{"id":47,"date":"2005-09-25T12:21:41","date_gmt":"2005-09-25T19:21:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/chadossman.com\/blog\/?p=47"},"modified":"2023-03-28T15:55:51","modified_gmt":"2023-03-28T19:55:51","slug":"i-heart-katamari","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chadossman.com\/blog\/i-heart-katamari\/","title":{"rendered":"I Heart Katamari"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Best. Game. Ever.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To give that statement a little context: I’m a novice gamer at best. I didn’t grow up with an Atari, so I’m a latecomer to all this beeping, flashing, vibrating analog joysticking stuff. A few years ago, I was engrossed in The Matrix<\/em> films to a degree that seems silly now. But at the time, I was a web design working on the official Matrix online shop so I can explain away my obsession as having arisen from spending all day every day Photoshopping distressed metal boxes with glowing green screens. Word was that the Enter the Matrix<\/em> Playstation game was a veritable revolution in gaming, an unprecedented merging of cinema and interactivity, necessary to understand the upcoming sequels, yadda yadda yadda. Sucker that I am, I actually bought a Playstation 2 on the strength of this hearsay, and… the game sucked. I had never even touched a PS2 before and I could tell that it sucked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Worse than that, it was unbelievably violent. Before you call me naive for thinking it wouldn’t be: My favorite of the Matrix series is No. 2 (yes I know that’s against popular opinion, but what does Popular know?). If you watch closely, you’ll notice that although our ostensible heroes Neo and Trinity mow down dozens of innocent humans (not, technically, their bodies, but their consciousnesses in the Matrix, resulting in their real-world bodies dying) with machine guns in the first film, not a single living person dies in the second. Unfortunately the game takes after the first film and the player’s very first task is to sneak into a post office and kill as many armed guards as possible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Where to start? First, is it intentional irony that you’re<\/em> going postal on poor USPS workers? Second, why are they all packing heat, as opposed to packing tape? I forgot to mention that you start out the game unarmed, and the included instruction\/hint book helpfully suggests a complicated combo move (or whatever gamers call it… you have to move the joystick up and to the left, press a dozen buttons in a complex sequence, turn around three times and toss salt over your shoulder) to sneak up on somebody and break their neck<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now let me say here that I am against censorship in all forms, and all the talk about banning or even creating a rating system for violent videogames sets off all my liberal alarms. But when a game like this actually encourages the player to sneak up on an innocent human being just doing his job (as opposed to a non-sentient but malicious computer program, as the Matrix mythos call a villain) and break his neck instead of confronting them head-on and potentially costing you health points in a fist-fight… well, I nearly had the urge to call my representatives in Congress.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So my Playstation gathered dust for a good long while. I would occasionally take a stab at other games, but wound up selling most of them back. I did enjoy one quite a lot: The Simpsons Hit & Run<\/em>, a sort of Grand Theft Auto<\/em> (or so I’m led to believe it’s like) without the hookers and whacking and stuff. Great fun! Seriously, you should try it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But then I read about Katamari Damacy<\/a><\/em> in Time Magazine<\/em>, and was intrigued. Partly that the media would focus on a game for any reason other than to decry its poisoning our nation’s children’s precious bodily fluids, but also by it sounding totally unique. And it is, as far as I know. Basically, you roll a big sticky ball around the place and pick things up. The bigger your clump gets, the bigger things you can pick up. Soon it becomes clear that if you play long enough, everything<\/em> around you is pick-uppable, including people, skyscrapers, and even clouds. It’s insane! Totally weird! Addictive!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I just picked up the sequel We Love Katamari<\/em> this weekend and have fallen in love all over again. I wouldn’t say it’s a huge conceptual advance over the original, but there are many more worlds to explore, more complex goals, and more general loonyness all around. Yay! I’m a gamer!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Best. Game. Ever. To give that statement a little context: I’m a novice gamer at best. I didn’t grow up with an Atari, so I’m a latecomer to all this beeping, flashing, vibrating analog joysticking stuff. A few years ago, I was engrossed in The Matrix films to a degree that seems silly now. But […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5071,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2177],"tags":[2103,2104,2102,1157],"class_list":["post-47","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tech","tag-katamari-damacy","tag-playstation","tag-the-matrix","tag-video-games"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2005\/09\/katamari-damacy.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pa9lhB-L","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":5801,"url":"https:\/\/chadossman.com\/blog\/the-matrix-reloaded-is-the-best-matrix-movie\/","url_meta":{"origin":47,"position":0},"title":"The Matrix Reloaded is the best Matrix movie","author":"Chad Ossman","date":"July 24, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Conventional wisdom will tell you there is only one good Matrix movie, and it's called The Matrix. Conventional wisdom is wrong. The Wachowski's The Matrix Reloaded does everything movie lovers claim they want from sequels, and complain that Hollywood so rarely gives them: it expands the cast of characters while\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "4 Stars"","block_context":{"text":"4 Stars","link":"https:\/\/chadossman.com\/blog\/category\/ratings\/4-stars\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Carrie-Anne Moss, Keanu Reeves, and Laurence Fishburne in The Matrix Reloaded","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/matrix-reloaded.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/matrix-reloaded.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/matrix-reloaded.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/matrix-reloaded.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/matrix-reloaded.jpg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":2027,"url":"https:\/\/chadossman.com\/blog\/lost-in-the-matrix\/","url_meta":{"origin":47,"position":1},"title":"Cool Like Dickens: Lost in The Matrix","author":"Chad Ossman","date":"June 27, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Now that the Lost fiasco finale has come and gone, and my blood pressure has dipped back down into safe levels, I am going to attempt to speak calmly about how the show let me down. 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(spotted on Pogue's Posts) Hey Onion, say it ain't so! (guest submission from Free Agent Andrea) Our love is like a katamari. 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The US and Britain each already have one; who gets to cart this one home? Geoffrey Chaucer Hath a Blogge (no longer online: houseoffame.blogs.friendster.com\/my_blog). (guest submission by Dave) In what can only be evidence\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "The Dork Report"","block_context":{"text":"The Dork Report","link":"https:\/\/chadossman.com\/blog\/category\/dork-report\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"The Dork Report","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/08\/dork-report.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/08\/dork-report.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/08\/dork-report.png?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/08\/dork-report.png?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/08\/dork-report.png?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":194,"url":"https:\/\/chadossman.com\/blog\/the-dork-report-for-april-20-2006\/","url_meta":{"origin":47,"position":4},"title":"The Dork Report for April 20, 2006","author":"Chad Ossman","date":"April 20, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Pee Wee. 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