This is one of those games that I was looking forward to reviewing; sadly it’s not quite lived up to my expectations. I originally knew of Katamari from seeing this image:

It’s from the cover of the Playstation game “Katamari Damacy”, upon which I Love Katamari is based.The game is based around the ‘little prince’ & his dad, the “King of All Cosmos” who has sent the little prince off to earth with a magic ball called a Katamari. This ball picks up things like a snowball going down a slope in a cartoon & its intention is to pick up enough to become new stars after the King of All Cosmos wiped out the existing ones after getting really really drunk.

Because of this, I was expecting a fun game, rolling a ball around fun environments using the accelerometer. This is almost what I got. You do control the Katamari by tilting the device, but it’s really awkward, it never seems to go exactly where you want. Also, whilst I’ve only played the first level, the screenshots show that most levels do just look a bit dull, nowhere near as bright & colourful as I hoped. At least the little intro at the start of each level seem nice, telling you what you need to collect, except there is no ‘skip’ button so you have to sit there tapping away each time you start a level, thinking “come on, just let me play it already”. The last bad point ill bring up is the font they used throughout the game – it makes reading some bits really quite difficult. It took me a while to figure out what the letter ‘a’ was.

So, let’s see if I can move onto something more positive. The game is an Xbox Live game, so it’s got the usual plus points; a free demo, achievements & online leader-boards. There’s also the “Exquisite Collection” which lets you look through the fun things you’ve collected, which due to me not being able to complete the first level is rather empty.

I think to sum up, I think I Love Katamari has loads of potential to be a fantastic game, but at the moment, it feels far too rushed. If you are thinking of buying it, wait until they get round to improving the controls, brightening up the levels a bit & adding a little “skip” button, then get it, because its currently not worth the price they are asking.

I Love Katamari Gameplay Video

I Love Katamari WP7 xBox Live Achievements

Milk Bottle (1 point): Roll up Milk Bottle.
Glue (2 points): Roll up Glue.
Strawberry Shortcake (5 points): Roll up Strawberry Shortcake.
Seat Cushion (15 points): Roll up Seat Cushion.
Champion’s Belt (1 point): Roll up Champion’s Belt.
Base (5 points): Roll up Base.
Broadcast Van (1 point): Roll up Broadcast Van.
Astro Jet (5 points): Roll up Astro Jet.
Big Pyramid (20 points): Roll up Big Pyramid.
Pink Bull (5 points): Roll up Pink Bull.
Yellow Sub (5 points): Roll up Yellow Sub.
Blue Truck (10 points): Roll up blue Truck.
Completed exquisite collection! (110 points): Completed exquisite collection!
Squash (15 points): Roll up Squash.

I Love Katamari Screenshots

Version under review: 1.0.0.0

Developer: Namco Bandai Games, Twitter : @namcobandai

I Love Katamari costs $6.99 & has a free demo. we are not sure what are the limitations of the trial version.

What do you think of this WP7 Game ?

Scan this QRcode with Bing vision ( Hit the hardware Search button and click on the small icon that looks like an eye ) on your Phone to download this game on to your Windows phone device.

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