Archive for August 15, 2006

Katamari Damacy

I just finished Katamari Damacy for the Playstation 2 after buying it about 5 months ago. So I got sidetracked…so what? Anyway, it’s a very fun game. For anyone who hasn’t really played it, the object is to roll this sticky ball around the world and pick up objects that are laying around. The ball starts small and grows as you pick up bigger and bigger stuff. Like in the beginning, you might be able to only pick up thumbtacks and stuff. As it goes along, you can pick up kitchen utensils, pets, birds, people, cars, buildings, clouds, tornadoes…etc.

It’s a very Japanese game in the way it presents itself. A lot of the music is very upbeat Japanese music (with words in Japanese as well). The cut scenes are…odd. The story is that the stars have fallen from the sky, so it’s up to the prince (you) to recreate them by rolling up all sorts of stuff on earth. The cut scenes follow a group of kids and their mother as they try to go cross country to see their astronaut father blast off on a trip to the moon (which no longer exists). I’m not sure I can do justice to how weird of a game this is

The graphics are simple, but they work well with the way the game works. It’s impressive to note that the game engine needs to work well close up and far back since in the course of the game, your Katamari can grow from 10cm to 100+ meters in size. So it’s really impressive from that angle.

My only complaint is that the conrols can be a little hard to get used to in the beginning. It’s a very odd control scheme using both of the analog sticks at the same time to control direction.

Overall, an excellent game. And cheap too. If you haven’t played it yet, you should try to track down a copy.