How the LittleBigPlanet 2 Vietnam FPS was made

The creator of this level is known on PSN as PPp_Killer. The Italian YouTube user who broke the beta NDA (by uploading game footage early) is known on YouTube as TheFinalBurst. They are not, PPp_Killer is keen to stress, the same person.

“I saw my level and I was laughing at how it was posted; I liked how TheFinalBurst put into the description ‘My favourite level in the Beta’ but I did not like the fact that people thought he made my levels and a bunch of others. He should have written ‘Vietnam FPS by PPp_Killer’. I remember seeing Joystiq publish an article and yet again, getting the facts totally wrong. It’s hard to believe anything Joystiq say if they can’t see he didn’t make the level. I did not like how they said TheFinalBurst had made these levels, and a handful of other websites did the same.”

What you may not know about Vietnam FPS is that it can be found in amongst the community levels of the first LittleBigPlanet game, albeit in a less perfected form.

“Search ‘Vietnam FPS’ in LBP1” he says, also providing a link to LBPCentral. “Back in April, a couple of weeks after LBP2 was announced, I posted my ideas for a cool SWAT level on LBPCentral.com here. Of course, nobody believed I could actually make an FPS in LBP2 at all, who was I to them? Another COD fanboy? Which I am not. I knew how to make an FPS long before I made Vietnam FPS and I did trial an FPS idea previously too, nothing advanced though (see it in action in “Flee Iraq 2″).”

And now, the juicy bit you’ve all been waiting for; how did he do it? Well, it seems that while some people find it impossible to understand how the level was possible, others find it impossible to understand how the techniques could be so hard to work out.

“Most people who create levels in LBP1 or 2 will easily be able to see how I did it. It’s not that hard. You just need to know how to use the 3D glitch and make objects in the foreground. First, you make a 3D gun using the 3D front layer glitch. Attach it to a controlinator, add movers, and set R1 to emit the bullets. Set up a camera to activate so when you hold L1 it zooms down the sights. One major tip if you’re making an FPS level is to put the entire 3D gun on the front glitch layers. If you want moving enemies, none of it should go onto the normal layers; if some of your gun is on the normal layers you can use the emitter trick to push it into the foreground more.”

PPp_Killer is obviously happy to share his tips and tricks with his fellow LittleBigPlanet creators. So why aren’t his levels copyable?

“I would allow the level to be copyable but I don’t trust the LBP community at all, too many kids ruining the fun. Lets take LBP1 as an example; any popular copyfree levels are republished with no changes at least 100 times by different people, and at times receive more plays then the original level did.”

So what did the LBP 2 beta allow him to add or improve? How did he first manage to make an FPS with no more than the tools available in LBP 1? These questions and more answered in tomorrow’s article; when we’ll also be talking to dadrester, the creator of Little Big Retro Arcade.

The video used at the top of this article is taken from ChimpanzeePS3′s YouTube channel, as this channel is unofficially approved by Media Molecule. ChimpanzeePS3 is in no way affiliated with Critical Gamer or any of its staff.