Katamari Damacy - PlayStation 2

Caveat: I am not one of those rabid game players whose game collections rival their movie collections and who have exacting standards for game play, length, and graphic quality. I play video games if fits and starts, and a large part of my enjoyment of a game comes from an appreciation of the artistry, programming, and ingenuity that goes into a game. There are some video game enthusiasts who will find Katamari Damacy not to their liking because the image quality is not up to this season's standards or because the game can be played start to finish in as little as 4 hours (depending on your game playing skill level, of course).But there won't be many of them, because there truly is something for everyone in this extraordinary Japanese import!I underscore the "import" because the game's Japanese origins positively ooze from every orifice: from the endlessly cheerful and eye-poppingly colorful graphics to the seemingly endless array of "everyday" items that aren't so typical in western homes, such as paper-wrapped chopsticks or Daruma dolls. While one is always aware that the game has been translated from the Japanese original, none of the actual translations have that agrammatical nonsensical quality you often see. All the dialogue and instructions make sense while (one imagines) retaining some of the original poetry.Some of the game's influences are less region-specific, as seen in the dizzying psychedelic colors, patterns, and references. Giant multi-colored mushrooms figure prominently, and part of the back story involves the King of All Cosmos becoming "one with the beauty of the universe" (wink wink nudge nudge)--something that not all of his friends fully understand when he comes to some time later having destroyed the night sky. The King is a delight; clad in bright ued garments and a giant bright blinky Deco-inspired headress in garish colors that nicely set off his ubiquitous snarl.Rounding out the design features is an interstitial storyline with it's own unique style, and the excellent soundtrack: from the deeply catchy theme song to Japanese pop-inspired jazzy ambient mood music.If the game had all of this and the game play was just so-so, I would already be thrilled, but Katamari Damacy also delivers engrossing and fun game play. They have done an excellent job with the physics engine, complete with awkward lopsided rolling when objects stick out the side of your katamari. In the first levels you transform your katamari by a scale of ten or so, but as you progress on to the later levels you pick objects several hundreds of times larger than the ones you started with (think thumbtack to skyscraper and beyond!). It is hard to express the satisfaction of rolling blithely over a house that once was just a neverending wall, but trust me, it feels good.There aren't a zillion levels and a never-ending terrain to explore so actually finishing the game is within the reach of even casual gamers like myself, which is a refreshing change. At the same time the replay value is quite high since you can replay any level at any time to beat your previous record, and there are goodies hidden in all the levels which you may not have found the first time around.My only complaint is the user interface; both analog sticks are used to control the movement of the katamari resulting in a blend of movement and camera manipulation which might serve the storyline well but results in fighting with the controls instead of enjoying the game. Other reviewers have described this expressed their fondness for this interface, but in my opinion one analog stick for movement and one for camera angle would have been much more intuitive. Should there ever be another version of the game I hope they will make this change.Still--the controls *were* easy enough for a five-year-old to learn and enjoy, so my criticism is minor.Kudos to Namco! If you find a copy of this game available anywhere, buy it right away!

Katamari Damacy's appeal is hard to explain to people who haven't played it already."What do you DO in this game??" asked my father-in-law, another dedicated gamer, when he heard rumors that I was glued to the PS2."Um, you roll this ball around and get stuff stuck to it. You just keep rolling and getting the ball as big as you can within a certain time limit," I replied, a little lamely.His eyes glazed over. "And that's fun?" he snorted."Yes. It's fun. Really fun. It cheers me up. There isn't anything to think about; you just roll," I attempted."And there's no monsters?" he asked. (I'm usually an RPG-er.)"Well, there's a Thunder God, but you just roll him up too," I replied. "But you can only roll him up when your ball of stuff is so big that you're rolling up skyscrapers and clouds and islands too."There was a silence."Well, you just enjoy yourself," he said."Oh, I DO!!" I tried again, a little desperately, "It might sound dumb, and it IS ... but it's so much fun!"You are the tiny, green-clothed Prince, the son of the omnipotent King of All Cosmos, and it is your job to rebuild the night sky after the King, in a kind of meditative daze, smashed it to smithereens. The King is a towering figure in a rainbow-colored headpiece and purple Elizabethan-ruffed wrestling leotard who loves to use the royal "we" and insult your puny efforts. You are sent to three different areas (the house, the town, and the world) and given various missions to complete within a certain time frame. For example, one of your first missions is to roll a 10cm "katamari" (which translates to "clump of stuff" from Japanese) in 3 minutes, I think, or was it 2?? Either way, you are plonked down in the world with your katamari (which starts out looking rather like a bumpy dog-toy), and you start to roll up stuff. The king pops in every now and again (as a disembodied head!) to make comments (usually insulting) or guide you to another area during your mission. It is almost as simple as it sounds, but each item in the game requires your katamari to have attained a certain size before you can pick it up. Thus, you have to get significantly bigger from when you could roll up a ham sandwich to when you can roll up a person or an elephant.I was addicted within a few minutes. It was the moment I rolled up my first person, and she shrieked "AAAAAIIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!" and kicked and waved her arms around. "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAKKKKKK" went the guy in the business suit. "**!!!!!!!!TRUMPET!!!!!!!!!!!**" went the elephant and "**HHHHHOOOOOOONNNNNKKKK**" went the bus. And I just kept going. I rolled until I beat the game two weeks later (I'm an after-work gamer), and then I ran out and bought the sequel, "We Love Katamari".Why? Well, the music is so cheerful, for starters; it gets in your head. When I'm stuck in an especially boring meeting, I think "Na naaa na na na na na na na na naaaa na na na naaaaa" (you'll know what I mean) and feel instantly better.The graphics are rainbow-colored, bright, and cute. There's a sort of "order from chaos" appeal as you pick things up, and there really are a lot of things to pick up in the game. Because this game is Japanese, a lot of the stuff is not what you would normally find lying around your (un-Japanese) house. Why would this be interesting? Well, my mother is Japanese, and she loves to go to American supermarkets "just to look at all the stuff." (Yes, there's sushi lying around in Katamari Damacy. However, there are also robotic action figures from around 1977 that my brother used to fanatically collect. Definitely different.)It is stress-busting in the extreme when you are flying through the city, rolling up skyscrapers, trees, vending machines, cows, and traffic - (especially taxis!) after you spent a frustrating hour or two stuck in real-life traffic, getting buzzed by taxis, if not cows. Often, after a bad commute, I rolled until there was nothing left in the world but the katamari and me. It was funny, and it made me see the lighter side of it. (Don't ask me what "it" is - you either get it or you don't.)Katamari Damacy's appeal can be summed up like this: this game treats the grind of everyday life like a gigantic, cosmic joke. I hope you get it and laugh as hard as the rest of us.

Do do do do do do duh do do. Katamari Damacy-y-y-y-y!!!!First off, I can't get the soundtrack out of my head! The music in this game is simply stunning. At least simply stunningly quirky. And that pretty much describes the entire game.This is one of those rare games that simply gets everything right, and it is difficult to describe how great it really is. Describing the specifics of the game misses the point of how incredibly fun it is. So simple, yet so amazingly addictive. You just have to play it for yourself.The graphics and animation are rudimentary, but done well, and somehow add to the charm of the game. Who knows if the physics are accurate, but they certainly *feel* right considering the scope of things. You'll just have to play through the last level to see what I am talking about here.Like Shadow of the Colossus, there is really no precedent for this game. And while Shadow strikes awe in the first minute of the game and keeps hitting you until the end, Katamari D starts small (*very* small) and builds through the entire game to a truly global scope.Just finishing the game is quite easy if you don't mind accepting the bare minimums and facing the scorn of the ridiculous King of the Cosmos. But the scope of the game is much more open than that. You can always try to add a few more millimeters (or meters) onto your previous best Katamari, or roll up bigger and bigger cows.If you are like me and would rather play Ratchet and Clank than the latest boring yearly update to Madden, you should try this.