"Katamari Damacy" Is Still My Favorite Video Game

I'm a video gamer with simple needs. I want a video game with easy controls so I can play it or let others play it without constantly consulting a manual or online FAQ. The game should be simple to play but difficult to fully master so that I will want to keep on playing even if I beat the story mode. And a certain charm that interests me to the game in the first place really helps. So while I can pick up, play, and quickly drop the next "Call of Duty: Shoot Anyone Who Looks at You Funny," I always find myself returning to a game whose objective is synonymous with housecleaning:

The Katamari Damacy Series

The Katamari Damacy series started in 2004 with the creatively titled "Katamari Damacy" for the PS2 which is roughly translated as "clump spirit" in Japanese. The game looked ridiculously simple on paper as a snowball simulator. You roll a little ball that collects stuff on the ground until it gets bigger and you roll up bigger stuff. The simple objective went well with the simple controls that primarily relied on the analog sticks. No drop down menus, no weapon selection, no gimmickly motion controls, and no button combos were needed. I could set up the simple game to amuse party guests, entice a new gamer into the hobby, or play easily if I fall ill. Any occasion is a good occasion.

The game is simple but wonderfully fun to master. Each stage has a rather interesting arrangement of items scattered on the ground to collect. As the ball gets bigger, more of the scene is revealed. And the collecting itself offers some memorable moments. Stages start from rolling up paperclips or bugs until the ball becomes large enough for people to notice and flee from lest they get rolled up into the ball. Then it gets large enough for cars to get collected and before you know it, you're rolling up entire cities just to make the ball big enough to pass the stage. The screaming of the people is enough cause for me to argue just how violent the game is. "Grand Theft Auto" can let you kill hookers, but "Katamari" lets you flatten an entire mob of people with a single ball.

The story could have been ancillary to suit the game play but "Katamari" managed to incorporate an equally quirky story and cast of characters into the snowball simulator. An aloof King of Cosmos has drunkenly destroyed the stars of space and tasks his pint-sized son to roll up balls of junk on Earth as replacement stars. The bizarre character designs and geometric style they have made them endearing to me so that I look forward to the wacky antics and low budget cut scenes that fleshed them out.

With the success of "Katamari Damacy" spawned sequels and spin-offs. My favorite was the second game "We Love Katamari," where the game became self-aware of its fans and catered to various game plays including one stage of making a snowman by rolling up a snowball. Its voyage to portable gaming like the PSP or the iPhone were less than stellar due to failing to adapt the simple controls to the portable devices. I never did get around to playing the Katamari game for the Xbox 360. It was a combination of disappointment and glee that the PS3 Katamari game "Katamari Forever" turned out to primarily have many old levels from the PS2 Katamari games with only a few new stages. It's great to have pretty much three Katamari games in one disc, but a few more levels really could not have been that hard to design.

But to this day I still find myself rolling up balls of junk while humming the catchy theme.