Available since last week, The Nightmare Before Christmas Level Kit for LittleBigPlanet 2 and LittleBigPlanet Vita, featuring new objects, materials, stickers, decorations, and more, is the perfect way to celebrate Halloween for those of you who prefer to embrace the whimsical spirit of the holiday instead of all the blood and guts and horror it’s typically associated with.

Also available on the LittleBigPlanet marketplace, are Jack Skellington, Sally, Dr. Finkelstein, and Oogie Boogie costumes (sold separately or in a bundle pack) for your Sackboys and Sackgirls to dress up in across LBP 2, LBP Vita, and LBP Karting. LBP kart racers can also hop behind the wheel of Dr. Finkelstein Wheelchair’s or The Nightmare Before Christmas Sleigh.

But wait, there’s more! The Nightmare Before Christmas continues to spread its Halloween cheer later this week with the forthcoming release of the Frankenweenie Minipack, containing additional costumes for Victor and Sparky. Yup, that Sparky costume may just be the cutest gosh darn costume Sackboy’s ever popped on.

If you want to celebrate Halloween with the LittleBigPlanet community, without spending cash on The Nightmare Before Christmas DLC, Media Molecule is bringing back the Pumpkin Mask costume as a free treat for all players to download this week only.

Leave it to LittleBigPlanet to take a graphically violent and brutally depressing game like The Last Of Us and turn it into something cute and cuddly that just makes you want to squeeze its cheeks.

That’s exactly what’s happening now with the new The Last of Us Minipack DLC available for cross-buy in all the modern LittleBigPlanet titles (LittleBigPlanet 2, LittleBigPlanet Karting, LittleBigPlanet Vita).

$2.99 gets you everything needed to dress your Sackboy or Sackgirl up as Joel and Ellie. Yes, Joel’s glorious beard is included as its own costume piece. It’s just too bad there isn’t a Clicker costume in the bundle as well. Now that’d be adorable and terrifying at the same time.

Want that image at the top of the page as your desktop or mobile device wallpaper? Follow the link directly below for access to download it in various resolutions.

The Last of Us Minipack Available Now [LittleBigPlanet.com]

Man, it’s been quite a while since I wrote anything about LittleBigPlanet. I can’t remember the last time Mass Effect crossed my mind either. Well today the two mega-franchises are back in the news together.

When the PlayStation Store updates later today, Media Molecule will release the Mass Effect Costume Pack to the LittleBigPlanet universe. The pack will include all the necessary costume pieces to dress your Sackboy or Sackgirl up as Commander Shepard, Liara, Wrex, and Garrus. You’ll also get a small pack of new stickers. Yay, stickers!

All contents of the Mass Effect Costume Pack will be compatible with LittleBigPlanet 2, LittleBigPlanet Karting, and LittleBigPlanet Vita. And thanks to cross-buy a single purchase will share the costumes across all three games.

In retrospect, they could have just simply ported LittleBigPlanet 2. You know, gussied Sackboy’s signature PlayStation 3 adventure up a little with some obvious and user-friendly touch-related features, shipped it to market and called it day. Lord knows that the PlayStation Portable was littered with plenty of ports.

Instead, Double Eleven and Tarsier Studios took the blueprint that Media Molecule created and built a new house precisely to PlayStation Vita specs. LittleBigPlanet Vita takes the best of an already awesome franchise and seamlessly brings it to a new touch-tastic level.

This go-round, Sackboy’s got an actual story to play through instead of a set of wackily themed levels: He’s been recruited to save the planet of Carnivalia from the malevolent Puppeteer and his creepy Hollows, a set of drones who look like wooden versions of the goons in Escape Plan, with animator’s crosses where their eyes and mouths should be. Like most of the bizarre characters who inhabit this patchwork universe, from the cartoon-beefy Sean Brawn to the schnozztastic Colonel Flounder, the levels also ooze charm, particularly in the tech- and comic-book vibe of Jackpot City, where electrical fields threaten to fry our hero into sack-ashes, and a pinball-themed level stands out as one of the best parts of the story mode. Stephen Fry is naturally back for another go-round, leavening the proceedings with his typically droll narration.

LBP Vita features some of the most effective uses of touch-screen features we’ve seen in the Vita’s brief lifespan. You’ll be letting your fingers do the walking to accomplish all sorts of functional things, like pushing the front and rear touch–screens to create timer-dependent platforms (more shades of Escape Plan) and swiping spring-plunger-blocks to send Sackboy hurtling skyward toward the next challenge. At certain points, Sackboy gets to tote a rocket launcher, and you’ll use your fingers to swipe and guide the projectiles around obstacles to their targets, adding yet another fun gameplay wrinkle.

Completing levels accumulates the standard pile of objects and backgrounds we’ve come to know and expect from LittleBigPlanet’s many incarnations, but here, it also unlocks lots of touch-centric mini-game side levels. Many of the tropes are familiar—there are variations on themes like whack-a-mole, Bust-a-Move and air hockey, for instance. A separate arcade hub, meanwhile, features a beefier set of mini-games that could have debuted by themselves on the App Store. Games like Tapling, an app-like game that feels and plays like a dark-themed mix of Angry Birds and Contre Jour.

Of course, this is Sackboy we’re talking about, which means there are still physics issues to, um, complement the game’s uber-cute aesthetic. Sackboy’s jumps remain some of the floatiest hops in all of platforming. This issue is further complicated by the game’s heavy reliance on a grappling mechanic that often has to be executed with laser-like precision to avoid another score-killing death. Trouble is, the left stick controls both your velocity/trajectory and how much cable you’re swinging from, and it’s more than a little annoying to have your attempt to swing result in merely spooling out more grappling cable. LBP Vita’s checkpoints occur about as often as political TV attack ads, so you won’t lose much ground when your grapple goes fatally awry, but for those for whom online leaderboards are a major concern, dinging your level score will be a big frustration.

LittleBigPlanet’s enduring appeal has always been its strong DIY vibe, and the seemingly endless stream of user-created levels that flow from its user-friendly creation toolsets. Touch-screen functionality boosts that creative spirit in an easy-to-use way—you’ll use the same two-finger approach to squeeze, size-and-rotate your level pieces that you’ll use to place stickers in the single-player levels. Thanks to the Vita’s onboard camera, those objects and stickers can now include totally ridiculous pictures of your friends and pets. Now that’s the kind of personalization we’ve been waiting to rock.

It’d be silly to think that Sackboy won’t continue to show up as a staple on future Sony platforms—he’s too cute and accessible to so easily dismiss—not to mention that he’s set to show up again in LittleBigPlanet Karting in November. That said, I’d argue that with LittleBigPlanet Vita, he and his SackNation have reached his state of highest evolution, and might want to think about taking a longer break before returning to the PlayStation 4 stage. As if.

Pros:
+ Brilliant use of touch-screen elements
+ Adding a clever, engaging narrative to the mix feels like the perfect forgotten ingredient
+ Vita camera opens up new decorative horizons

Cons:
– Grapple physics are a major pain in the level-score butt
– Great game, but we’ve reached the point of Sackboy saturation

Game Info:
Platform: PlayStation Vita
Publisher: SCEA
Developer: Double Eleven/Tarsier Studios
Release Date: 9/25/2012
Genre: Platform
ESRB Rating: Everyone
Players: 1-4 (2-4 local same screen, up to 4 online)
Source: Review copy provided by publisher

[nggallery id=2698]

The second stop on our E3 2012 screenshot tour takes us into the wonderful world of PlayStation, where games like The Last of Us, Beyond: Two Souls, God of War: Ascension and The Unfinished Swan promise to astonish and old Oddworld adventures are reborn in HD. Sony may have missed an opportunity to really push the Vita during its press conference, but Sound Shapes, New Little King’s Story, Street Fighter X Tekken, Assassin’s Creed III: Liberation and others also show that the powerhouse portable has even more quality software on the way.

My only question: where the hell is The Last Guardian? I understand the game not being ready for a stage demo, but a few new screenshots would have been a nice gesture, just to quell any vaporware fears.

The Last of Us (PS3):
[nggallery id=2484]

Beyond: Two Souls (PS3):
[nggallery id=2485]

God of War: Ascension (PS3):
[nggallery id=2486]

The Unfinished Swan (PS3 – PlayStation Move):
[nggallery id=2359]

Oddworld: Munch’s Oddysee HD (PS3):
[nggallery id=2487]

Oddworld: Munch’s Oddysee HD (Vita):
[nggallery id=2488]

Oddworld: Stranger’s Wrath HD (Vita):
[nggallery id=2489]

LittleBigPlanet Vita (Vita):
[nggallery id=2490]

LittleBigPlanet Karting (PS3):
[nggallery id=2491]

Assassin’s Creed III: Liberation (Vita):
[nggallery id=2492]

Sports Champions 2 (PS3 – PlayStation Move):
[nggallery id=2493]

Ni no Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch (PS3):
[nggallery id=2494]

Papo & Yo (PS3):
[nggallery id=2495]

Street Fighter X Tekken (Vita):
[nggallery id=2496]

Wonderbook: Book of Spells (PS3 – PlayStation Move):
[nggallery id=2497]

DUST 514 (PS3):
[nggallery id=2498]

Metal Gear Solid HD Collection (Vita):
[nggallery id=2499]

New Little King’s Story (Vita):
[nggallery id=2500]

One Piece: Pirate Warriors (PS3):
[nggallery id=2501]

Silent Hill: Book of Memories (Vita):
[nggallery id=2502]

Smart As (Vita):
[nggallery id=2503]

Sound Shapes (PS3 and Vita):
[nggallery id=2504]

Spy Hunter (Vita):
[nggallery id=2505]

Super Monkey Ball: Banana Splitz (Vita):
[nggallery id=2506]

When Vikings Attack (PS3 and Vita):
[nggallery id=2507]

Media Molecule may not be leading development on LittleBigPlanet Vita like the previous installments, but it appears the game is in more than capable hands with Tarsier Studios leading Sackboy on his second portable romp. Tarsier has worked on downloadable content for the series in the past (and also developed the fun PSN party-fighter Rag Doll Kung Fu: Fists of Plastic), and now the Swedish indie studio is getting a crack at a full game. According to Media Molecule Creative Director, Mark Healey in this behind the scenes–I mean “Behind the Curtain”–video, Tarsier’s rocking LittleBigPlanet better than even MM. Of course, in true LBP spirit, LittleBigPlanet on the Vita is a collaborative effort, with Double Eleven, Media Molecule and community creators all pitching in to help make the game the best it can be.