Naaaaa-Na-Na-Na-Na-Na-Naa - This month I've been playing Katamari Damacy till my eyes and fingers bleed and my brain collapses into brightly coloured candy mush capable only of detecting size differences in mushrooms and continuously regurgitating meaningless songs. Oh God the songs. They don't just get in your head, they seem to infiltrate your very being. I swear they're in my
bones.The reason Katamari is so addictive is that at it's heart is an exponential success curve - you always succeed just a little more than you think you're going to. You think to yourself " I can't possibly roll up a panda yet, or could I?" you try and you do and your brain floods with happy singing chemicals. Again and again and again, and then you realise you've missed sleep time and it's time for coffee and reality.
When you play a game for a long time there's always a slight bleed through into so-called 'real' life, the urge to 'take out' CCTV cameras, being inexplicably drawn towards first aid kits, rising covered in gore after being forced to eviscerate your infected co-workers with a staple remover; as a gamer, I'm used to this. But with KD you can never leave. The soundtrack is constantly looping through your mind and everywhere you go there are things to roll up. Commuters. Buses. Metro newspapers. Shops. Office buildings. Desks. Phones. Eviscerated co-workers. Everything, every day, everywhere you go. As Archimedes said "Give me a ball big enough and sticky enough and i will move the world"
Talking of big things...moving as smoothly as a radio DJ to another topic
I'm also in the midst of Shadow of Colossus - 9 down, 7 to go -so far Edge and Eurogamer still wrong- an 8?? I trusted you guys. Of course that's the rating Edge gave Ico then proceeded to bang on about it being the bestest game ever for the next five years...so maybe it's a mark of greatness.
What I really like about SoC is the shoddy control system. The horse doesn't always go where you want it to -he's no horse-shaped car like Epona, he has a mind of his own. There's a big giant made of bricks heading for him? He runs away! No matter what you want him to do. Try and get him to ride into a tree? He won't do it! He'll go round cos that's the better way to go. He's a pleasure to work with.
This one's my favorite so far- you come across him sitting on a huge dinner plate hundreds of feet above a lake. All the others seem to be in their natural environment, foraging for food, ambling through the woods or sleeping in caves, but this ponderous creature is just sitting. Alone. Why is he there? Did he go up there to think? To contemplate his impending demise? He has an air of sadness, I felt worse dispatching him than I did his brothers.
So, in conclusion, for those that care, this month in gaming IN: Big things. OUT: Small things (especailly small things that have recently come out in Japan replacing big things that some people have already bought and now will have to buy again. Boo!)
Even roadworks look nice
