Your method for carrying out this task? Rolling around a ball that things stick to. The trick is, you're a very small prince, so this ball (called a katamari) can't be too big, and subsequently, since it can't pick up anything much bigger than itself, you have to start small. VERY small. We're talking ants, thumbtacks, postage stamps, and caramels. Creating a star out of this stuff isn't easy. But thankfully, as the ammount of junk stuck to your katamari gets greater and greater, the larger the stuff you're able to roll over and pick up. In this way, the game's scale is immense and intense (excuse the accidental rhyming). In a matter of a few minutes, your katamari will be big enough to roll over mice, teddy bears, dogs, and little kids. In the following levels, as it gets bigger and bigger, you can pick up everything from cows to elephants to trees to houses and so on. In the game's later levels, your katamari becomes SO huge you'll be able to consume skyscrapers, uproot islands, steal rainbows, and even stick to mountains - freakin' mountains! If I'm blowing your mind, just wait till you try it for yourself. This is truly the only experience of its kind, and I've gotta' say it's executed pretty much without a fault.
9/10

Control
Like the gameplay, play control is a little unorthodox in this game. You basically don't have to use the numerous buttons on the PS2's controller at all. R1 gives you a brief overhead view of the area and L1 lets you look around in first-person (like both Wind Waker and Mario Sunshine allow you to do - without moving your character around). The main control is with the two analog sticks. It's not as if one does something that the other doesn't, but you have to use both in tandem to push your katamari around. The advantage to using two control sticks as opposed to one is hard to define, but it definitely grows on you and comes to "feel right" after a few hours. For one thing, cornering your katamari's rolling just perfectly seems only possible with two sticks at this point, having played the game so much. It's definitely an interesting idea, and moves the game in from "weird concept on paper" to "weird concept in practice". I'd have to say overall, I like it a lot.
8/10

Graphics
They've definitely got style, but the overall quality of the graphics is just disappointing. The game seems to try to take place in a "surreal real world" of sorts, but because real world objects have been reproduced so faithfully in games like Pikmin 2, Katamari just doesn't pull that off for me. And I guess I'm also too used to Nintendo's typically awesome animation, but oh man, this is animation at its worst in recent memory. I guess I can't be too hard on Namco, cause there's probably only a certain quality the visuals can reach on today's systems with so much shit on the screen all the time. And it's not like the graphics are flat-out bad, either - I'd say the style counts for enough. But let's face it, these are just not high quality graphics compared to everything else that's come out this year.
6/10

Sound
I know I pretty much say it for any game that has a reasonably catchy soundtrack, but the music in this game goes far and beyond what you'd expect for a budget title (did I mention the game's only 20 bucks, brand new?). Live vocals and very clever lyrics (such as "I wanna' roll you up into my life") add a lot to the game's charm - it just takes itself so seriously, it's hard to ignore.

The sound effects aren't anything too special. Most objects you roll over just make a "bloop" noise. Although the people you pick up react in very different ways, which is, because of the overly basic animation, only described in sound. This ranges from little kids giggling (cause who knows, maybe a katamari tickles) to moms screaming in terror to sumo wrestlers mumbling in Japanese. The animals also make appropriate noises - no elephants "cawing" or chickens barking, of course.
9/10

Replay Value
The overall game is very short. 9 main "make a star" levels, one final "make the Moon" level, and a handful of "make the constellation" challenges, and that's it. Alex completed it at my house in one afternoon. Granted, it was a long afternoon, but we're not talking Final Fantasy here. Although, in the same way I feel about Luigi's Mansion and the original Pikmin, BECAUSE it's short, I find I wanna' play it over and over again much more than with an RPG or even with Mario Sunshine.

The multiplayer mode should add to the replay value, and while it's sort of cool, it's just too limited, in the sense that you're just trying to make a slightly bigger katamari than your friend's in the time limit, to kick a lot of ass for a long time.
8/10

Overall
Despite a lacking multiplayer mode and a crappy-lookin' (although admittedly stylish) graphics engine, Katamari Damacy is some of the finest 20 bucks I've spent on video games ever. But don't get the idea that it's "just" a budget title. Katamari really packs a punch and is deep enough in its scale to warrant the game its own series (and no, I don't mean an anime). And in fact, I hear Namco has plans to do just that - Katamari Damacy 2 is apparently well on the way. Let's hope it does for this game what Pikmin 2 did for Pikmin 1 in giving it some nicer multiplayer features, refining the core action of the game in subtle ways, and expanding on what's only been explored in 10 levels.

All in all, Katamari Damacy is freakin' fantastic. I would honestly recommend it to anyone who owns a PS2. No seriously, it's that much fun. I'd be willing to pay full price for this game, but Namco's just awesome enough to release it at 20 bucks. Given its runaway cult success in America so far (I heard it sold out in many towns across the country in its first week!), I'd be surprised if they weren't making money on the game anyway. What are you waiting for? Go give one of the most exciting and original game concepts a try, and keep an eye on the lookout for Katamari Damacy 2. No really, I think I hear it rolling this way! AAAAAH!!!