Sackboy: The Next (Little)Big Mascot?
Posted by: Scarred Sun
Date: 24th October 2008 at 5:23 pm
Category: Video Game Industry
Tags: Platformers, Sackboy, Sony
Let’s face it–since the 16-bit era, video game publishers haven’t had prominent mascots for their systems. Nintendo has Mario. Sega has Sonic. NEC had… Bonk, I guess. All of these characters’ games were solid platformers which represented the advantages of each system. Lately, though, this trend has more or less been discontinued. I mean, what could be considered Microsoft’s mascot? Master Chief? It’s just not quite the same.
Sony is looking to reverse this, however, with its first formal endorsement of a mascot in Sackboy from the upcoming PS3 game LittleBigPlanet. The anticipated game and new mascot is receiving a big push from Sony, and more importantly, with its simple run and jump play, may signal a return to platformer-style games as a major genre on home consoles.
Can Sonic take on Sackboy? Will the unique additions LittleBigPlanet brings, such as custom levels, influence future Sonic games?
October 24th, 2008 at 7:11 pm
Sock Boy is very generic in design… which is where the brilliance of it comes into play. Ideally, it would be cool if Sega followed the trend that LBP and other platformers have followed to include an are for user-generated levels and content. Mega Man Powered Up, the remake of Mega Man 1 on PSP, included a level editor for the player to build his or her own level and then upload it to the internet for others to play. I don’t see making a Sonic level generator to be any more different from stuff like sonED or ESE with how the GUI is handled.
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October 25th, 2008 at 3:42 am
Sack Boy i horribly generic. What’ worse is I hate a lot of his mannerisms. Such as the way he turns to grin blankly at the camera the instant you let up on the d pad, the way he throws his arms and legs to the sides when he jump straight up, and most of all, how any criticism of LBP seems to be flame bate. And he’s not really a character in my view, s the player is encouraged to customize him to look unique, aka, not like Sack Boy.
tl; dr, I don’t find him endearing what so ever.
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