Articles
By Q Dog Sah
Published: Mar. 31, 2008 11:59 PM
Katamari Damacy was a surprise hit when it was released on the PS2 nearly 4 years ago. At the time, it provided a fresh new experience for gamers of the likes they had never seen before. Rarely do games of this nature become popular outside of Japan, but Katamari Damacy struck a chord with gamers worldwide and was popular enough to spawn 2 sequels - another for the PS2 and a scaled down version for the PSP. Now, the series makes is next-gen (when do we get to start saying “current-gen”?) debut with Beautiful Katamari exclusively for the 360. The question is, improved hardware aside, does the experience still feel as fresh 4 years down the track?
Beautiful Katamari is a hard game to describe to those who have never played it before. You see, the very camp King Of All Cosmos has accidentally created a black hole in the universe with an over-zealous shot while playing tennis and thereby destroying the majority of stars and planets. Playing as the diminutive prince, you have been sent to Earth with the task of rolling up all the objects on the planet into balls of various sizes to create new stars, planets and moons. Sound strange? Well, the story isn’t really all that vital to game experience, but instead provides a necessary bit of context for the game to make any sort of sense. Allow me to explain.
When you boil it down, Beautiful Katamari is a part-action, part-puzzle game that is all about rolling. You control the prince as he pushes around his Katamari, a sticky ball that will pick up anything that it rolls over. There is a bit of strategy involved though as you cannot pick up the larger items straight away, you have to build up to them. When you start a level, you can only pick up small items like coins and paper clips. Once you’ve collected enough of these items, you will be able to pick up larger objects like pizzas or stuffed toys. Eventually, your Katamari will get large enough that you will be able to pick up people, buildings and even mountains – if you have enough time.
