for Sackboy (I already loved the little guy), but for Little Big Planet as a game that is. I've spent probably most of my non-Oblivion time on LBP this last week, and truth be told I haven't even tried the level editor yet. It looks simple and ordinary at a first glance, but when you look at it from a technical standpoint, it's absolutely breathtaking.

You see, for those like me who have foolishly looked past LBP all these years, everything in Little Big Planet is based around some absolutely astounding physics. Each level (even the ones in Story Mode are created using the game's robust edit mode) is basically a huge domino rally, with the charming little knitted character as the catalyst, and everything that happens is basically down to gravity, or a complex system of pulleys and gears, all in a virtual sense of course.

My only gripe with the game is that Sackboy moves around like a wet turd on a polished floor, careering into his surroundings and straight off ledges, which makes some of the more precise jumps a nightmare to pull off. But believe me, as late to the party as I am, I fucking love the game, and plan on getting the PSP version very soon indeed.

For the last few days, there has been a copy of God of War III in my house. But, you see, I somewhat foolishly asked for it as a birthday present, and as a result have to wait until Thursday to play it. So. to sate my hunger, I fired up my newly acquired NTSC copy of God of War Collection on Sunday night, to see how well it had been 'remastered and optimised'. The particular copy has been somewhat communal among my group of friends, first the property of fellow (if a little sporadic) blogger Raz7el, then passed on to regular blog-commenter Paul in exchange for a copy of Dante's Inferno before finding itself in my clammy paws, so I almost feel obligated to pass it on once I've had my fill.

I've only had chance to try the original God of War so far, and I'm in no rush to play them before the chalky angry one makes his belated PS3 debut in my house on Thursday because I can pretty much recite the GoW storyline off by heart (Angry man becomes god's assassin, accidentally kills family, gets angrier, purposefully kills god (Nolan North, naturally), becomes god himself, is a little naughty, gets god licence revoked, gets even angrier, meets titans, sets off to kill gods, and dies and escapes hell about a hundred times in the process). As for the remastering? Well, the game is by default in 16:9 screen ratio now, which saves you about three and a half seconds in the options menu, and the games are displayed in 720p, which is really not that noticeable frankly. Last year, believing GoWIII to be nearer to release than it was, I played the first two on a PS2 using an RGB cable on the very same TV, and it was pretty much identical. But saying that, when you aren't forced to look at a Greek Soldier who was rendered out of about eleven polygons, the game still looks great, nearly on a par with some of this generation's equivalents (Hellboy: The Science of Evil springs to mind). Really though, if this was born out of love and appreciation for we, the fans, then Chains of Olympus should have been on there too.

Oh yeah, there's Trophies too, and the only reason I'm even mentioning this is because of a cheeky, not-quite-copyright-infringing dig at Metal Gear Solid: Rising, with a Trophy called 'Bolt Action' awarded when you receive the lightning bolt ability. It made me laugh anyway.

I implore everyone who owns a PS3 to buy this though, especially those who don't still have the games on the PS2. Sure, nothing's changed really, but saying that they are still both amazing games, and still better than any and all of their rival series. Plus, if the sales reach noticeable levels, they might give us the backwards compatibility we've all been fucking asking for for the past few years. At the very least, they might do collections for their other IPs, like Ico/Shadow of the Colossus or (I know it's not theirs technically but it's where it belongs) Metal Gear.

Anyway, all things going well, I should have something to write about next week, and one of those things should be the return of Kratos. See you then.