Create Hands On

EA Play was a swish event held on the lavish waterfront of Westhaven in Auckland. On show was EA’s latest game offerings including FIFA ’11, Dead Space 2, MMA, Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit and more. But sitting in one corner, like the geeky child who always gets picked last for team sports at school, sat EA’s Create. Attendees would approach it, pick up the Move controllers and waggle them around for a bit before walking away looking confused. With the alcohol flowing and the EA gig filled with games that looked a hundred times more exciting than Create, it’s no surprise it got a bit lost.

However, with a little patience and a fresh mind, Create is starting to look like promising new IP for EA’s empire. Comparisons to Little Big Planet are flattering and Create can be summed up as a sandbox platformer with physics and puzzles in a similar vein. However Create feels less like a game than Little Big Planet and more like a science experiment for your game console. In fact it reminded me greatly of the PC classic, The Incredible Machine; a game responsible for teaching primary school kids the magic of physics and how a mouse + conveyor belt + light switch + magnifying glass = a boiling kettle.

Create basically gives users a huge assortment of tools to allow them to make things as simple or as complicated as they like. There are dozens of sub-menus filled with objects including landscapes, texture brushes, trees, Egpyptian pyramids, ferris wheels, windmills, spaceships, animals and even weather effects. The game is saturated with hundreds of interactive artifacts and environmental skins for an infinite number of end results.

Soon I had tiny elephants cascading through a snowy tundra spacestation, complete with animations and real-life physics. But Create isn’t just a level editor. There are different gameplay types that require problem solving as well. ‘Scoretacular’ mode has the objective of getting a motorised toy car from point A to point B across spaced out platforms with obstacles like a flaming hoop to avoid in between.

Similar to Scribblenauts, there is an infinite variation on how to navigate or solve the level. For example, you could build a series of ramps for your car to jump across, or attach half a dozen balloons to your car and float it across. The physics engine in Create works well, with objects responding to gravity, momentum and resistance. But the game isn’t going for extreme realism. Instead, Create is forgiving and rewards innovative thinking or unusual and daring methods over precise scientific endeavour. As Harvey Elliot, the General Manager at EA said, “[it’s] a game where the entire family can explore, decorate, and solve challenges where no solution is wrong and the only limit is the imagination.”

Create on the PS3 will also be Move compatible, making the interface a lot smoother than your traditional controllers. With the Wand pointer, users can quickly select brushes and tools, including textures, props and animations with the flick of the wrist. The game also lets you share your mad creations, solutions and custom challenges with the online community as well.

Unlike Little Big Planet which captured a wide audience of players both young and old, Create is likely to be more popular with children. But with the pseudo educational twist and more importantly, letting kids unleash their imaginative side, there is no doubt that parents will enjoy this game too. Keep it locked to NZGamer.com for more details when Create lands on the 19th November.