Game Reviews

I Love Katamari

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I Love Katamari

Of all the orders barked at me by my beloved mother when I was growing up, 'tidy your room!' was the one I feared the most.

That's because my attempts at keeping things clean were so infrequent and half-hearted that whenever I did get around to a major cleaning session my little corner of the house would tend to look like it had been decimated by a Luftwaffe raid in the middle of the night.

If only there had been a more creative and enjoyable way of cleaning up the trail of garbage I seemed to leave in my wake wherever I went. If only I'd had Katamari.

Tidy set up

Though not strictly a game about tidying up, if you strip back I Love Katamari's decoration – which, quite bizarrely, focuses on an outer space king ordering you to find objects on planet earth in order to refresh his memory – that's essentially what it amounts to.

Rather than packing objects neatly away in drawers, however, Katamari focuses on sticking them together, the task being to roll a ball around a variety of locations to pick up everything you can.

You use the accelerometer to guide your ball around. At first it can only pick up smaller objects, but once it begins to gain size of its own almost everything you roll over sticks to it.

On the whole, it's a fairly painless process. While the controls are a touch stiff, the levels are so designed as to almost guide you around by stealth, so it never really feels as though precision is lacking.

Same old story

What you do next depends on which game mode you've plumped for. In Story mode, the idea is to roll a ball big enough to pick up a set object within the time allotted.

Things get a bit more creative when you branch out. Exact Size mode does exactly what it says on the tin, tasking you with rolling a ball to a set weight before charging you with guessing just when that is, while Timed mode and Eternal mode hand out a touch more freedom - the former with a clock, the latter without.

Whichever way you look at it, there's a whole lot of rolling involved, and just whether that's value for money – I Love Katamari coming in at a whopping £5.49 on Windows Phone 7, which is a sizable mark up from its £2.99 price point on iPhone – depends on just how entertaining a concept you find that in the first place.

Getting around

It's fair to say that once newcomers have gotten over the novelty factor – something I Love Katamari's cute and quirky menus and introductions are designed to strengthen – rolling around from beginning to end gets a touch dull.

Once you've had a crack at a few levels, the game has very few surprises left, with I Love Katamari largely a case of style over substance – something some might argue its predecessors were equally guilty of.

While the initial fun lasts, however, it's hard not to smile at a lot of what's contained within – the King's introductory instructions are a particular highlight.

Namco would be well advised to think about refreshing the franchise as a whole if sequels are to follow, but I Love Katamari still represents a tidy, if slightly tired and overpriced, package for a fresh format.

I Love Katamari

Not the deepest of prospects, I Love Katamari is packed full of character, but lacks the spice needed to stand out when it comes to gameplay – especially considering its premium price point
Score
Keith Andrew
Keith Andrew
With a fine eye for detail, Keith Andrew is fuelled by strong coffee, Kylie Minogue and the shapely curve of a san serif font. He's also Pocket Gamer's resident football gaming expert and, thanks to his work on PG.biz, monitors the market share of all mobile OSes on a daily basis.