61 Frames Per Second : katamari damacy

The All New Retro: Bust-a-Groove and Low-Poly Love

John Constantine — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 00:00:00 GMT

I won’t deny it. My gaming tastes are a little unusual. Take my emulation aversion. Does a normal person spend months and months tracking down a rare and expensive cheat device so they can play an imported SNES game when they could download a ROM and SNES emulator in about ten seconds? No. This is not how a normal person behaves. As I slowly morph into something approximating an adult, I’ve been noticing another strange predilection in my gaming brain: a love of low-polygon graphics.

Some games do not age with grace. Their mechanics, and especially their graphics, develop the distinct taste of vinegar when they used to be wine just five years before. Yet the games of the 32- and 64-bit era, games that I thought were repulsive even at the time, are starting to take on a strange allure. Take a look at this screenshot from Tomb Raider 3 as a prime example:

It’s a relic, no pun intended. The cliff face is made of perfect right angles, covered in muddy textures doing their best to look like rock. Lara herself looks like a drawing dummy. This screenshot should be a text book example of why early polygonal graphics are best-forgotten growing pains from the medium’s adolescence. Given, low-poly graphics like these have survived. Most 3D Nintendo DS games are comparable to this screen, though they can be much better. Square-Enix’s Final Fantasy IV is not unlike graphics seen in the best the Playstation and Nintendo 64 had to offer ten years ago. DS games of its ilk though feature graphics of necessity, not of stylistic choice. Style is where I see the potential beauty of low-poly graphics. Ugly as they are, they could make for a whole new style of retro game design.

In the same way that Retro Game Challenge and Mega Man 9 have leveraged NES-level visual limitations to inform and color compelling game designs, I can see a designer intentionally choosing a low-poly presentation to inform their game. Instead of the game looking antiquated and ugly, you have a ready made cubist style that can make for extremely expressive games. Just look at Katamari Damacy.

Bust-a-Groove, Enix’s long forgotten rhythm game pictured at the top of this post, is what got me thinking about the potential of low-polygon design. Its models are primitive, but appealing in their simplicity and expressive thanks to the game’s excellent motion captured dances. Imagine if that game hadn’t come out in 1998. Say it came out in 2016. Would we say it’s ugly? Or would we say approvingly, “That’s old school.”? Retro even.

Mark my words, dear reader. It’ll happen. And it will be, if nothing else, interesting when it does.

Related links:

Not All Games Age Well
Question of the Day: Why Can’t I Emulate?
The 61FPS Review: Retro Game Challenge
Continuing the Old-School Conversation
Don’t Call It Retro: Mega Man 9 and Design Resurrection

Trailer Review: Katamari Damacy Tribute

John Constantine — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 22:00:00 GMT

Keita Takahashi made the right move in separating himself from Katamari Damacy. More of a good thing isn’t always what the world needs. Game sequels are, in principle, about improving on a solid foundation, molding an imperfect idea into something that is greater than its predecessor. Katamari Damacy was pretty much perfect on the first try and Takahashi knew that trying to bottle that lightning in a follow-up would end in failure. He did end up working on the first sequel, We Love Katamari, but he did it for the fans, not because he thought he could make a better game. Namco went ahead and made two more Takahashi-less Katamari games. They were not what you’d call great. Katamari Damacy Tribute, however, looks very promising.

Colorful cel-shading in place of Damacy’s usual subdued pastels is a nice start. Remixed classic Katamari tunes is even better. Most exciting though is the premise of this entry being a tribute to the original, and not an attempt to reinvent the wheel. When you have a game that’s more or less perfect as is, and you want to keep making money off it, the best thing you can do is just remake it with a nice graphical overhaul and some decent extra content. This is what is known as “The Nintendo Strategy”. Even without Takahashi on board, I have a good feeling about this one.

Related links:

Katamari in the Classroom
The 61FPS Review: Noby Noby Boy
Katamari Christmas - Rediscovering the Cosmos... Twice
Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2 and the Second Chance

Multi Multi Boy?

Derrick Sanskrit — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 21:30:00 GMT

A new "daydream" appeared on the official Noby Noby Boy website over the weekend. It's presented as a sort of comic strip and labelled "#1", implying there might be more of these to come. That's not actually all that interesting, though. What's interesting is the contents of this "daydream", which I've made into the animated gif seen below. Might this be a hint at a Noby Noby Boy update in the near future?

Multiplayer Noby Noby Boy? I'd be lying if I said the concept didn't fascinate me. I watched as a friend played Noby Noby Boy (with minimal control instruction from me) at my place for an hour this weekend, breathlessly absorbed into the colorful playground, scanning up and down GIRL's sleek physique, and generally winding his way around and devouring everything he could. The freeform gameplay practically begs to be shared, and playing together is certainly more fun than taking turns. Plus, cumulative lengths of multiple palyers on one machine at the same time can only expedite GIRL's growth (while she reached the Moon a week earlier than developers predicted, if players were to continue stretching at the same rate without losing interest to other games, it would still take over a year of playing to reach Mars, the next "goal").

Both of my sisters have found their ways into moderate obsession with Katamari Damacy, especially after discovering the two-player versus mode. I know they'll want to try Noby Noby Boy when next they visit me, and having multi-player will only make the experience that much better. Yes, we'll all be able to cooperate and stretch together and generally play, but just like most players do in the single-player game, multi-player sessions can find challenge in self-imposed goals. Longest stretch in five minutes wins! First to eat the giant chocolate doughnut wins! First to wrap themselves around a cloud three times wins! First to eat their own butt wins!

Hey, that poses an interesting question... would one BOY be able to eat another BOY's butt? Only in a game like this can I ask that question seriously. I love it.

Related articles:
61FPS Review - Noby Noby Boy part 1 and part 2
Screen Test - Takahashi's Nobi Nobi Boy
Katamari Christmas - Rediscovering the Cosmos... Twice
Katamari in the Classroom part 1 and part 2

The 61FPS Review: Noby Noby Boy—Part 2

Joe Keiser — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 17:00:00 GMT

Over the weekend, I spent half an hour tying my body around a cloud.

I’m not really sure why I did it, and I’m not particularly convinced I enjoyed it. Something inside me told me to do it, and after a fashion I succeeded.

And then I played Noby Noby Boy for a few more hours. And when I put down the controller I came to a realization: this is not something that can actually be reviewed, at least certainly not with the ease of other games.

Let me be clear: I am not the sort of person that believes that reviews should not have scores or grades at the end. I believe that most games are built with specific goals in mind, and that the value of those goals and how successful the game was in achieving those goals can be measured in a relatively standard way. It’s not objective, and there are exceptional games that bring trouble to the grading system, which is why you see so much hand wringing about review scores (note: that hand wringing is also valuable—it keeps scoring models contemporary and reviewers on their toes). It’s the same thing that happens at almost any school.

Noby Noby Boy is one of those exceptional outliers. There's little like it and almost nothing to compare it to. There’s also no implied contract here: you’re not trading $60 for the promise of a solid genre entry that meets all the bullet points and marketing hype. Noby Noby is $5, with the marketing hype being that it is “inexplicable” and the bullet points being “relax” and “have fun”. Without any expectations, it can’t be said that Noby Noby Boy is a failure. But can it also be said that it is a success?

As I am passing judgment here, I have to say that I don’t think it can. As it turns out the flashes of wonder I described in Part One of this review didn’t snowball into gloriousness—instead, they twinkled like stars in a vast emptiness. Noby Noby Boy feels like a toddler’s busy box, where all you do is see how things fit together. It has a sort of witless charm about it, but each time I was done fiddling with it (“fiddling” being the appropriate way to describe anything a player does with Noby Noby Boy) I didn’t feel like I had gotten anything valuable or even experienced anything notable. It just felt like mucking about with an unassuming toy that had an aesthetic similar to but not as well realized as Katamari Damacy. And I thought Katamari Damacy was brilliant even with the timers and size goals disabled.

Noby Noby Boy’s issue isn’t that it’s aimless. It just doesn’t give you the proper tools to let making the aims you create seem worthwhile. I’m going to give it a C, because five dollars does get you a certain amount of endearing cuteness and it does come through with its promise of “relax”. “Have fun” is rather more dubious, however.

I now expect much hand wringing.

Rating: C

Past Reviews:

Noby Noby Boy - Part 1
Big Bang Mini
Retro Game Challenge
Edge
Game & Watch Collection
Valkyria Chronicles part 1 & part 2
Karaoke Revolution Presents American Idol Encore 2
Prince of Persia
LittleBigPlanet part 1, part 2
Dead Space
LOL
Dragon Quest IV
Ninja Gaidan 2 part 1 & part 2
Metal Gear Solid 4 part 1 & part 2
Wii Fit
Grand Theft Auto IV part 1, part 2 & part 3

The 61FPS Review: Noby Noby Boy – Part One

Joe Keiser — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 18:00:00 GMT

So, Noby Noby Boy.

Noby Noby Noby Noby Boy.

Hoo, boy. Where to begin with this one?

Okay, so you know how the PlayStation Network Store has a sort of “poetry bar” section? You know, those little arthouse games that are all about music or movement, where there’s absolutely no sweaty biceps and no casting of firaga? Most people either love those titles for their innovation and high-mindedness, or hate them for their stark simplicity and liberal college pretentiousness.

Noby Noby Boy could well be the most polarizing of those titles. It’s the least game-like of all the games on the PlayStation Network Store (unless you count Aquatopia as a game, which unless you are a cat you probably should not). It’s not just that there are no goals. There’s no progression, at least not any you can make significant strides towards. Controls are floppy and obtuse. Graphically, it’s on par with a CG animation demo from the early 1980s.

On the other hand, it could become the only game in this loose “genre” that is uniformly beloved. The art style is undeniably charming and completely unintimidating. And because at first glance the game doesn’t seem to have any sort of message, it can’t bludgeon the player over the head with any sort of message.

Do you see why this is so difficult?

I feel like no matter how anyone ends up feeling about it, the first impression of the game will be the same for all: delirious confusion. For me it was a delighted delirious confusion. “What is that parrot doing?” “Whoa, I’m stretching!” “Oh no, I fell off the edge of the world!”

But shortly thereafter, the apparent lack of breadth of the situation began to take its toll. Self-instantiated goals all just seemed to be new and creative ways to battle the bizarre control scheme, and the small size and homogenous feel of the randomly generated maps quickly began to feel stale.

And yet, every time I was about to feel like I was truly done with this crazy dreamscape, Noby Noby Boy would do something unexpected and completely, brilliantly mad. So the earliest experience of the game is minutes of a kind of fruitless, trying experimentation followed by a random, sudden discovery that tickles your brain with new ways to experiment. Eventually it’s fair to believe that these discoveries will snowball into a flash of insight moment where Noby Noby Boy clicks—hence the multiple-part review.

It’s pretty rare that a five-dollar downloadable game requires a two-part review, but Noby Noby Boy is a pretty rare sort of work. The first impression of the game demands to be chronicled, but at the same time it feels like the sort of thing that needs time to really sink in before you understand why it’s worth playing. Next time: the sinking in.

Past Reviews:

Big Bang Mini
Retro Game Challenge
Edge
Game & Watch Collection
Valkyria Chronicles part 1 & part 2
Karaoke Revolution Presents American Idol Encore 2
Prince of Persia
LittleBigPlanet part 1, part 2
Dead Space
LOL
Dragon Quest IV
Ninja Gaidan 2 part 1 & part 2
Metal Gear Solid 4 part 1 & part 2
Wii Fit
Grand Theft Auto IV part 1, part 2 & part 3

Katamari Christmas - Rediscovering the Cosmos... Twice

Derrick Sanskrit — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 23:30:00 GMT

December 23rd, I'm home for the holidays, as are both of my sisters. I am just finishing my self-appointed task of the morning by clearing 100% of the Chroma Dam in de Blob when my elder sister asks what the gameplay is like and if she can learn. I begin to describe and then compare the feeling to that of Katamari Damacy. She is intrigued. I hand her the case to the original Katamari Damacy for Playstation 2. Her eyes light up as she pages through the manual. "Can I play this one?" "Sure." I turn off the Wii and go to make some tea. "Can I play it now?" "Oh, um...yeah, okay!"

A bit of background very quickly. My sister is not an avid gamer, but she is also not a n00b. She is at present the typical "casual" gamer. She plays Brain Age, Wii Fit, Guitar Hero and Scrabulous, but to the best of my memory she has not touched a traditional platformer since the original Super Mario Bros. And now here she was, playing a cult-hit Japanese game that required not one analog stick, but two!

Watching her play for the first time was a perfect case study in Katamari exposure: at first cautious of the unusual controls, then frustrated by the immense destructive properties of tiny household objects, then delighted to begin picking up the same objects that had once thwarted her, gradually gaining more and more control over her ball of junk. She yelped with excitement when first able to roll through a LEGO house, collecting each individual brick. She fumed at the King of All Cosmos and wondered aloud about the game designer's daddy issues. She began bopping and humming along with the notoriously upbeat and charming soundtrack. She failed at challenges repeatedly and exclaimed "One more time!", increasing her ball's size each attempt until completing the star to father's insincere approval. Her continued excitement over the game drew us all in, and soon enough our entire family was watching my sister roll up every scrap of household junk in the Takeda household.

She played the game every opportunity she had over the next five days. Mostly just making bigger and bigger stars, but occassionally the constellation challenges and a long morning of head-to-head multiplayer against our younger sister and me. When she started routinely kicking my butt in multiplayer, it was clear she'd fully wrapped her head around the game controls and mechanics, which unlike pretty much every other game out there are almost entirely unique to this franchise and unseen in games that don't include the word "katamari" in their title. She asked repeatedly if there was a version for DS or Wii so she could play it at home. When I said "not yet," she was relieved, knowing that owning a Katamari game of her own might result in never going to work again.

Inspired by this rediscovery of the modern classic (and some newly acquired iTunes gift cards), I downloaded the new I Love Katamari game (shown at left) onto my iPod Touch. It plays just like the Playstation version, only with tilt and touch controls and smaller environments. And it is fantastic. "Why doesn't everybody know about this game?" my sister asked, Dualshock controller back in hand. "I love it so much!"

So, Namco, I know you've been hearing thing for a while now, but you should really release a Katamari game for the Wii. The tilt controls from the iPod version would translate splendidly to a sideways Wiimote (with the minimal other controls mapped to the buttons), the bright, happy aesthetic will fit in wonderfully on the Wii, and casual gamers like my sister will absolutely buy and play the sweet heck out of it once made aware of what the game is. Strong word of mouth made the series a hit on other platforms, and that should carry over to the Wii as well, but there's a huge audience of Wii Fit and Guitar Hero players out there who've never heard of Katamari Damacy and would love it if given the opportunity.

Related Articles:
Katamari in the Classroom Part 1
Katamari in the Classroom Part 2
What Games Actually Appeal To Casual Gamers
What The Hell Does Casual Mean?

Screen Test: Takahashi's Nobi Nobi Boy

Cole Stryker — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 18:00:00 GMT

Wait, a second. Is that Pedobear?

Eccentric Katamari mastermind Keisha Takahashi has announced that his new game, Nobi Nobi Boy will hit the west sometime in early 2009 at around $9(USD).

We're all a little bit confused as to how this game is going to work, and these new screens do little to shed light on the game's core mechanics.

More Takashi Murakami-esque screens and a few very different videos after the jump:

Compare this video, released in '07:

With this more recent one from this year:

Completely different, right? The first video looks more like the new screens, and the latter one looks like an unimaginative cross between Snake and Pacman. Either way, I picture an army of kids singing that transcendent theme tune, annoying the crap out of their parents. I guess Takahashi had to pull out all the stops after the classic Katamari theme.

(via Kotaku)

Boogerman: Too Immature for Children

Bob Mackey — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 16:00:00 GMT

Yesterday's Virtual console release of the Genesis Boogerman was more than a little odd, mainly because everyone knows that the SNES version is the definitive Boogerman experience.

No, wait.

Yesterday's Virtual Console release of Boogerman was more than a little odd because it's hard to believe that Nintendo would ever admit this game existed--which may be why they chose to give us the Genesis version. I'd be willing to go on with the standard course of Virtual Console bitching--like how we still don't have Yoshi's Island--but Nintendo's holiday Wii offerings are so meager that I imagine they'll have to find some way of entertaining us this Christmas. I hope.

But what is there to be said about a game whose very concept should have been buried in the desert along with all of those infamous E.T. cartridges? I was 12 when Boogerman came out, which put me right in the game's "immature adolescent" demographic. But seeing the game (unrented) at my local video store usually filled me with a mix of sadness and shame I have since dubbed "boogermania;" and this really had nothing to do with the fact that I've always had the mentality of a 48 year-old curmudgeon. There was just something about a corporate-sponsored video game capitalizing on the simple joys of toilet humor that really rubbed me the wrong way. And even at a young age, I could tell when a concept was just trying waaay too hard.

I write this not to inform you of the shocking truth that Boogerman is a terrible concept and game, but to make you really think about Boogerman as a product. Someone had to pitch this. Someone had to design the characters. Someone had to design the levels. Some poor copy editor had to write detailed descriptions of Boogerman's powers for the instruction booklet. At Interplay sales department meetings, bar graphs were labeled with the word "Boogerman." The (what I assume had to be) poor sales may have stopped further oddities from being released, but Boogerman actually has some contemporaries of the same caliber. American McGee's Grimm is a strong reminder that Boogerman has taught us absolutely nothing as a people; for crying out loud, it's like a rom hack of Katamari Damacy where the main character pees everywhere when you're not moving. Oh, and somehow Grimm looks like a PS1 game but my computer acts like it was running 10 instances of Crysis the one time I tried it.

I guess this post was useful, after all; we learned that Boogerman is actually better than something. You're welcome.

Related Links:

Time For Terranigma! Right?
Oops, I Don't Like Super Mario RPG As Much As I Thought I Did
The Dividing RPG: Secret of Mana

Watcha Playing: The Palette Cleanser

John Constantine — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 21:45:00 GMT

The past six weeks have been teeming with meaty, action games. I’ve been working through them slowly but surely, like an elegant seven course meal. Star Wars: The Force Unleashed was thick, hot comfort fare, a brief appetizer of sloppy design coated in delicious Stormtrooper and rancor killing action. The game’s a buggy mess, really, the gaming equivalent of empty calories, but definitely satisfying. Then there was the dynamic horror duo of Dead Space and Silent Hill: Homecoming, a soup and salad combo built to terrify. They didn’t really scare, but instead delivered visceral body simulations. Both games succeeded by making you constantly aware of your avatar’s physical presence and the heft of their actions, and they achieved this through a careful synergy between atmosphere and play. Yakuza 2 was truly the main course, a game I had no expectations for whatsoever that turned into an all time favorite. Its broad adventure, pulp tale of cops and crooks, and simple but ceaselessly engaging fisticuffs were nourishing, more substantial than anything released on current gen consoles. For dessert, Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia. Another bonafide surprise, Ecclesia turned out to not be another retread through Igarashi’s decade-old formula, but a challenging successor to Castlevania 2 with fierce action whose variety and elegance was exceeded only by the game’s environments. Yes, it’s been a great month of big games, but it’s been the small things I’ve played in between them, games I’ve played for no more than a handful of minutes here and there, that have given the most *ahem* food for thought.

The palette cleansers, as it were, aren’t what you might expect either. These quick play sessions, no more than fifteen or twenty minutes, haven’t been with simplistic small titles. Far from it actually. The ones I keep returning to are Wipeout HD, Mega Man 9, the original Katamari Damacy, and Castle Crashers, all games that sport demanding mechanics, all games that get very stressful very quickly. Hairpin turns at high speed in Wipeout and precision jumps toward clandestine robot master confrontations don’t exactly seem like the ingredients for refreshment, but they’ve been restorative between the larger games. What makes these games perfect palette cleansers isn’t their immediacy, nor is it their lack of an expansive narrative. The key characteristic is that they don’t demand a serious investment in their world before and after. You don’t have to remember what you were on your way to do before your last save, what sidequests you’ve half completed. You simply need to know how to control them, and all of them take practice to control well.

Strange as it is to say, after recently starting a game of Fable 2, I immediately thought that it would make for an excellent palette cleanser. The game may be huge in scope and have a sweeping story to tell, but its play and guiding hand towards objectives don’t ask much of you beyond an understanding of the world’s rules. Molyneux’s made a sprawling RPG that’s less of a filet mignon and more of a small dish of sherbert. I’m wondering what other fall blockbusters may hide the same quality.

What are some of your favorite palette cleansers, everyone?

Related links:

The 61FPS Review: Dead Space
Katamari in the Classroom, Part 1
Style Over Substance: Why I'm In Love With WiiWare's "Art Style"
Screen Test: Star Wars – The Force Unleashed
Whatcha Playing: Weight of the Stone
Surprise of the Week: Sega Releases a Good Game
Impressions: Fable 2
Gears of LittleBig Fable Music: Considering the First-Party Blitz
New Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia Pics
Suffering Castlevania Fatigue

No Alternate Soundtrack: de Blob

Derrick Sanskrit — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 20:00:00 GMT

I can't stop playing de Blob. I've tried, honestly I have, but I'm convinced that de Blob will maintain control of my home console gaming time until LittleBigPlanet arrives and is likely for a powerful comeback even after that. Yes, as an art school graduate, I find a certain nostalgic rush in a game where the story involves splattering paint around a sprawling metropolis in order to take down an overbearing corporation with a military dictatorship over the land, and yes, the game's bright and enthusiastic roll-into-everything gameplay brings back the charm of the original Katamari Damacy, and yes, this game has easily the best art direction I've seen on the Wii since Super Mario Galaxy, but I'm not sure that those are what keep me coming back every day (though that is certainly enough, I imagine). No, what keeps me coming back, oddly enough, is the music.

In true "fight the power" fashion, bringing color to the world of Chroma City also brings music. Each color of paint is a different voice in the song, so the more purple in an area of town, the more electric guitar you'll hear. As you paint the town, the soundtrack grows and swells in perfect harmony. Each restored landmark brings with it another enthusiastic section of the orchestra, and each ink stain muffles the glorious light and sound in its vignetted black chokehold. About halfway through any given stage I find myself tapping my foot and shifting my hips to the beat (I always play Wii standing up, I have no idea why). It's really an aspect of the game that needs to be experienced. Here's a little demo courtesy of the cool kids over at GoNintendo of just the first section (of three) of the second area in the game (please feel free to skip around, as its a bit slow-going):

Notice how vibrantly the soundtrack changed from beginning to end. Need I reiterate, that's just the first third of the stage. Imagine how lively this can get by the time you've reached the exit pool. The music integration is a truly compelling element to the gameplay that drives me to complete every challenge I can and paint every surface I can in as many colors as I can on a daily basis. I cannot imagine this game being half as much fun without the music and sounds. If you have a Wii, go get de Blob, and play it with the volume cranked up.

Related Articles:
de Revolution WILL Be Colorized
No Alternate Soundtrack: Donkey Kong Jungle Beat
No Alternate Soundtrack: Chibi-Robo
Katamari In The Classroom part 1 and part 2

Katamari in the Classroom, Part 2

Bob Mackey — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 18:30:00 GMT

If you haven't read part one, I recommend doing that. Are we caught up now? Thank you.

Last week, I wrote about the ongoing We Love Katamari experiment I was conducting on my students; this week, I have the results. For this post, I've chosen a few of the more interesting responses from a group of 50 that's composed mostly of non-gamers. Their goal was to explain their experience with the game using the concept of "probing" (essentially, the scientific method) from Steven Johnson's book, Everything Bad is Good for You; basically, I wanted an account of an attempt to figure out the We Love Katamari. As I said before, things like this are always an interesting read to see how the "other side" reacts to our beloved hobby--especially when it's as outlandish as Katamari.

To begin, Student A guessed what could eventually happen later in the game, and picked up on the inherently dickish nature of the King of All Cosmos:

The king was involved in a lot of the talking. I was curious in whether we got to face him in later levels or something like that.

...This student also guessed director's Keita Takahashi's secret wish of being a playground architect.

The player has to walk around his surroundings. In this case it is like a big playground for kids.

Meanwhile, Student B grappled with the slight learning curve of Katamari's controls:

My first thirty seconds of playing the game were pretty tough. I couldn’t figure out the controls at all. I figured the left analog stick would be to move forward and backward and the right analog stick would be used to move left and right. I was wrong. The controls were so weird I still can’t fully explain how to move which way.

Student C, on the other hand, was feeling remorse over picking up one of the Prince's cousins with her sticky ball of doom:

Near the end of it, I picked up this little guy in a purple suit in my big pile of stuff. And he was wiggling around and yelling. I felt so bad for him, but I didn’t know how to get him out. Was I killing him? Poor little telletubby.

Finally, Student D's account is very funny in a self-effacing way:

Well I learned very quickly that the ball is like gum (the kind of gum you see in the wonka movie) and picks up everything I roll over. It must not be bad to pick stuff up with the ball because I would have been dead within the first minute. Through my journey in this weird game I tried to think to myself what to do next but for the life of me I could not figure it out and trust me I tried. I soon learned though that you can’t mess with some of the things in the game. Those giant sized scorpion looking things are no joke and there not very nice... The little masked dude popped up when I only had one minute left to tell me this important news but I found there was no hope for me. I looked and looked but I did not see what I was supposed to do. My head was wondering and pondering until the clock ran out and my short life with my wonka ball came to an end. So sad too bad.

And with that, our experiment has come to a close. I'll check back in with any other interesting happenings; we're doing video games for a few more weeks, and some of our more work-intensive projects haven't yet begun. To my students: you have been warned. And do your homework!

Related Links:

Katamari in the Classroom, Part 1
Katamari Cake Makes Us Indescribably Happy, But We Will Still Blog About It
The Revolution WILL Be Colorized

Katamari in the Classroom, Part 1

Bob Mackey — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 22:45:00 GMT

One of my goals is life is to turn the rest of the world into as big of a nerd as I am because--wait, why do I need to explain myself here? All I have to say is that my job as a teacher of college writing allows me to force video games on the afraid and unwilling, which is always a good thing. It's all part of making the world just as nerdy as me.

Of course, there's a method to my madness. The backbone of my course is a nice little book called Everything Bad is Good For You, which states that video games actually give our brains a cognitive workout, because they require a constant use of the scientific method. And because video games are all about teaching you things within the context of their use, I force my students to write a paper based on a game they choose to play in order to see some of the concepts of our texts embodied in action. But first, I make them play We Love Katamari.

Why We Love Katamari? Well, mainly because it serves up levels in neat little chunks that are a perfect experience for the uninitiated. Students come up one at a time, I tell them only that they have to use the analog sticks, and they're given three minutes to figure out just what's going on in this strange new rainbow-colored fantasy world. I then ask them to write me a little essay about their experience with the game, what they did in the world to test their abilities, and if they understood the "point" of the game. It helps that the 18 and 19 year-olds of the world are completely unaware of Katamari Damacy; in the three classes I've done this experiment in, only one person has ever admitted to even vaguely recognizing any game from the series.

My favorite part of this experiment is seeing how the "other side"--the non-nerds of the world--react to a game that's so video-gamey. A lot of the guys scoff at We love Katamari's weirdness, and, unable to believe such a game actually exists, think I programmed it in my own basement. The majority of the girls, who are usually the furthest from "hardcore gamer" you can get, show a little trepidation at first, but are soon laughing and talking to the screen while they twist and swing the controller left and right in an attempt to better control their katamaris.

The results of this in-class gaming session are incredibly fun to read, especially coming from the students who are video game virgins; but it's important to note that the point of this assignment is not to understand We Love Katamari, but to write a good narrative of an attempt to understand it. Next week, I'll pull some nice quotes from my students' work--with their permission, of course--and we'll see gaming through the eyes of the non-gamer. They outnumber us, you know.

Related Links:

The Revolution WILL Be Colorized
Personal Firsts: My Gaming Scrapbook, From A to Wii
Katamari Cake Makes Us Indescribably Happy, But We Will Still Blog About It

The Revolution WILL Be Colorized

Derrick Sanskrit — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 14:00:00 GMT

It's easy to hate on third-party games for the Wii. A vast majority of them are quick and dirty ports or poorly constructed party games with a noticable deficiency in the fun department. Maybe that's why I get genuinely excited when a high quality third-party game comes along. Boom Blox was a blast (oh god, I'm sorry about that), No More Heroes was enthralling, SSX Blur was a great deal of fun after you took the time to relearn the controls. Unfortunately, none of those games sold particularly well. Let's hope that's not the case with the next Wii sleeper hit, THQ's de Blob.

Originally a student project, de Blob is starting to look like a truly worthwhile gaming experience. While early videos looked fun but far from refined, the additional seven months of development have clearly made a huge difference in graphics, sound, and presentation. The most curious aspect of the game, moreso than its unusual hero and artistic revolution plot, is that de Blob is still a Wii-exclusive (there had been a DS version announced, but nothing has been shown yet and there's been no mention of it for months) with no real neccessary motion control. A quick flick of the remote makes your Blob jump, which could easily be replaced by a button tap. So if this third-party game could just as easily be made for the PS3 or 360, why is it Nintendo-exclusive? Personally, I don't care, as Sony and Microsoft have been hogging Katamari Damacy. which de Blob has drawn numerous comparisons to.

Check out this sweet new developer video for a preview of how excellent de Blob looks. It's getting harder to wait for that September 22nd release date.

Personal Firsts: My Gaming Scrapbook, From A to Wii

John Constantine — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 17:00:00 GMT

Written by Amber Ahlborn

At some point in the 1980s, the year nebulous in my memory, my mom bowled with her team every Thursday night. I loved Thursday nights because dad let me stay up late to watch M.A.S.H. and Benny Hill. Sometimes he and I would hop in the car and go visit mom at the alley, and that was the best. Dad would sit and watch mom bowl. Me? I would squeeze every last quarter I could get out of him. With a fist full of change and dollars soon to be converted into change, I’d walk down to the alley’s hamburger bar, snag a stool, and drag it through the glass doors into the arcade. Without deviation, I’d position my stool in front of the “Ostrich Game” and stay planted there until I ran out of money. I’m speaking of Joust of course, but at that age I could neither reach the controls without a stool to sit on nor read very well.

The Atari 2600 became my first home console. I had around a dozen games for it. I owned the usual suspects like Pac-Man, Pitfall, and Frogger, but I especially enjoyed playing Kaboom with my half brother. He was over ten years older than me and I put everything into trying to beat his high scores. Super Mario Bros. 2 ushered me into the NES era and I became a dedicated platformer fan with a little beat’em up on the side thanks to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

The Super NES became the first home console I bought with my own money (well, technically about 40% of it was my lunch money). With the SNES came a host of more firsts that introduced me to some of my greatest gaming loves. I discovered Metroid, The Legend of Zelda, and Mega Man X. Star Fox lead me into the third dimension and Chrono Trigger showed me that RPGs were not boring. While the N64 and Playstation fed me more of what I liked, the Gamecube and PS2 broadened my genre horizons even further.

Ico was the first game to give me a naturalistic puzzle environment to climb all over, and ever since I have loved these types of games. Pikmin primed me for future strategy titles and Katamari Damacy helped form my love of the really weird. With the advents of the DS and Wii the firsts keep rolling in.

What are your firsts? Did your tastes progress to ever widening genres or have you stuck with one obsession? Are you so new to gaming that everything is a first? It feels appropriate at this point in time to pause since the industry has recently experienced a few firsts itself. For the first time, graphical prowess is not the only draw for home consoles. The evolution of what games are and can mean to people marches on.

Looking off towards possible future firsts can be both encouraging and disheartening, depending on your perspective. As a primarily Wii gamer I’ve certainly hit both extremes. I’ve had the pleasure of playing my first “casual” games. I’ve also suffered my not-so-first frustrations with seeing deeper games watered down or shuffled to other systems. Even so, I keep a positive outlook and encourage all gamers, veteran and newcomer alike to keep the door open to firsts. You can never tell what your new love will be if you never bother to look. Give a try to that game you might be inclined to write off as “just not your thing”. It might be the very best thing you ever played.

For the first time ever, I played a video game with my mom. Every Sunday night we go bowling in my living room… and I always thought I hated sports games.