The Activist

Issue date: 6/2/08 Section: Arts and Entertainment

"Katamari Damacy" is far and away one of the strangest, most original games to come along in years. Since I'm not a typical video game fanatic, it's hard to appeal to my senses in terms of action and game concepts, but this game does just that.

There are already too many games where you kill other people, blow up buildings, and now even, become a guitar playing prodigy. But there aren't enough games that are aesthetically appealing and imaginative (without the use of gun).

"Katamari Damacy's" game play concept, the visual style, the soundtrack, even the back story are all conceived and executed with such a unique flavor that it's difficult not to be drawn in by all the weird little idiosyncrasies.

For those of you who don't want anything exceptionally challenging but still a satisfying experience, "Katamari Damacy" is the game for you. Here is the colorful back story which makes this game so crazy: It seems that the King of All Cosmos, a colossal celestial being, got a little "crazy" one night, woke up the next morning with a headache and has realized that he has lost all the stars. Being a real "think-outside-the-box" kind of ruler, the King sends you, "Prince of All Cosmos," to Earth to collect as much stuff as possible to create a whole new set of stars by rolling up anything you can find into a giant ball.

You are given a Katamari (which roughly translates to "clump" in Japanese--very fitting) not much bigger than yourself. You are ordered to roll around each level collecting anything you can to increase its size. Basically, the bigger you get, the bigger the items you can pick up. Pretty much everything in the world is fair game.

Using the analog sticks, you'll roll the Katamari around with tank-like control. Of course, the shape of your Katamari affects the difficulty of rolling, making it hard to roll up-hill or along narrow pathways. Giving the game a bit of a challenge, each level has specific size goals with a specific amount of time to achieve it.

As you complete each level you, as the Prince, may obtain presents of random bric-a-brac from the King, such as scarves, headphones, and championship wrestling belts. You can also play split screen versus another to see who can build the biggest Katamari the fastest.

Aside from its quirkiness and simplicity, "Katamari Damacy" is not overly esoteric, and the mechanics are easy and enjoyable enough that people of virtually all shapes and sizes should be able to pick it up and start having fun in minutes.

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