Ah, the sweet sensation of glorious rumble when your speeding Katamari collides with that stupid jerk dog that won't get out of your way...Oh Katamari, how I've missed you! Sort of anyway...
Being a rabid fan of the Katamari Damacy series of games (Me and My Katamari was the reason I wanted a PSP and I still listen to the soundtracks in the car) I was overjoyed to learn that Katamari was "rolling" onto the Xbox 360. Not only that, but it was going to be $40.00 bucks. Woo hoo! Now of course once all of the downloadable content comes out, King of All Cosmos knows how much the game will end up costing me but at least I have it now on the 360 and can take a break from playing the old games through BC power on the PS3. At least for a while...
Unfortunately, being one of the few Katamari fans that liked the 2nd game better than the first, I was disappointed to find that Beautiful Katamari is more along the lines Katamari Damacy. Which isn't a bad thing all told, however in BK instead of telling you it's a size objective they try to disguise it as a specific object..uh, objective. Of course, you still need to get a certain size within a certain time period and rather than success being measured by how many "Japan" things you've managed to roll up, it's more dependent on size a la Katamari Damacy without being based on number of things rolled a la We Love Katamari. The temperature mission is back although it's made more frustrat...er, challenging this time around by cold things making the temp go down. Ironically, the "roll cold things up" mission is missing the "hot things bring the temp up" aspect. There's no cut scenes to speak of so the story they tell you in the beginning is it: no quirky Japanese family, no King backstory, no nothing....Just plug the hole, no time for small talk! *TWSS*
The "All New Music!" soundtrack has me slightly confused as with the exception of a few new songs, it's really just remixes of songs from previous Katamari games. Which is fine with me I suppose since I'm a huge fan of Katamari music. (FYI: I swear one of the songs features a girl that sounds JUST like the video instructor from Battle Royale!)
For all my whining, I still like the game. It is Katamari after all (and the 8-bit credit game is back from Me and My Katamari, woot!). However, I'm ready to spend my hard earn points on some downloadable content that will hopefully give me more of a reason to not run back crying to the PS3 for Katamari backwards compatibility consolation.
And now it's time for "ICandee Tangent Time!" *pause of applause*
I watched The Descent for the first time last night...what a depressing freaking movie (Original UK ending FTW!)