I know that there is a huge emphasis on graphics, story-line and game-play in modern games. I remember in the gameboy and SNES era when games could Be about italian doctors running around throwing pills at people, or a small orange creature eating dots to escape ghosts. I liked this simple time because it was the time when video games where exploring there limits and abilities.

This is what i dont like about new games, they stick to the same money making formula using the same concept, idea and game play ....... *cough* HALO *cough*. with such a large ability to make game more realistic all game developers are heading that way, and i disagree with this advancement going to waste because there is such a large ability to make games look brilliant and also make them fantastically eccentric.

Except for namco with this game 'Beautiful Katamri'. this game is shining example that a game can be great without having to have the highest resolution graphics and the same point fire interface. First of all the control simple is the strangest set up i have ever used but because of this i love it. it take about a game or two to get used to it but once you have its clear its the best way to do it. The whole story line is pure gold, making no sense because of the literal translation. Length of the game is pretty poor with around 10 or 12 levels but this is excused due to the fact its the most addictive game on xbox and has a massive replay factor.

Although short, its sweet and will keep me entertained until this disc shatters from over use.

First things first, Katamari is a fantastic game and one of the best little gems of gaming history ever created. We Love Katamari on the PS2 was criminally unloved (but they didn't release the game in huge numbers so perhaps that's the excuse) and this new version of Katamari is simply top-notch.

So why only four stars, you might be thinking?

Well... the fact that it's really all based around one giant level just isn't really enough in my eyes. Granted, you can roll up the entire world and then the universe and it's nice that the levels are all connected... but after a while you get that horrible feeling of repetition which is quite off-putting. If anything, on the designers point of view, it's actually remarkably lazy. We Love Katamari had a dozen or so levels or rolling-up goodness and we're kinda stuck in the middle of one big level.

Where shall we roll today? Inside the house? Or outside the house? *sigh*

(For the record, there is downloadable content at a cost but I haven't actually looked into whether this is for a new level or what... or whether you get to play some of the levels from the older games...)

BUT. Despite this let-down, Beautiful Katamari is still an awesome game. To be honest, it defies description but let's just say that you use your katamari (it's a sticky ball to those who don't know) to pick up everything in the level that is smaller than you in order to grow and roll up bigger things. You have set goals within the levels, usually to get to a certain size within the time limit. Again, the main problem is repetition as pretty much ALL of the levels are the same thing over and over again. 3m in five minutes. 1m meter in four minutes. 10,000km in 18 minutes (but you get to roll up all of the countries of the world for that one!!!).

But it's such a charming game, how can I give it less than 4 stars? Watching as all the people in the city run away in utter shaking fear of you rolling them up is always brilliant, finding the 50 cousins spread throughout the levels is brilliant fun and the humour in the game is so blindingly brilliant, it will never fail to raise a smile. The King Of All Cosmos is without a doubt the funniest character in the history of gaming.

No hyperbole.

Honest.

It might be a little too quirky for some. It might be a little too Japanese for some. It might not make the most sense in the world. It's a videogame, it shouldn't have to. If you fall in love with it, I wouldn't blame you in the slightest. It's a breath of fresh air on a console filled with First Person Shooters.

GO. Try it at the very least.

But then go and buy it.

Katamari is simply a game where you roll a sticky ball around to collect various random objects. The concept is very simple but the tasks are very hard and the game has a habit of rubbing it in when you fail. Even when you complete a task the game feels that you haven't done good enough to satisfy it, this doesn't help when the King Of The Cosmos is several thousand times bigger than the characters you control.
To add to the issues the translation of the text is so badly worded and punctuated that it gives the impression that this was translated by a child.
The game will criticise you regardless of what you do so if you can get round that then I recommend Katamari.

It's not every day a game comes along that's so original and so good, especially when it's as strange and simplistic as this.

Rolling a ball (or a Katamari) around a stage picking stuff up as you roll over it might sound silly, and it is to be fair, but it sure does make for a great game. You start off on a place called the Princedom, that's like your base or your little village if you like. From here everything is available like options, stats, save game and this is also where you select a mission to go on called a 'request'. Cousins also like to loiter round here. These requests include tasks such as rolling up specific items which in turn increases the size of your Katamari. Sound simple but some levels can be challenging. You get points at the end of each completed run and you can choose to play again to better these scores anytime you wish. Hidden in the levels are cousins: little characters that look both silly and cute, which you can change between anytime, and presents: stuff for your cousins to wear. The number hidden in each level can very and finding them all is not a task for the faint hearted. This does help though with variation and replay value, although replaying the same soon becomes a bit tedious. As you progress through the game more requests become available and the potential size of your Katamari dramatically increases from 30cm to sizes well over 500m. Before you know it you're picking up whole cities.

The graphics aren't great for a 360 game and they're not much better than the PS2 version but they do the job. There's also a crazy Japanese song list which is strangely amusing. Achievements take a bit of time and effort and there's dlc too, bringing the total to 1250G. Multiplayer is fun too but just what you'd expect.

That pretty much sums up Beautiful Katamari. It's a great game played in smaller doses. Such a different, weird and wonderful concept for a good game must deserve a place in anyone's collection.

80%

After impatiently waiting for it to be released in the U.K. I was sightly disappointed. It's nowhere near as fun as the PS2 release We Love Katamari. The camera was awkward in comparison and movement was no where near as fluid as on the PS2. This is possible because of the placement of the analog sticks on the 360 as opposed to the PS2. It's more cluttered as well. The music wasn't as good or catchy as WLK and the game was completed within 4 hours. With games like these that are quickly completed, I will go back and play them again and again...not so with Beautiful Katamari. In the end, I plugged back in the PS2 to play We Love Katamari. The really sad thing is I looked so forward to this title's release, even buying extra points in preparation for the downloadable content (to which those in the U.K. are still waiting for). I'm just really disappointed with the game. People have complained about the game being timed, it always was and that isn't the issue. One would think that the 360 game would have improved upon the PS2 one considering the graphics are relatively the same and the power of the 360 far surpasses that of the PS2. If you really want to play this game, wait until its been out a few months and pick it up used. Better yet, pick up We Love Katamari for the PS2 instead.

could someone please calrify the actual purpose or sotry of this game for me, the demo entertained me for hours on end just rolling around and i assumed the full game would be like this but without a timer on your rolling. do you just get to roll around forever or is there missions or anything to do?

This is quite a fun game but lacks in the staying department. its too short. This is aparent when you only start and play from the same place every time. I was hopeing to start in differnt parts of the world but you only get to see those other parts once you are so massive you roll up whole cities.

Great fun but short unless you have another person to paly co-op with.

i heard about this from a ps2 owning friend. quirky, japanese, non-definable (genre) game he said....just your cuppa tea. so i tried the demo from marketplace. my friend was spot on....this is unlike anything else i've played in more than 25 years of gaming. i find it a nice relaxing break from the frenetic insomnia inducing shooters, racers and sssequels in my collection. slightly confusing at first, i've enjoyed it more each time i play, so i'd say definitely worth a look if you wanna try something different. this said, two points to note. being a japanese speaker the in game music doesn't bother me too much, however cutesy j-pop style singing (in japanese mostly) isn't most westerners thing. and the other sadly is more detrimental to the game. the camera and control could have done with a bit of tweaking.....compared with something like monkey ball this feels clunky and more akin to driving a world war II tank in a pool of glycerine than a little sticky ball thingy. these points aside i still feel it merits 4 out of 5.

ryui yori

I had my first taste of the Katamari Experience with Katamari Damacy (pronounced Da-Ma-She) a couple of years ago when I imported an NTSC version of the game to see what all the hype was about. I fell in love immediately.
Since then they're released several versions of the game, and I've owned them all - but none, and I mean none, come close to the quality of gameplay the original offered.
Until now!
Beautiful Katamari takes everything the original offered, and adds to it all the things we previously didn't have. You have to play it to believe how surreal it is.
I prepared my girlfriend as best I could before I showed her this past weekend, I wasn't sure she'd like it and think I was a massive geek - but to my relief she loves it!

Do yourself a favour, buy this game immediately!

For those who have played either PS2 Katamari games, this will be a slight disappointment: Something seems to be amiss with the gameplay here: the scope and depth of levels does not match that of We Love Katamari. I was actually disappointed when I got to the 'end' within two sittings- something not really possible in the other games.

That being said, Beautiful Katamari is still a great game to have in your collection- if you dig the bizarre Japanese genre. It's a nice, simplistic, and intuitive title with lots of replay value. Plus, you can now roll online!

It's definitely an acquired taste though- you'll either love this one or hate it. Give the demo a shot- it's a solid representation of the rest of the game.