I don't remember where I heard about the Katamari series, but it completely changed the way I play video games. Up until that point, my gaming experiences usually involved getting a character from one part of the map to another, whether he was carrying a shield, a gun, or a fire flower. Then, all of the sudden, I was introduced to Katamari Demacy, a game where I played as a little green man no larger than a thumb tack who rolled things up into a ball. It was the best gaming experience I had ever had. Now, thanks to the great folks at Namco-Bandai, I can finally roll on my PS3 in the latest installment of the series, Katamari Forever.





Forever, or Katamari Tribute in Japan, is the fourth console game in the series (the sixth including a version for the PSP and iPhone) and the third for the Playstation. Like its predecessors, Katamari Forever stays true to the series, adding minor tweaks to the game mechanics and look, but never straying from the original. For those who are not familiar with Katamari, you play as the Prince, whose father - the King of All Cosmos, has somehow destroyed all of the stars in the sky. It is up to you and your assortment of strange cousins to roll up things on earth so that you can make a star/planet/constellation. The entire game is played by rolling a ball, or Katamari, using the analog sticks. There are no other buttons to use, its just you pointing your ball in the right direction. Oh, and its hilarious.

A new addition to this game includes high definition visuals, a first for the series. This is, however, not a major step as the graphics are very similar to the original game and high definition does not add a lot to the experience. This installment does include four different visual looks: original (the look for the first games in the series), new (a brighter, bolder look for the series), wood (which puts everything in a weird wood grain finish) and comic (in which everything is cell shaded and has black lines). These four looks are interesting, and while I know that people love to hate cell shading, I kind of like it in Katamari. However, when I have my choice to choose the visuals, I tend to go for original.

The final addition, and by far the most significant, is the "Prince Hop." The previous games never included the ability to jump, which may seem like a silly addition, but veterans of the series can recall all the times that you put your head in your hands and said, "If I could jump, I could totally get that..." Well, now you can, and it's both the most fun and most frustrating inclusion. The jumping can be achieved by using the bumper buttons or the Sixaxis controller, and it works for the most part, but I found the Sixaxis to be fairly unresponsive (shocking, I know). It also adds a new dimension to the game play, making it harder at times than previous titles.

This is an early review, and as such I can only say so much as to the game in general, but I do have some thoughts. The first is that this game was not produced by Keita Takahashi, the series creator who worked on the PS2 exclusives "Katamari Damacy" and "We Love Katamari," and it does seem strangely apparent. I don't know if it was his additions to the series or what, but this game does pander to the previous (even reusing levels from the original two games) to a fault. It's at time obvious why the game is called "Katamari Tribute" in Japan.

I think the real reason I have issues with the game is for the same reasons We Love Katamari is not my favorite - and it is that I played it after the original. I've come to believe that we often make decisions based on experiences with the first game we play. There are times when a sequel has the ability to use its source material and build a truly better model (as I feel was the case with games like Rock Band 2 and the Legend of Zelda series), but many times those fail (any Mortal Kombat after Trilogy). Video games have the ability to improve over time, be that through visuals or game-play, but when you have a game like Katamari that does not really on either of those elements, it requires something different. For me, Katamari Demacy is one of those few "perfect games" in the world, and each model attempts to change it a little bit, but usually not in a good way. Forever does give us something that we didn't have before - a version of the game that is not only playable on the PS3, but one that includes elements of all the previous titles. I suppose at the end of the day, that's all I could really ask for.

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