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Jan 24th, 2007 at 15:23:23 - Katamari Damacy (PS2) |
I had a bit of a sleepless night last night. It wasn't bad though.
I woke up at about 4:41. I knew I needed to get back to sleep, but instead, I figured a nice healthy dose of Katamari Damacy was what was truly required.
I ended up playing for nearly four hours. One of the greatest aspects of Katamari is its ability to immerse you within its whimsical charm, despite not having ultra realistic graphics or a budget of millions. The simplicity of gameplay, as well as the novelty that never seems to wear itself thin, allows this game to achieve what tons of blockbuster games strive towards and fall short of.
The main thing that I noticed this time around is, again, how strong the level design is. Even when it seems like you've rolled way beyond your limit, where you shouldn't be for a while (a difficult task to achieve due to the level barriers, but still possible), you can make a quick turn (not even necessarily backwards), and you'll find something to get you bigger.
I've also noticed what seems, to me, like an inconsistency in the items. Items that should be easily obtained knock stuff out of your Katamari, while items that are awkwardly shaped and larger than anything else you can grab are swiped up no problem. I'm not sure exactly how the developers decided how to calculate what the necessary size was, but in my opinion it was a slightly flawed formula, even though for the most part it works out very well.
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Jan 23rd, 2007 at 23:40:06 - Katamari Damacy (PS2) |
Katamari Damacy, as well as it's successor We <3 Katamari, are two of my favorite games of all time. I prefer the second, but not by a huge margin or anything.
After an hour of gameplay (after having not played for nearly a year), I remember why I loved this game so much. I started out slow, meandering my way around the tiny niches of that house and loving every minute of it. I noticed how easy it is to just continually roll around, with almost no stopping, and still find a decent amount of items to pick up. This is definitely a sign of strong level design on the developers part.
After reminding myself of why I fell in love with the game in the first place, I reminded myself just how much fun it can be. I went and played one of the later Make A Star levels, and had an enormous amount of well designed, aurally pleasurable fun.
After playing a few more levels, I must say that despite being graphically average, everything else in that game excels beyond reason. From the music being perfectly complementary to the gameplay being pure and simple fun, Katamari Damacy is a wonderful example of a video games ability to rekindle the joy of youth, as both a toy and a game.
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Jan 21st, 2007 at 15:01:47 - Shadow of the Colossus (PS2) |
After extended sessions over the past two days, I have completed Shadow of the Colossus, and it may rank among my top ten favorite games of all time.
Sure, the horse pissed me off. And some of the bosses were frustratingly difficult, to the point where I needed a break so that I didn't yell/cry. But it was so much more than payed off by the brilliant battles and the amazing subtlety of the game, where monsters as big as skyscrapers had body language as intricate as your stumbling, awkwardly running avatar.
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Jan 19th, 2007 at 15:37:46 - Shadow of the Colossus (PS2) |
After another forty five minutes, and two more colossi, this game still stuns me. Every time I switch my viewpoint over to view the colossus that I'm doing battle with, I smile just a little bit. The developers did that well. Very well.
I've also found that I'm relying more and more on the disembodied hints. They've gone from "His armor seems brittle" to "Stand on the platform in the lake to draw its attacks".
I've circumvented my personal issues with the soundtrack (which, while it's good, doesn't really do it for me) by putting my own music on in the background; I recommend satanstompingcaterpillars - flower slides, but that's just me personally. Create your own game soundtracks! It's fun!
I've noticed that the horse isn't just hard to control, it has its own "realistic" AI that just serves to infuriate even more.
(edit: when I knock the score, by no means think that I am not appreciative of the sounds. The sound effects are some of the best I've heard, in a very minimalistic sense, and the score again works amazingly well, just not for me personally.)
This entry has been edited 1 time. It was last edited on Jan 19th, 2007 at 18:48:24.
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Benladen has been with GameLog for 17 years, 10 months, and 13 days |
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