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macuna's Katamari Damacy (PS2)
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| [February 23, 2007 12:35:26 AM]
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The combination of emergent and progressive gameplay qualities in Katamari Damacy have created a game with an addiction potential similar to that of hard drugs like heroin. The method of play is really simple: it consists entirely of the aforementioned elements. However, the difficulty levels of each level increase, and the size ranges of each level become so much more outstandingly ridiculous that it becomes difficult to stop playing due to the excitement of "how far will they go? I had better check out the next level." Also, once each level is completed, the player can still go back and try to outdo old records, which means that there is a source of motivation from the statistics and the player's own pride as a gamer to maybe skip that next class to try and roll up the biggest Katamari. In other words the reward system (usually expressed as the final size of the Katamari or the time it took to complete)is effective at maintaining the player's interest.
Another point of interest is the level where you have to try and make the Moon. You get big enough to pick huge chunks of land. The sheer ridiculousness of it has had me shouting "YEAH! SWEET!" out loud to nobody in particular.
In conclusion, playing this game should be mandatory.
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| [February 22, 2007 11:04:00 PM]
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the hardest part of playing Katamari Damacy is getting started. To start, you have to select a file to save to (represented by pieces of the company's name "namco") and roll the ball (the Katamari) over the corresponding letters. The trick is, the only indication of how this is done (using both analog sticks at once) are little circles with arrows in them, which I didn't get at first.
The storyline, while compellingly ridiculous, is not necessarily essential to gameplay. The premise is that the King of All Cosmos got drunk one night and accidentally destroyed all of the stars in the sky, and has given the task of replacing them to the prince, who is the player's character. The player is expected to accomlish this task by rolling a ball (known as a Katamari) around on the planet Earth and letting it stick to objects of like size (starting with really small objects such as thumbtacks) and gradually increasing in size until larger objects can be collected (this ranges from things like shoes, foods and small animals to such things as people, cars, streetlights, and bigger.) Once each mission is completed, the King of All Cosmos reviews your work and shoots the katamari (by now, a clump of random earthly objects) into the sky, where it becomes a star.
the key factor is that you can only pick up items smaller than your Katamari, so if you find an object that is too large, you must go and accumulate more mass in order to pick it up.
The tutorial for this game, while quite possibly the most boring tutorial ever, is essential for learning some key moves that will make or break a player's success. The basic movement controls are simple: the analog sticks are used like tank wheels, so pushing both of them forward or backward causes the katamari to roll forward or backward, both of them pushed to the side cause the katamari to roll sideways, and pushing them front and back in opposition to each other causes the forward direction to rotate. By pushing forward at a short enough obstacle (stairs, for example) the katamari can be pushed to higher elevations. Quite possibly the most helpful move is the one (the name escapes me) where you move the sticks back and forth in opposition to each other really fast until your katamari starts spinning and then shoots forward. This is good for clearing out large areas of smaller items more quickly.
the King of All Cosmos (who speaks via subtitles, and whose voice is apparently the sound of records being scratched) adds a certain distinct charm, interrupting the game to check your progress, advise you on how to proceed, and offer several quips and non-sequiturs that make him a somewhat complex (if not just a tad silly) character.
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macuna's Katamari Damacy (PS2)
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Current Status: Playing
GameLog started on: Thursday 22 February, 2007
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