Heroin Hero

This Review is really of Beautiful Katamari for the Xbox 360, but the game is essentially Heroin Hero, because you continue to play it, knowing there are better gaming experiences out there. Something in this game draws you towards it, and you enjoy it like sweet, sweet candy. All right, not candy as much as....well heroin. But heroin, ladies and gentleman, is a hell of a drug.

         Here's the complicated premise of this game, ready? You are a little guy with a ball(called a katamari) that rolls stuff up. There's a little bit more to it than that sure, but this is basically what you do. You go down to earth from this planet and roll up things. You start with small things like chess pieces and sticks of gum until you can roll up dogs, people, cars, buildings, sea monsters. In this version for the first time you actually get so big that you roll up planets. Nothing is as satisfying as having a game tell you that you rolled a katamari as big as 1,368 Uzbekistans. 

         This game has caught a lot of heat for not changing much from past games (Beautiful is the fourth installment) but to me they changed just enough. The main menu has become interactive as you wander from area to area and take on the new "missions". The main issue with the game is it's length. It's really only about a 10-15 hour game, depending on how much of the extra stuff you decide you want to do. Which is actually an upgrade from the old Katamari titles. So you can at least give Bandai credit for pinpointing the problem, they just didn't add enough. Your average gamer will finish this game in about a day and a half. Then again, your average gamer will finish this game in a day and a half due to not being able to stop playing it once they begin playing it. 

         Basically no game is released on 360 now without some sort of online gameplay that we can only assume Microsoft forces them to throw on there so more people will purchase xboxlive. Don't get me wrong, xbox live is a worthy investment in my mind, but this doesn't change the fact that Microsoft is greedy as hell, but I digress... The multiplayer on Beautiful Katamari is slightly entertaining at best. You go online to other "planets" and sit and wait for more people to join the lobby until the host decides it's enough people. Then you try to knock things off of the other player's katamari. Not exactly worth anyones' time unless you are friends with a bunch of six year olds with xbox live, and most of them are playing halo 3.

To wrap it up, great game, but short. Certainly not worth $60, but not bad for the $40 it is currently at. This game won't amaze you, but I would say it's worth purchasing. There's a demo on xbox live, so if you're interested in the game, check it out before pulling out your wallet.

Beautiful Katamari for Xbox 360

7.5 out of 10