The latest and greatest in the Katamari Damacy series (or is it really just "Katamari" series at this point since only ONE game in the series has had the word Damacy in it) was released this week for the PS3.
The short short on the story for this entry - The King of the Cosmos falls into a coma after being hit on the head by a passing "dark star". The Prince and his cousins make a "Robo King" to take his place (nice right?) and the Robo King acts surprisingly correctly by destroying all of the stars.
So, you need to roll in both star-creating levels with Robo King (which are largely new) AND help Regular King revive via memory replacing levels (which are sort of "greatest hits" levels from previous entries with some new graphical and play mechanics).
Prince can now "jump" with a Wii-mote esque flick upward on the Sixaxis/Dualshock controller ... helpful in reaching higher areas.
I find that the controls are as tight as they've ever been, and Katamari rolling speed seems to be tweaked a bit (faster than usual) which I do like.
The game runs in HD 1080p and looks to keep a solid frame-rate throughout even the most densely populated levels. The new graphical filters are fantastic, everything from a more cel-shaded look to levels with a charcoal pencil look, black and white with punctuations of colors as you roll through and bring the scene to life.
There are also completely new levels where you don't "stick" anything to the Katamari, rather you use it as a sponge/watering can to "grow" flowers/grass/trees etc. one of those levels is available on the DLC demo on the PSN.
I'm a bit saddened by the lack of online multiplayer which was featured on the 360's Beautiful Katamari ... but I'm not sure if that really worked as well as it could have anyway.
There are some 2 player co-op and competitive modes but Lis and I haven't spent too much time with them (we've just been plugging away at the story mode). The game also features an online leader board ... which, I suppose is neat if for no other reason than to see how ridiculously huge other people have made their Katamaris.
I believe that Namco says no DLC levels for this version, and I'm pretty glad as Beautiful Katamari wound up being very expensive (over $60) if you bought the game at launch and all of the DLC packs.
So far there's enough new stuff in there to please a Katamari fan, and other than that it's the same great Katamari that you're (hopefully) used to by now.
Roll on!