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> Results: Me and My Katamari
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GamerDad LOVES Katamari! After naming Katamari Damacy our ﾑFamily Game of the Year' for 2004, We Love Katamari just lost out to the awesome Guitar Hero in this year's voting. So when Namco announced that they were bringing the franchise to the PSP, there was considerable excitement from portable owners who would finally get to experience what PS2 owners have been buzzing about. Unfortunately, the PSP control implementation seems created to remove as much entertainment as possible from the experience.
Everything not related to rolling up objects in the game is brilliantﾗthe music, the graphical presentation, the voice-work and lines of the King of All Cosmos are all great. The art and sound design pull you in with their charm, and the characters and interactions keep you engaged. The King of All Cosmos always has something to say, usually witty, or at least a bad pun. Like the originals, every Katamari you build is done for some purpose and must be completed within some time limit and objective. You start rolling up small things like candy and tacks, and eventually move on to cars and buildings as you roll around cities!  The PS2 game was described here as ﾑincredibly intuitive', but getting control of the situation on the PSP is a struggle that you will never truly master. After some successful early rounds, it takes quite a while to make progress, and as task difficulty increases, it seems you have to fail for a while to develop better skills before proceeding. It's frustrating because you feel beaten by the bad controls and not the challenge itself. Fighting with the controls becomes very hard on your hands, so as you get better with the controls your dexterity gets worse, making you frustrated and sore! Even as you begin to feel you have mastered the game you run into issues trying to make the game do what you want. Me and My Katamari is a disappointment because so much of it is amazing, especially on PSP, that you want to run around showing it off. Control problems turn it into a stylish but average game that seems cool but is frustrating and leaves you wishing for some way to make the game work better. It's an ok game in short bursts, but ultimately a missed opportunity. Oh yeah, there's a multiplayer mode too. It seems tacked on, just like this paragraph. Me and My Katamari's multiplayer features one single area to roll around in, and you can open access to all of your collected items in ad-hoc mode (local wireless only). That's it.  
All of the Katamari games have been rated E for good reasonﾗall you are doing is rolling up things in a big sticky ball. Even the most violent part of the gameﾗrolling up living objects such as animals and peopleﾗis mitigated by the sheer silliness of it all. There are scream sounds, but even those fit within the joyful and exuberant soundtrack. Nobody gets hurt, and if any living thing gets knocked off the clump, they go back about their business until you roll them up again. Reading isn't essential, either. The only thing a kid needs is patience to deal with the controls and someone to let them use their PSP. My kids got to play it for a day over school vacation during ophthalmologist appointments, and their conclusions aren't far from mine. It's insanely cool, at times entertaining, but difficult because the controls are frustrating. After awhile you don't mind failing and always want to come back for more frustrating and silly fun.
This review edited by Dave Long Comments? Chat about it in our forums! Format For Printing | Tell A Friend | Digg | Slashdot | del.icio.us | Buy This Game Home > Review Archive > Video Games > Results: Me and My Katamari |
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