If you own a PS2 I seriously recommend you get this game.

Simple premise: Your dad, the form-fitting, cat suit wearing, bulging codpiece protruding King of Cosmos has accidentally knocked all the stars from the sky (the cut scene looks like he’s soaring through space drunk and his speech pattern suggests he is, regardless of the weird translations) and has charged you, the pee wee Prince, to collect stuff from Earth so he can toss it back up into the sky as replacement for his clumsy flying.

The King of Cosmos gives you a Katamari. I tried to do a search on exactly what a katamari is (its kenji roughly translates to “clump of souls”) but the best I can come up with is it looks like a dim sum dumpling ball with nubs on it, sort of like those shaky motorized balls you use to scare the cat with. Anyway, its super sticky but can only pick things up relative to it’s size. When you start out to pick stuff up, you can only pick up things like thumbtacks or gum wrappers. As your size increases, you are able to roll over and collect more, like staplers and mice… I’ve seen screen grabs of whole buildings and ocean liners, so this game promises to be pretty sweet.

The graphics look primitive but have a certain fun/flat quality that reminds me of when I was at Sheridan College for Graphic Design, working with guache paints to create product illustrations. The game has a dusty, washed out feel, similar to finding kid’s paintings in a snowbank. However, the items to be picked up are blocky and hardly anything taxing for the graphics processor.

The soundtrack is rockin’ too. The first screen’s intro tune is a mumbly scat-like performance from a guy who sounds like he’s first runner up from an all night Karaoke/drinking contest. The in-play music could be packaged as a soundtrack CD of the best of electronica from Tokyo. I’d buy it.

In conclusion: weird game. Addictive (in a “Extreme Elimination Challenge” sort of way). I recommend!