Beautiful Katamari

Loralei Hurlock

Gaming Literature

Lit & Media

11.26.10

I played a game I purchased while I was sick this summer called Katamari. I would not say it is a piece of Literature. Honestly, it almost doesn't have a purpose, but it can keep you entertained for sure. A katamari is a ball like structure that your little person rolls around collecting things, just anything. You learn the basics in a level, but they usually start you off in a room and you can only collect small things, but the bigger you get the larger the object can be. Also, that bigger you get the more places you can explore. For instance, you can start in a toy/candy store and have to pick up things in that room until you reach a certain size, it'll allow you to leave the room and explore some more. However, the overall objective is to roll up planets, stars and moons by doing these levels and achieving the task (I'll explain that in a minute) and get them as large as you can, because in the final level it all ties up together. You basically start off at the start, but you end up having to roll the entire galaxy up, in hopes that your Katamari will be big enough to plug up the black hole. It's quite a ridiculous game with a funny Japanese Pop-ish soundtrack and the there's also a couple ways to achieve the tasks. For instance, in some levels you have to make it a certain size within a certain time limit. Another one specifically, you have to roll up hot things to make it 10,000 degrees K, but if you pick up cold things you lose heat and if you fall into the water you automatically fail. Most of the levels show you specific things to pick up for example: Japanese, Riches, Food, Plants and things of that sort. It's a very addictive game, I think because it compels people to achieve a goal, yet they are so simple and mindless. I know my competitive side wants to redo all the levels to get a bigger Katamari, but I wouldn't put that in the category of Literature at all. It doesn't even follow a story line or connects with anything else I've ever played or read.