Beautiful Katamari
SCORE: 70
Beautiful Katamari is one quirky little Xbox 360 title. The king of the cosmos, his wife, and their son (player) make up one of the weirdest families the WMG has ever come across. Players roll a ball around that collects items. As more items are collected the ball grows larger. The larger the ball, the larger the item(s) that can be collected. The game includes a form of humor that is either understood, or not. The WMG does not understand the humor within this game.
Beautiful Katamari rolls in 720P, and looks better than any previous Katamari game. There are Xbox 360 games that look better than this one though. There are some nice details of items being picked up, and then the collage they become on the katamari ball. The only offensive images the WMG came across were the player getting knocked around by the king on a pool table for not reaching the set goal for a level. The camera is not always perfect though.
The sounds that come with Beautiful Katamari go along with the quirky nature of this Xbox 360 game. The music is songs all sung in Japanese. No idea what the lyrics are, but hopefully nothing profain is being sung about. Some of the songs reminded the WMG of what would be heard from a lounge singer. The king is rather offensive to the player when they fail to meet the expected goal. In fact insults are slung even when the results are met.
Namco Bandai included some nice Xbox Live features in this game so more than one player can play Beautiful Katamari at a time. The difficulty level is tweaked pretty high so multiple attempts are needed on every single level. The length of the game is short, but additional levels can be purchased on Xbox Live.
It took the WMG a few minutes to get used to the controls. The whole timed nature of the game really throws out some of the controls like walking around the Katamari. There is some definite intelligent design to the layout of all the items in the levels. Finding that perfect combination to grow the ball to the right size requires thought, speed, and some luck. The high percentage of failure made this game no fun for the WMG.
The whole storyline of
Beautiful Katamari is strange. King of the Cosmos would make the WMG
think of God, but this character is nothing like God at all. The entire
nature of how the game is played is very family friendly. If you are up
for a challenge, and can ignore or enjoy some quirks then get to
rolling.
- Working Man Gamer
Graphics: 66%
Sound: 64%
Replay/Extras: 76%
Gameplay: 77%
Family Friendly Factor: 69%
System: Xbox 360
Publisher: Namco Bandai
Rating: 'E' for Everyone
{Alcholol Reference, Comic Mischief, Mild Fantasy Violence}
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