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The Tampa Tribune

Published: November 9, 2007

System: Microsoft Xbox 360

Publisher: Bandai Namco

Reviewer's rating: **

ESRB rating: Everyone

Game type: Unique

Kind of like: It vaguely resembles "Super Monkey Ball."

Best feature: Plenty of wacky music and scenery.

Worst feature: The time limits seem more annoying than ever.

The bottom line: If you've never played a "Katamari" game, you'll probably love "Beautiful Katamari."

It's one of the quirkiest games you'll ever find. You roll a ball around, sucking up objects and making the ball get bigger. The ball will pick up objects that are sufficiently smaller than it. The objects stick to the outside of the ball, which grows bigger as more and more things are attached to it.

At first, you can only manage matchbooks and thimbles with the tiny ball, but eventually it's bigger than a house.

The problem with this game is that if you've played other "Katamari" games before, this one is really just the same thing.

There are a few new tricks, since this version is on the Xbox 360. You can play through Xbox Live Arcade, and downloadable levels will be offered for sale.

But for the most part, it's just a rehash.

One new level that we liked is a crazy affair in which you have to make the ball hot by only rolling up hot objects, such as steaming food or fires. In this level, ice cream and snowmen are deadly.

But each level comes with an oppressive time limit, and this prevents you from really enjoying what you're looking at and what you're doing. It can be very frenzied as you try desperately to get the ball a certain size before the time runs out.

Doug Buel

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