Rolling don’t come cheap

I was stupidly excited about the release of Beautiful Katamari. Firstly because the idea of such a bright and colourful game being in lush HD made my eyes water at the very thought and hot on the heals of playing Eternal Sonata I had developed a taste for vibrant florid graphics. Secondly is my shameful need to garner gamerscore. I hated the idea that although I’d played Katamari before on both the PS2 and the PSP it had got me not one point of gamerscore and here was my chance to rectify the situation with the 360 version.

As I settled down to play I was as enthralled by the graphics as I had hoped to be and it was nice to see the old King of Cosmos again. I had missed him so and there’s nothing like a royal rainbow to brighten up your day. I found as I worked through the levels that it was all a bit familiar and as I rolled on the penny dropped, or should I say the penny got rolled up and I realised that the whole game was set in the one level. Ok that level did start off in a house move outside to a garden , then to a town, then a city, then country, continents, then the planet and finally the galaxy but still I felt I was rolling up the same area over and over. There was a much wider variety of levels in previous itinerations of the game. You could almost let it go as being a poor version of a once great game but worse than that it turns out there are plenty of other levels to be had in Beautiful Katamari, more cousins and presents to collect and achievements to unlock. You’ll just have to pay for them and download them from the marketplace. Now I have no objection to downloadable content but in this case you’ll be downloading what is basically the other half of the game you expected to find on the disc.

As chagrined as I am with the situation my rolling (and scorewhoring) obsession is likely to overwhelm all other feelings and I’ll shell out for the rest of this game but then a girl has to have some vices. Royal Rainbow!