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The Royal Family of the cosmos is back and (predictably) the King has made a mess of things. In a friendly tennis match with the Queen, a stray tennis ball punches through the fabric of existence, leaving a rather large black hole. The solar system is promptly sucked up, and it's up to Prince to recreate everything. And maybe something to plug up that pesky tear in space too.
The Good: The gameplay is unchanged. And because this game is on the XBox 360, the greater processing power allows for much more densely packed environments. The graphics retain the classic Katamari feel, but the animation is much crisper, and slowdown occurs much less frequently. The stage selection area is almost as fun to toy around with as the game itself is. The music is characteristically awesome.
The Bad: Too few stages! There are only 15 stages (counting the coop stages). Also, the missions aren't nearly as inspired as in the previous installments. You're supposed to, for example roll up "cool" things to make Pluto, but it doesn't actually matter if the things you roll up are cool or not. Not to mention that that stage has an embarrassing number of XBox 360 consoles and controllers lying around. Considering this game is $40 (the previous games on the PS2 were $20 apiece), I really expected more bang for my buck than that. Why not have the player jump around to a different planet, and have us rolling in some alien world?
The Verdict: If you are seriously pining for some Katamari, than pick this up. If you can get by playing We <3 Katamari though, I'd suggest that instead. This game kind of makes the premise of the series feel played out, which is really unfortunate because it's such a great premise. If the designers can't find some way to make the series feel fresh, I'd kindly request that they don't ruin a great set of games.
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