Beautiful Katamari Demo Impressions
The fourth installment of the Katamari series, Beautiful Katamari is heading for the Xbox 360 this Fall. A tiny demo hit the Xbox Live Arcade this week and may have been overlooked with the beefy Bioshock demo. This may very well be the shortest demo to hit the marketplace, at a miniscule 3 minutes of playtime, but what a time you will have.
The game looks great in high def on the 360. The colors are vibrant and just pop off the screen. There wasn’t much of a graphical overhaul to the game, so it sticks close to what made the previous entries look so great. Expect more of the same visual style with big blocky people, pixellated textures, and the diorama-style level design. You will notice all sorts of hilarious scenes set up around the city level. At one point I was rolling past a tree trunk and I noticed a dinner spread of two candelabras, with two glasses and a bunch of carrots lying on top. Directly below were a group of bunnies hopping in place, joyous at the meal they were about to partake. The game looks cleaner though, with more clearly defined textures and a solid framerate. The dual analog controls are tight and responsive, making it quite easy to handle your ball.
They didn’t try to change the formula with this one, which is good. The King of All Cosmos still has the final word on your Katamari and has all of the sassy quips your have come to expect. He even promised us that there will be an online multiplayer element to the game. Hopefully it will be more than the arena fights that were included in the first and second game.
Toots
Posted to Video Games on 16 August 2007
Other stuff like this: Beautiful Katamari, demo, xbla, Xbox 360
