Review: Me & My Katamari

Like Walking With One Leg

(PSP; $39.99; Rated E; namco.com)

(three stars)

Games like “Me & My Katamari” make me hate Sony’s PSP.

Here you have a portable version of the much-beloved game where a tiny prince rolls up the world into an increasingly larger ball o’ stuff at the behest of his eccentric father, The King of All Cosmos. Here, publisher Namco has successfully translated the graphics, music, and silliness of the PS2 game into palm-sized. Here is a game that is so simplistic in nature that its five-minute missions are perfect for passing time while out and about.

And yet, here is a game that screams, screams for a second analog stick on the PSP in order for its full impact to be appreciated.

Maybe back in the days of the N64 we were complacent to have only one analog stick with our three-dimensional gaming. But for a game like “Katamari,” which is built on the simplicity of two-stick movement, making due with one stick and having the face-buttons fill the place of the second just doesn’t cut it.

After the first few introductory stages, the lack of dual-stick controls makes the already challenging time limits to complete stages near impossible. The artificial difficulty really holds the game back from being the approachable, non-gamer friendly title that this series has become known for.

Furthermore it begs the question: why would a game based around the dual-stick control scheme be designed for a portable that can’t support it? I would like to believe it’s a subtle suggestion to Sony to redesign its handheld in order to faithfully recreate the PS2-quality games it is capable of supporting…

But I’m more likely to believe its just another close-but-no-cigar translation to the small screen.