Your Semi-Regular PlayStation 3 Server Update

So far we've got one announced patch and one stealth one. Let's start with the stealth because it's sneaky. And shadowy.

Actually, it's neither. LittleBigPlanet has been updated to version 1.03 with a 20MB patch for 1.02 users. There's been no official word on any of the typical Sony info sources about what this patch does, though. Currently, the LBP servers are back online, but struggling. When I first fired it up 20 minutes ago, I was able to get into a couple of online levels and actually complete them, too. Haven't been able to connect to other human players, though. Someone on my friends list shot me an invite and it returned a message claiming that we were running the same build, so maybe there are still 1.02 players out there gumming up the works.

Things haven't remained all peachy, though, as I'm currently getting the same "failed to load level" errors that I was getting the night the servers went up earlier this week.

SOCOM was updated to version 1.20 this morning, and the official SOCOM site lists these changes:

• Fixed many issues which would cause the game to crash, hang, disconnect and exit to the PS3 XMB.
• Fixed an issue which would cause large numbers of players in a high player count game to be simultaneously disconnected.
• Fixed an issue which would cause players to be invincible.
• Fixed a physics issue which would cause players to occasionally "warp" around on the map.
• Fixed an issue where a "corrupt save data" message would be incorrectly displayed after updating the game.
• Fixed some player model issues related to team swapping.
• Client/server optimization.
• Fixed an issue where the scope camera had an incorrect offset from the barrel of the gun while prone or leaning/peeking.

This will be a 550MB patch for people running any version older than 1.10. If you already got the monster 1.10 update, then you'll be downloading another 50MB or so for the upgrade.

I've been thinking of the best way to handle reviews of these games. If I had written a review of SOCOM last week, for example, I would have given it one star. If our score went to zero, I'd try to give it that. Why? Because it wasn't even a game. It was a $40 title screen. Rather than write a review that doesn't do anyone any good, I wrote an article or two about the status of the servers, figuring that would hopefully keep people from running out and buying the game before it gets fixed.

LittleBigPlanet is sort of in the same boat, but since it has a single-player game, there's still something for you to do while it's broken. However, playing it offline isn't much fun at all. The single-player levels aren't its strength, and building levels without the ability to share them is pretty shallow. If you're not connecting your PS3 to the Internet, LBP is probably three or four stars. In its current state, with the servers getting all herky-jerky and rarely working, it's probably still a four-star game, just because the user levels are so cool. Toss in some functional multiplayer and all the sharing and rating and recommending stuff and I'm going to bet it'll get a full five stars by the time this is all ironed out.

But my patience won't last forever. Expect a review of LittleBigPlanet by early next week at the absolute latest, and if the server situation hasn't been ironed out by then, then I guess you can expect the review to reflect that. As it stands, the rough launch is already a knock against both games. As for SOCOM, there are other, more-important games on our review schedule right now. Perhaps we'll get back to it later this year and figure out if it's any good or not.