Advisory: LittleBigPlanet's game-breaking glitch

by Majed Athab { Nov 9th 2008 at 4:30PM }

LittleBigPlanet isn't completely bug free. It has one particularly devastating glitch which could make the game nigh unplayable. The catastrophic glitch occurs when players create a giant spinning wheel and set that impending doomsday machine to maximum speed. Running one of the controllable characters into it will cause that character to continuously die for no reason -- even when loading into the Pod.

To solve the issue, players will have to delete their save files. So, here's a warning: don't make towering wheels of death. After the break, you'll find a video which shows off the malicious glitch in action. We advise you not to copy any actions seen in the video as it will be harmful to your save file. The video is meant for educational purposes on what not to do.

[Thanks Dreadhead541!]

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)

bob @ Nov 9th 2008 4:37PM

my sackboy runs and hides in a corner in fear of the corner of doom. continous death and no little big heaven!

Woz @ Nov 9th 2008 5:49PM

Oh, but there is a Heaven. Here's the fix, even though PS3 Fanboy says there isn't one.

This can be very easily fixed with 2 controllers. If this happens, join the game with the second controller, then turn off the controller of the glitched sackboy. The glitched sackboy will leave the game and the guest sackboy will be all on their own. Then quit the game and restart it. Your sackboy will no longer be glitched and you won't have to delete your save and start over. This happened to me, did this method, and everything worked completely fine afterwards. This is NOT a game breaking glitch at all. It should still be fixed though.

Woz @ Nov 9th 2008 5:53PM

Damn,
the fix was reported on the official forums, it did not happen to me.

http://boardsus.playstation.com/playstation/board/message?board.id=littlebigplanet&message.id=194315&query.id=307622#M194315

Hyams @ Nov 9th 2008 6:17PM

Woz:

The player tries that in the video. Doesn't work for him.

Warren @ Nov 9th 2008 6:37PM

@ Hyams:

I think Woz meant quit the game with only the 2p controller active, then restart the game without re-activating the 1p controller. Maybe after the game reboots with a functional player (using the 2p controller), the 1p controller can turn on again.

Of course, I have no basis of knowing whether or not that's what Woz meant.

Woz @ Nov 9th 2008 6:55PM

@Warren,
That's correct. The video never showed him turning off the glitched controller and then restarting. He restarted with the glitched character in play.

Fraser JK @ Nov 9th 2008 7:00PM

Woz:

It wont work, since the 1st player is the leader of the party no matter what he has to lead the rest of the players out of the game etc.

So yeah this is game breaking, at least for now!

Woz @ Nov 9th 2008 7:17PM

@Fraser JK
It has nothing to do with who is the leader. It's a matter of quiting the game with the glitched player's controller turned off. The person with the fix did not say if you had to do it in the level or pod, but I speculate it doesn't matter. The fix worked for a few people.

Havoc @ Nov 10th 2008 9:21AM

Hey question for anyone, the game has a blank background option and says (for those who want to do it all themselves) is their a way to make your own custom background or do they just mean the colors and lighting. Also is thier a way to make your own story characters to use in the game. like make them have speech bubles. sorry to cut in line ('__')

Zampano @ Nov 10th 2008 1:16PM

@Havoc

As far as backgrounds go, it's mostly color and lighting, as you said, but you can make a one-ply backdrop out of whatever material you choose, and then sticker the hell out of it. Making speaking characters is very easy, though. One of your creation tools is a 'magic mouth', which you simply place on whatever character you want and then tweak via a menu.

Lars @ Nov 10th 2008 1:47PM

Just goes to show, back up those saves often! I just pop in my USB drive and periodically copy the save file of whatever game I'm playing... especially if the game autosaves. I started to do it with LBP when I started going back and acing the harder levels.

I had a game-breaking problem with my save too at one point. For some reason it just wouldn't start the game with my save. It would show the splash screen then just exit to XMB. I was able to fix it, perhaps using the same method that one could fix this glitch with. Log on to a different profile, then join that person's game with your profile... do a level (or whatever will cause it to do some saving to your profile), and voila! Fixed.

Dreadhead541 @ Nov 10th 2008 6:41PM

Woz said: "It has nothing to do with who is the leader. It's a matter of quiting the game with the glitched player's controller turned off. The person with the fix did not say if you had to do it in the level or pod, but I speculate it doesn't matter. The fix worked for a few people."

it sure as hell didn't work for me. No matter what controller number i'm using it ALWAYS loads up the glitched player as the leader. Quitting when the glitched one wasn't avtive didn't do anything.

pat1202003 @ Nov 9th 2008 4:38PM

Well you know now that you told everyone about it, there's going to be that one idiot that will do it anyway and then be "OMG it's true!"

(and that idiot might just be me)

Mark @ Nov 9th 2008 4:44PM

lol, i'd try it... if i had the game =/

Pablos102030 @ Nov 9th 2008 4:53PM

I'm tempted to try it on another profile...

pat1202003 @ Nov 9th 2008 5:15PM

Well I'm trying it now and you have to GRAB the wheel not run into it. I was going to say that it wasn't working, but looking at the video again I see that he grabed the wheel.

pat1202003 @ Nov 9th 2008 5:28PM

Well after seeing what to do, I still couldn't do it. I don't know what I did wrong, but I guess since I can't recreate it there's no need to worry. Maybe that guy in the video was just unlucky.

Modnar @ Nov 9th 2008 4:45PM

thx for the warning ps3fanboy, but now theres definatly going to be ppl incorperating this into there levels, just so they can catch an innocet player and corrupt his saved data..

disister1201 @ Nov 9th 2008 7:00PM

Remember kids always back up your save file and contently update the save file

joenorman @ Nov 9th 2008 4:43PM

I was just about to send this in :(
You shouldn't of actually posted this because people will copy this and put it into their own level
And this will make the game unplayable :(

DeathroW @ Nov 9th 2008 4:42PM

People will start making levels to trick people into going into them.

rohan @ Nov 9th 2008 5:10PM

that would be horrible!

groovemachine @ Nov 10th 2008 11:13AM

oh fudge your right and without anyway to tell people it could be on any level. . . this is like sack ebola or something

Dan @ Nov 9th 2008 6:12PM

The LittleBigVirus. The first ever console virus?

Pablos102030 @ Nov 9th 2008 9:10PM

Oh god that would suck. And right after I finally aced all the levels too!

DeathroW @ Nov 9th 2008 9:13PM

Make backups of your gamesaves :P

Gonzo @ Nov 10th 2008 11:21AM

Considering how strict the mods are, I don't think there will be too many virus levels that last long on the servers.

Kruegmeister @ Nov 9th 2008 4:49PM

This game is Awesome.
One of my Favorite Games of ALL TIME.
Considerable since my Favorite genre is First Person Shooters.

But it should be called "Little Bug Planet"
Server Problems at Launch...
Halloween Costume 1 week after Halloween???
Japan had the Costume for Halloween...
Do they even celebrate Halloween?
That and some of the Story Levels are annoying when the Controls don't always respond perfectly and you are on your 500th Insane Jump between Checkpoints...

Thank GOD for the User Created Content which is the Real Star of the Show.

DeathroW @ Nov 9th 2008 5:45PM

The halloween suit thing was a week late because the EU release was after halloween - they couldn't let it go to waste, could they?

King7054 @ Nov 9th 2008 5:32PM

has anyone tried turning off their control while the other player is still on, cause if u leave it off for a while, the character disappears and u can select him again when u turn it on to see if it fixes the glitch? (dunno if ur character disappears while playing by urself)

King7054 @ Nov 9th 2008 5:37PM

nvm, just finished seeing it x.x

Woz @ Nov 9th 2008 5:31PM

There is a FIX for this that doesn't require you to delete your save file, FYI

CrzyNick @ Nov 9th 2008 5:38PM

Man, I gotta try this!!!
lol

Lord_von_Punx @ Nov 9th 2008 5:54PM

LMAO almost did something like that

DelSource @ Nov 9th 2008 6:15PM

What a dumb decision to post this video. I look forward to having to delete my save file.

You absolute ****ing morons.

Hyams @ Nov 9th 2008 6:30PM

Wait, *they're* the morons?

Surely *you're* the moron for being stupid enough to go out and do it, even though you knew it would destroy your save game. (You could've at least backed up your save game onto a USB stick or something...)

ChocoDK @ Nov 9th 2008 6:10PM

I might actually try this on another file of mine for fun =P. Thanks for the warning though PS3 Fanboy but I am expecting to see a bunch of wheels of doom soon.

Matt (PSN: m-static) @ Nov 9th 2008 6:38PM

Couldn't you just turn off your PS3 to stop this 'glitch' without ruining your save file?

kentuckyfried @ Nov 9th 2008 6:42PM

Thanks for the heads up...I haven't played this game at all yet.

Rock @ Nov 9th 2008 6:51PM

Doesn't everyone save all there games off for backups? If you don't your the choker!

Gervin @ Nov 10th 2008 10:06AM

Heck,

I backup my entire PS3 drive on a regular basis. If anything happened, I don't want to have to download all my PSN games, loose my saves, etc....

bluesky_v2.01 @ Nov 9th 2008 6:53PM

Oh no, what's gonna happen to my new level "Wheels of Doom".
But seriously, as much as I love LBP, its full of glitches . . . some minor, some major (like this)

Rick @ Nov 9th 2008 10:47PM

hahahahahahaha nice =D

Popfrogs @ Nov 9th 2008 11:56PM

No, full of glitches is Fallout 3. I've had it crash back to the XMB after doing a long chain of events more than once. Oh and the impossible to complete quests (2 under my hat so far), the places to get stuck, the point-blank headshots missing, etc.

While this is a pretty nasty bug it's just one.