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caraigOf late there's been a lamentation ion the game community, that there's nothing new. And for the most part this is true. There's just a finite amount of things you can do with computer games, though that's a really large 'finite amount.' Still, the games industry is in a bit of a slump of late, filled with realtime strategy games and first-person shooters.
Katamari Damacy (or Damachi) could be argued to be a remake of Pac-Man. Indeed, running around with a round object and gathering up items has been done before. But this game is just so... so... bizarre that it's fun, new, and refreshingly different.
The idea is totally oddball: the King of the Cosmos accidentally broke all the stars and it's up to the prince to replace them. And this is done by rolling around a ball, gathering up stuff to make a bigger ball, to gather up BIGGER stuff and making an EVEN BIGGER ball.... In one game you could potentially go from picking up thumbtacks to picking up -- I kid you not -- whole people. It's weird and yet it's fun. You have a time limit, but if you fail to get a ball of big enough size the King just tells you to go back and try again. You don't have to remember tons of button combinations, combo moves, finding random hidden things... you just PLAY it, and the fun is in playing it rather than attaining a goal.
This, I think, has become a major stumbling block for the 'fun-ness' of games of late, especially online RPGs. What is fun? Fun should be in playing the game. You should be able to sit down, start the game, and right away have fun just by playing it. Some games are like that, and for certain genres and specific games for some people you get that immediate fun. For some people 'fun' is just to play the game. (That's much like how Katamari Damacy is, at least for me.) Some people enjoy exploring the game-world. Some people enjoy the ffiddley bits and seeing the permutations of everything. Some people like to build up their characters and then trounce everything thrown at them. In short, everyone likes to sit down at a game and, for whatever that game happens to be, to start having fun. And if you enjoy having everything including the +2 Kitchen Sink of Slaying thrown at you, then that's cool! You're enjoying the game and it's giving you fun and the developers can't ask any more from you. Maybe I'm just worse at playing games than I think I am or should be (c.f. my previous rant about Dynasty Warriors: Empires, and the fact that my Counterstrike score seems to hardly go above half the number of my 'deaths' on my good days.) But for me I don't like being tormented in a game. I play a game to have fun. I'll put up with a surprising amount of misery with a game if I feel the goals are worthwhile and will make up for the hours of gameplay, but that usually means that the game is relegated to the sellback pile a bit quicker.
Anyway, Katamari Damacy. Just Plain Fun.
The idea is totally oddball: the King of the Cosmos accidentally broke all the stars and it's up to the prince to replace them. And this is done by rolling around a ball, gathering up stuff to make a bigger ball, to gather up BIGGER stuff and making an EVEN BIGGER ball.... In one game you could potentially go from picking up thumbtacks to picking up -- I kid you not -- whole people. It's weird and yet it's fun. You have a time limit, but if you fail to get a ball of big enough size the King just tells you to go back and try again. You don't have to remember tons of button combinations, combo moves, finding random hidden things... you just PLAY it, and the fun is in playing it rather than attaining a goal.
This, I think, has become a major stumbling block for the 'fun-ness' of games of late, especially online RPGs. What is fun? Fun should be in playing the game. You should be able to sit down, start the game, and right away have fun just by playing it. Some games are like that, and for certain genres and specific games for some people you get that immediate fun. For some people 'fun' is just to play the game. (That's much like how Katamari Damacy is, at least for me.) Some people enjoy exploring the game-world. Some people enjoy the ffiddley bits and seeing the permutations of everything. Some people like to build up their characters and then trounce everything thrown at them. In short, everyone likes to sit down at a game and, for whatever that game happens to be, to start having fun. And if you enjoy having everything including the +2 Kitchen Sink of Slaying thrown at you, then that's cool! You're enjoying the game and it's giving you fun and the developers can't ask any more from you. Maybe I'm just worse at playing games than I think I am or should be (c.f. my previous rant about Dynasty Warriors: Empires, and the fact that my Counterstrike score seems to hardly go above half the number of my 'deaths' on my good days.) But for me I don't like being tormented in a game. I play a game to have fun. I'll put up with a surprising amount of misery with a game if I feel the goals are worthwhile and will make up for the hours of gameplay, but that usually means that the game is relegated to the sellback pile a bit quicker.
Anyway, Katamari Damacy. Just Plain Fun.
