Short but for the most part sweet.
In this game, the King of all Cosmos, on a royal vacation with his family, hits a tennis serve a bit too fast and creates a very selective black hole, which sucks up everything in the solar system but the Earth. The King of all Cosmos then tasks you to roll up objects on Earth to create the various other planets in the solar system.
Crazy, yes? Yes. On each level of the game (of which there are about ten or so) you start off with a ball (or katamari) which you roll around the level picking up things which are smaller than your katamari but avoiding things which are larger. Each level, apart from a couple which have slightly different twists, has a time limit; your katamari rapidly increases in size as you pick things up though, so while at the beginning of each level you might be dwarfed by objects such as cats or cars, within a few short minutes you'll be rolling them up without a second thought. In later levels you'll be rolling up cities and continents - all this comes at a cost though, as the framerate drags considerably at these points.
It's an interesting premise, and it's not hard to see how it can be very addictive. Unfortunately, the already limited number of levels often repeat the same level design, so effectively you could get through all the level designs within about twnety minutes, and the game itself only lasts an hour or two from start to finish. Extra items will take a while longer to collect, but it's still unforgivably short. Maybe going on to the planets you've created would have been a good idea? Or starting from different places rather than one of the two or three shops that exist on earth?
The gameplay itself, addictive though it may be, is dragged down by a horrible control system; you almost certainly won't have worked it out by the time you finish the game; why not have the right analogue stick control direction and the camera, and the left analogue stick control movement of your katamari? The actual controls are so awful it's rather difficult to control your direction at times, and really only work when you're making minor alterations to direction. Even with proper controls in place, the camera doesn't work well at all; it's often awkward, particularly when your katamari gets into small spaces, when it goes rather haywire and tries to see through walls.
Stylistically, the game definitely holds your sttention; the bright colours and blocks are unseen in these times of gritty FPSs, and the off character design fits in well with the offbeat humour. Unfortunately, at times the humour is a little too offbeat; the King of all Cosmos talks incessantly as well, even during gameplay, forcing you to press the a-button to get through his dialogue which you've inevitably heard many times before. Unfortunately, in pressing the a-button repeatedly for a few seconds stops control of the katamari - not fun when you're in a short time limit. trying to skip his dialogue before a level (in which he highlights the time and score you've got to get) ironically prompts him to spout more nonsense at you for skipping dialogue. I mean, were the designers trying their level best to infuriate us!? Not having a conventional menu screen with options doesn't help either - the option to turn the King of all Cosmos off seems mysteriously absent.
Overall, the ideas are still present, but it's lame execution. Still, it's enjoyable for the first playthrough of an hour or two, but won't hold your attention any longer; it's an ideal rental in that respect.