LittleBigPlanet Hands On

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Rules do govern your actions: "Everything in the game runs on physics, so that leads to very simple gameplay mechanics," Evans points out, before stopping. "What's going on? Oh, I can't grab onto metal. I can't remember the rules of my own game." You can cling onto a lot of things with R1, though, swinging around like Tarzan or a buccaneering knight, as you've probably observed in the beautiful new E3 gameplay trailer. There are drop-in mini-games like races, too.

You can also use the screenshots you took as objects, and we're shown the PlayStation Eye support. Scrolling through Pop-It you can break out a Polaroid-shaped window that shows a video feed from the camera (27 gormless journalists, in this case) and you can paste this onto the walls, floor or wherever you like, at any angle, as a bit of decoration. Evans uses it to customise the pod hub, which is capable (or perhaps "prone") to the same tweaks and disfiguration.

From the fact we're playing with cameras and making faces, you'd be right to guess LBP is nearly done - Evans has repeatedly restated the October date, and Sony said it again on-screen at its E3 conference on Tuesday after it had Evans come on-stage to dance and skip Sackboy through a custom level using switches and conveyors to show off graphs with hardware and software sales. They're already looking beyond release. "We'll be adding downloadable levels to the game," obviously, "and also just adding things to the game. Trying to keep the community fed and happy." Evans' colleague David Smith recently told us they might add water or other elements depending on fan feedback.

In the meantime, there's the PR campaign to orchestrate, and the other part of the E3 reveal is the Construction Site level, which we get to go away and play again after the presentation. While most of the levels we've seen so far are obstacle courses, this one has enemies - car-like boxes with spring-loaded spike weapons, and a boss who needs to be despatched through clever use of the environment.

Customising your Sackboy or Sackgirl is going to be a must.

Construction Site also introduces lives and checkpoint rules, giving the single-player a bit more structure (although you can co-opt variations on these mechanics into your creations too, of course). Die too often and you start again, and the checkpoints are a helpful assist for groups: "If someone runs ahead they can effectively pull the party along," says Evans, demonstrating by jumping into a fire and then respawning next to me a few paces ahead in an area he hadn't reached yet. "This also helps people at different skill levels make progress in the game."

And the game's aware that you won't always be impressed by the other players' antics online, so we're shown something of the moderation tool. As with screenshots, you pull up a viewfinder that you can resize and drag around the screen, selecting the thing you're offended by. You can then submit this, and it tells the devs the PSN account of the person pictured and gives them an idea, visually, of what the problem is so they can either take action or not. Other things, like user-generated level text, will also be moderated.

The cardboard, cloth and tape aesthetic is as powerful as any of the core concepts.

You suspect it won't be heavy hands though, because LBP wants to nurture not stifle. As Oli said in his giddy impressions earlier this year, Pop-It is fluid and intuitive, letting you quickly assemble and iterate your ideas and experiments. But it's not just solid and versatile, it's humorous and charming - the emote function casts a spell over the hacks crowded into Sony's demo room (and this is at 6pm on a day that, for many who attended Nintendo's conference, began at 7am or earlier), who chatter and giggle, and there's compelling pace and energy to the graphics, sound and controls.

Thanks to us, it's not always a graceful and coherent presentation, but the game's bewitching all the same: a daffy smile on the face of PlayStation. Finally giving the pad back and heading off into the smog, we couldn't stop smiling for an hour afterwards. It's the most exciting thing I've played at E3, if I'm honest, and I feel a little bit happier every time I think back to it.