OK had a chance to play with LBP last night.
While I will go into deal in a moment I want to start by saying this is without a doubt one of the best games I have EVER played. I looks stunning, has great sound, plays extremely well and the physics behind everything are just excellent.
All that is without even playing around with the 'create' side of things.
It starts off nice and gentle, introducing you to your Sackboy and getting him/her dressed up and getting the basics of movements in place (head, pelvis and arms can all be jiggled around - not for any reason - just because you can) and emotions. You can make Sackboy happy, sad, scared or angry; each with three 'levels' mapped to the d-pad. My pick has to be happy 3 - which is big open mouth with his tongue lolling out.
The story mode then introduces the first world location, with the demo covering four 'levels'. They are mainly tutorial in nature, but still give you a fun work out, with jumping, grabbing, jet-packing, being flung through the air, riding on wooden horses, etc, etc. It all MORE fun than it looks in the videos as well. Some of it is just fun (and adds nothing to completing the level) such as putting stickers on just about anything you want, that includes the ability to make stickers using an in-game camera or using the PSeye (and Eyetoy camera) to take pictures and turn them into stickers. On one level after a tutorial had finished I put a sticker right on the 'in-game' TV of me and my daughter.
A word must be given to these tutorial sections themselves, all are narrated by Steven Fry (who is on his usual excellent form), for anyone who doesn't know him, here he is hosting QI...
....they do the job excellently and never get in the way at all.
The community side of things is very, very solid. With the ability to see all of your friends and then browse levels they like, have made, etc. Grief reporting in integrated and the navigation is a joy, easy to use and very intuitive.
All of this without even looking at the level creation side of things, but from playing some that other people have created it looks very, very good. With levels the equal of those 'in-game' more than possible.
It is at its heart a platform game, but one that combines that genre with a true 'sand-box' approach.
So what mark would I give it out of 10, well keep in mind that I don't normally like platform games, but this is just mind-blowing and fussy bugger that I am its still more than worth a 10.
10/10
Regards
Scaff