I should have been a pair of ragged claws

The rolling, sticking, never-stopping, ever-swelling clump of stuff that makes a star of out everyone and everything. Namco's Katamari Damacy is one of the most original and charming games that I've ever played. During the game, you roll around a sphere around various places. Smaller objects, like tacks and matches, stick to it, bigger things don't. Yet your katamari grows as things stick to it, and the once unassailable blockades become fodder for your ever-snowballing pile of junk. The initial enaging element is, haha, look what I just rolled over and squished onto my ball. The secondary element of the continuous increasing of scale is surprisingly and lastingly engaging. Often you'll start a level rolling over tacks, rolling around the heels of towering humans. After a minute or two, you're knee high to them, then soon enough you can knock little children over and consume them! Then cars! Then buildings! The epiphany that occurs when you realize that what once wa

Miziguchi called my bluff and did have something in the bag. While Rez was a music/shooter, his new development team (Q-Entertainment) is seemingly mixing a Tetris-style puzzle games with his electronic music vibe. SPOnG reports: [F]rom what we can make out, the player interacts with a set of blocks in order to manipulate a graphic equaliser, therefore impacting on the game?s soundtrack in some way. I'm somewhat disappointed to find that the gameplay appears to be one of the least interesting in any gaming genre. Falling blocks is so 1988. Still, Miziguchi turned a rail shooter into one of the most enthralling experiences, so there's more than a chance he can pull through again. I'm quite disappointed that this is going to be a PSP title. With an awesome Christmas season and the DS being released, the thought of burning $400+ on a PSP just to get some personal time with Miziguchi's latest is torture on the pocketbook.

Update : This game is coming to the US (?!?) as "Feel the Magic: XY/XX" and IGN has some interesting gameplay details. Alright, I may have dissed Nintendo's approach to the DS, but the few games that have been announced may make the system the official DeathMonkey Best Console of All Time Forever Plus. Why? Because the games sound so friggin' weird. I thought the surgery game would be the most bizarre title to launch on the system, but it ain't got nothing on the Sonic Team's Kimishine . This is a dating sim where you try to hook up with a chick by RUBBING THE SCREEN . Woah. While this game has got to be more appropriate than it sounds, but with a one-line description like that, I'd be shocked to ever see it on a WalMart shelf. The original working title was "Project Rub", which the team claims it was an Engrish pun with "Project Love". Gotta "rub" puns that reinforce racial stereotypes! Ok, I'll s

Sony revealed a new PS2 form factor (informally dubbed the PStwo) to be released in mid-November. The original form factor suffered from a nouveau/retro 1980's VCR sort of look, but this razor thin sleek new shape makes me want one all over again. If anybody has any ideas on how to convince Bessie to get me one, drop me a line.

A recent WalMart faux pas showed that the Nintendo DS is releasing at the end of November with a retail price of $199.99. Regardless of the validity of this specific information, several industry analysts agree the Nintendo DS is launching by the end of the year. The trouble is, in this most crowded of Christmas seasons, Nintendo hasn't brought the hype. There's no "gotta-have" flagship title announced that tend to drive these sort of launches. (Then again, the last Nintendo system to have one was the N64's Mario 64.) The noise generated from E3 has subsided and there has been an acute silence on the PR front for one of Nintendo's most important hardware launches to date. Sending a clear message to gamers that the DS is cool and desirable will be difficult to convey with the hundreds of millions of dollars being spent by other game companies through the typical media formats this Christmas season. Convincing gamers that they should spend $200+ on new hardware

Update - Here's a movie of the game from the SCEJ web site. Looks awesome! The second game by the Ico team is Wanda and the Colossus . And the details from Quarter to Three's Japanese wunderkid, Kitsume : In the game there are only three characters the designers characterize as "living" (and one of them they do so vaguely). The rider of the horse, the horse and a girl found in a wasteland altar, who they say of, "Is she living? Is she asleep? It looks like a girl who has completely lost her soul..." So the main character wants to resusciate here somehow and determines to fight the "colossus." The horse will form an important support role and by pressing the R1 button, you'll be able to get a grip onto a colossus. Then you'll be able to try and climb it and find its sweet spot. The designers say they want to make the giant golem-like creatures seem less like monsters and more like mysterious entities, as well as they aim to create the fie

OK, I was wrong . Pikmin 2 is great and is what the first game should have been. All that was wrong about the rushed, incomplete original is fixed in a beautiful, decadently polished experience. The thirty day time limit of the first game is gone; take your time exploring the worlds and collecting treasure. Once you get the original three Pikmin types, the game opens up to be a refreshingly non-linear experience. Go anywhere, do what you want to do, just get enough money to pay off Olimar's company debt. To replace the tension lost by removing the time limit, the overworlds in Pikmin now have a few dungeon entrances tucked throughout them. Only the Pikmin in your current group can be brought into the dungeon and you have to play it smart because you can't grow new Pikmin underground. The dungeon floors, in a surprisingly turn, are laid out randomly. Most of the time a floor contains a landmark puzzle or enemy encounter, but the position and order of the elements change each tim