Developer: Namco Bandai
Publisher: Namco Bandai
Platform: Xbox 360, Possibly: Wii and PS3
Genre: Action/Adventure Strategy/Puzzle
Rating: E for Everyone
Number of Players: 1-4
Release Date: October 16, 2007

Beautiful Katamari Gallery

Fans of Katamari Damacy will wait no more -- Jun Moriwaki is here to fill the gap with Beautiful Katamari. Being the fourth installment, the gameplay doesn't seem to have changed much; you're still the Prince rolling around picking up anything and everything in the way of your Katamari ball, and you're still jamming to the trippy pop music the game has too offer. Oh, and don't forget new quirky one-liners from the king.

Of course though, another Katamari Damacy game could never be good without ANYTHING different, right? Beautiful Katamari introduces fifty new cousins to help you out, new items, new levels, and a new story – kind of.  Your pops, the King of All Cosmos is a wrecking shop and just happened to create a black hole with a tennis swing. So it's up to you to stop it, or at least clean it up. The game happens to be in 720p, which allows you bigger Katamari growth and more in-depth levels.

Beautiful Katamari introduces new characters, fifty to be exact, and they're all playable and have different animations and styles. You can play through the game with different cousins by your preference of choice. As stated earlier, the levels are more in-depth, this means more objects to grab and more interactive environments. We're also introduced to a new soundtrack, but don't worry, it's of the same genre of your favorite Japanese Pop.

We must get into the multiplayer part of the game though. Both online and offline aspects of the game include lots of new features. Players are able to look at a few leader boards: one for how many cousins you unlock in the single-player game, and another for versus mode score rankings. Offline multi-play lets you battle it out or play co-op with each other. Online multi-lay allows you to play with up to three players, battling against each other to get the biggest Katamari, and letting you play mini-games while you wait for others to play with. With this game being on Xbox 360, there’s bound to be downloads from Xbox Live, and there are. Not completely stated, although I'm guessing a game like this, you will be able to download new music, cousins, levels and power-ups. As stated on their official site, they mention an 'ever changing world' which makes me think they will implement that into downloadable content.