Katamari Damacy

This new game for PS/2 is in the great tradition of wacky Japanese videogames. It's way outside. It has possibly flimsiest overarching story of any game I have ever played. And yet even that is compelling. The King of All Cosmos wakes up one morning to discover he had apparently partied a bit too long, and somehow lost all of the stars in the sky. The translation of the King's dialog is wonderfully idiomatic and on target. He is completely insane, and spends a lot of his time flinging insults, at you, his son as you are deployed on missions to help recover the missing stars.

The game controls, like all my favorite Japanese games, are extremely simple. In this game there are no combo controls...all you do is use both of the analog joysticks. You roll up a ball of weird objects, all of which affect how the ball rolls. You pick up food, tacks, candy, white-out, legos--all sorts of stuff. And you roll and grow this ball. It sounds pathetic. But it is completely compelling. The game has huge replay value. The mechanics are simple and fun enough that anyone can enjoy the game...not just gamers.

Namco is selling the game for $19.95--an amazing price point for a new game. Games at this price are usually either duds, or have been out for years. Did I mention that the music, too, is oddly compelling? The backgrounds and art are pretty basic...but it totally works!

Believe it or not the publisher's (Namco) website actually did a good job of summarizing the game:

"Play is controlled with the analog sticks only. No buttons to press. No combos to cause distress. Featuring ball-rolling and object-collecting gameplay mechanics of mesmerizing fluidity, reduced to Pac-Man simplicity, through pure absurdity.

Dimensions change drastically as your clump grows from a fraction of an inch to a monstrous freak of nature. Go from rolling along a tabletop to ravaging through city streets, picking up momentum and skyscrapers along the way.

Two-player battle mode lets you compete in a race to grow the biggest ball of stuff. Even the competition can be picked up, if your opponent is unfortunate enough to get in your way.

Enjoy quirky, infectious humor throughout—from the insanely cosmic animations, to the wacky and wonderful musical stylings, to the royally contagious storyline that's undoubtedly like no other. "