Katamari Damacy 2 – First Screens Inside!

have you played the game or do you usually let your ass do the typing? I'll admit right off that i havent gotten to try it but one of my best friends owns it and he loves it, says its fantastic. Also the multiplayer part is supposed to be great as well. just cause a game has simple game play doesnt mean it doesnt have any game play. infact makeing a game fun to play for a long time with very basic controls is one of the hardest things to do. you know how many hundres of games they made for the atari 2600? how many can you remebr playign and likeing? (providing your even old enough to even answer this question) maybe 10-20 tops. Super moneky ball is one of the most perfect games i have ever played and all you do is roll a ball. I assure you the average GTA/Def jam vendetta fan doesnt get all excited about how KEWL katari darmacy is!

Have to agree with LUPOS, you hit the nail on the head.

In this day and age it's become harder to judge a game on graphics alone. Katamari is one of those games that's fun but because it's weird, japanese and marketing people don't know how to sell it or if it will sell. Tetris and Monkey Ball are also to brilliant games that were hard to sell because they aren't story driven or really graphic driven, but both done very well once given a chance.

All I can say to you Autobot is to go to an import store and try it out. So many games look boring but are a dream to play, that's part of the beauty of gaming, hidden gems like Ico, Metal Slug or Viewtiful Joe etc that spread by word of mouth and not really mainsteam media. Titles like these make the gamer feel they know a secret that not many know. It was once like this with ISS on SNES, while many were still lapping up FIFA, way before it became mainstream fodder that is Pro Evo.

Try it if you can be bothered to, but try to open you mind and let the zany japanese rolling begin.

I'm sorry if I wored my thoughts wrong, I have a tendency to do that. In a detail descriptin of what I ment is. Games that have no purpose other than being a long minigame (meaning no story or little of one, and only one very basic style of gameplay) sell well based of reviews. Nostolgic games (prior to the 8 bit era) and quirky limited games sell like crazy because of many reviewer giving them awesome reviews. I know its not a popular thought but honestly, how long do you really expect to play these games? Non of them offer anything other than a quick burst of fun before getting boring and stale.

I hate it when people say _______ game from Atari 2600 or such era game is soo awesome that it eclipses anything done today. Thats your opinion and it is valid, but to say that as a generalization is not right. I would rather play Halo 2 or San Andreas for 3 hours than play Pac Man or Galaga for 3 hours.

What I was getting at is this, I find it a greatly sad that games that offer no replay value or games that don't push the bourndry of creativity recieve higher scores than games that actually try to go for the gold.

Also I get irritated when games just sell because its the new cool thing.

P.S. (while I'm extremely unpopular)

Franchises that need to end,

Tony Hawk, Mario, Mega Man, Final Fantasy, Street Fighter, and Tomb Raider. They all used to rule but now they suck.

i think you are taking things out of context. i dont know that you are talkign about me specifically but it seems to be in refference to what i said. I dont mean to say galaga is the best game ever made and we dont even need to bother making new games. what im saying is that the basics of what make a game good are very easily represented by such games. The potential to make the control in monkey ball feel wrong was definitly there, as was the potential for the level design to be bad. they also coudl have easily made it very unpleasent to look at even to the point wher the graphics made it dificult to play. the point is they got all of those things write and made a very fun game that i did indeed play for way more than 3 hours. to this day me and my friends will still throw in moneky ball 2 and play some moneky target, one of the most enjoyable mini games ever made, maybe even better than some full on flying games. The point is that the amount of gloss and features put on a game arent what make it good its the core mechanics of it. No they didnt spend a fortune on Katamari but neither will you. its only 20$ in the states which is a very fair price for a game that you coudl defiinitly play for many many hours.

The main draw of it is that ever time you play it will indeed be different and there really is an infinite number of ways to play it. its part strategy part puzzle and part action game(especially when playing competitively multiplayer, the ability to get bigger first and toll over your aponent is fantastic). This also isnt like alien hominidi which is just a new version of several old games that already exist. This is a game that has never been made in any form and could not properly be done on an old 16 system in 2d.

as for the story it is very silly and ridiculous but the game was designed as a game and any bit of charcter and story where most likely come up with after words as filler. This is after all a game. Just like baseball or football is a game. we dont change the rules of football every year to make it more exciting cause it is a well designed formula that makes for and infinite amount of possibilities for fun and excitment. Just cause somethign is a video game doesnt mean it needs to be beatifull or tell you a story. The joy of the medium is that it coudl be anythign a good artist wants it to be.

I love games like halo2 that are huge and dramatic and tell a great story (all though not as completly as i would like in the case of halo2), but i also like games that are just fun. As long as games like this that didnt cost a fortune to make dont cost me a fortune to buy i say the more the merrier!





im with you on some of those, most noteably Tomb raider and mega man (which i never liked to begin with) but i cant support you on tony hawk. while i have no intrest in buying a new version every year i dont see tony hawk as normal game but as a sports title. the kind of thing fans of that sport will want a new version of on a yearly bassis. I dont give to craps about madden each year but i dont think they should stop making them.

No way, dude! I'm a BIG Tony Hawk fan, and a lifelong fan of skateboarding. But skating isn't like Soccer or NFL where all the players change teams every year, and the fans are so anal that they MUST have the latest version that shows their favourite player in the right colour/numbered jersey.

That's a crap way of thinking designed purely to make EA more money every year re-selling the same tired old game.

I bought the first four TH games, but I began to feel like a mug. Unless there is a major gameplay development, I'm keeping my money in my pocket. And let's face it, what are they going to do? The basic game is faultless, now they just keep adding needless bells and whistles

i cant skate board to save my life but i have always have friedns who where big on it and I used to be pretty well informed on things, way back to the point of knowing the names of the skate guys in police academy (it was one of the first ones, where they where in a mall at the beging or something, one of them was gator i think, long time ago), i also rember Oli airwalk and skateboard shoes that wheren't made of suede! That said i have known people who love skatboarding and are very happy to have a series that does a good job to not only represent the activity well but that also keeps up with the culture of the (extreme?)sport. I personaly see no need to buy any Hawk game after maybe 3 where they added the revert, but there are those that realy enojy the addition of BAM. Not because it made the game any better but becasue he is kind of a big name in skatboarding right now. in a few years there may be some new idiots that are known for it and maybe even the board will be different (remeber back in the day when they where semi-unidirectional?). point is i might not give a crap to buy a moderate update each year but there is an audience for it. it might do the developer well to make some of the less dramatic yearly upgrades available at a cheaper price. Maybe 30 bucks for THUG2 would seem a more reasonable deal? I just imagine that over time it will become more and more like other pro sports thanks to its slowly gaining popularity (my 12 year old little brother has never even tried to skate board but he happily went to the x-games last year).

In the not to distant future maybe there will be different teams that compete agianst each other, sorta like nascar has teams. maybe players will get traded and maybe it will get mroe airplay. Then peopel will long for the glory days and then EA can come out with the "street" version of it which will be just liek tony hawk is today! The circle of life is an ugly anus like thing if you ask me.

Incase its not clear, im not saying this is a good thing at all, im just saying its a scary reality that may come to pass.

It was the Bones Brigade in Police Academy 4 - more of them later. Tony Hawk was in it, and Caballero, Mike McGill (inventor of the McTwist. Remember - he gets a namecheck in Heaven is a Halfpipe - gonna twist out like Mike McGill), Lance Mountain and Tommy Guerrero - who now makes passable music albums himself, try Soul Food Taquiero.

Mark Rogowski wasn't there, but he was in Gleaming the Cube as was Lance and McGill (again) and Rodney Mullen, Natas, Eric Dressen and Stacy Peralta.



Dude, I'm wearing a pair of canvas Vans "Dogtown "Era" right now...




But he's a big name BECAUSE he was in Tony Hawk's, not vice verse. As a skater, he looks good compared to the kids down outside 7-11... but compared to the pros he kinda sucks... he's there for comedy value only. I'm not dissing him... it's great that we have a sport where you can become famous for being a clown... don't get much of that in the NHL, or in Pro Soccer.



Again, I have a lollipop stick, but there are still a lot of riders, me included, who favour bigger directional boards.



Agreed. Or an add on disk for people who had already paid for THUG, and a stand alone for £40.



I guess you are right, but that will be to the eternal shame of skateboarding. It just shows the power of marketing, and how if it can't control something, it wil co-opt it. Skatebarders used to be outsiders, reviled in every community. Totally uncool. Skaters did it because they HAD to, it was in their blood and they couldn't help it. Despite chicks not digging it (which they didn't before it got on MTV - now they love it). And like so many sports (Snowboarding, Wakeboarding) there was no big money in it. To be honest, even today only 20 or so skaters make a 'good' living from the sport.

Corporations have sent their evil marketing minions to go out and "buy" skateboarding so they can market to this unreachable demographic... but skating gets left to the preppies and the valley girls... the real X-trememists move on, now to Kiteboarding and Kitesurfing.



There have always been teams. Right back to the origins of modern skating. The Zephyrs, the Bones Brigade. But skating isn't a team activity... when you're out there, it's just you, the board and the concrete. And skating is one of the few sports where you'll see skaters openly and genuinely congratulating the person who just knocked them off the number one position... because they are genuinely stoked for that person. Once big money takes that out of the sport, turn the light out and close the door.



I think you're right, I hope you're wrong.

Heh, skating. The last board I owned was a Vision Johnny Kop back in '91/92. Indy trucks. Not sure on the wheels, I think they were Slimeballs Big Balls.

Get it out. Ride!

If anything, the new avatar makes you more lovable.

WOW!
i am thouroghly shamed by my comparably low knowledge. I didnt realize anyone on here was that up on it, all though in retrospect i should have assumed. I woudl have been more into it if i could do it at all :P
I really feel like trying to learn now, i always wanted too when i was younger but i think the fear of injury and public embarasment kept me from it. Thanks for the flash back, im going to borrow my friends board tonight, if you dont hear from me tomorrow ill have someone post the adress of the hospital so you can send flowers.

i dunno, i preffered the last one.

For some of us, it's a way of life. Here's fat balding middle-aged me on my ramp in my back garden.

You can't get air on that, you'd go flying into the next garden !! You need some vert, dude ;-)

You are kiddng, right? Just ollie at the lip ;-)

Plus... to fly into the next garden, I'd have to jump clean over the swimming pool.

Ok, so you have a 1/2 pipe AND a swimming pool:

Well, you know... you get awful sweaty on a halfpipe.

i love where this convo has gone...

i still love you kid, especially the way your new icon so easily conveys so many emotions!

Dee: looking at your picture from med school i wouldnt even know that was you skateboarding there! some day when i become and evil docotr i hope i can afford a half pipe and a swiming pool(prefferably indoor on both). thankfully i don't think i actully have to go to college to be an evil docotor, perhaps theres a karma meter of sorts in that DS surgery game they are making, woudl be fun as hell messign people up intentionaly, hook someones bladder up to their lungs so whenever they drink anything it slowly drowns them! see im full of good ideas, why hasnt nintendo called me back!?!
______

I saw a program on TV recently that pointed out that having a swimming pool added to your house REDUCES it value (I'm in the UK at present - but going to sunny Australia for Christmas!!!).

Apparently, because the weather in the UK is sooo s**tty, people only use the things two days a year. Because they have so little sun, it costs a ton of money to heat them. Plus because so few people have pools over here, they don't have pool cleaning services, so buyers see the up-keep of the pool as a drag. So building a pool reduces the value of a house.

Weird country!

I hope it is not Playstation-exclusive again. The XBOX market is pretty big now so let's hope they'll do it for that platform.

The MUSIC is the star of this game, not the graphics. (though the graphics are neat) I hope KD2 has just as much of the same wacky-yet-cool music as the first one. I play that game with the volume CRANKED!!!