By Billy Teo

IMAGINE a game where nothing makes sense and winning does not truly matter, only the fun you have in playing it - even if most of the time, you are rolling a ball.

Katamari Tribute - also known as Katamari Forever for the English-language market - is a shining product of the weird and wacky Japanese games industry, and the game defies definition.

For starters, think Hello Kitty meets the Cheshire Cat on the set of Cats the musical, with animation by Pixar. The wacky storyline has to do with two cosmic kings who must rebuild the universe because one of them has memory lapses after being hit by an asteroid.

The madcap game is essentially a "Greatest Hits" high-definition version of the Katamari series, which began with the original Katamari Damacy for PlayStation 2, and spawned four sequels, including one for the iPhone and the iPod touch.

Essentially, you suck up diverse objects - such as cakes, pencils, flowers and even people - by simply running them over with the ball.

The game plan is to snowball the orb into the largest one ever so that it can be transformed into an asteroid or a planet.

You do this over dozens of stages - whether in a kid's room, a supermarket or even a park.

There are time limits to spice things up.

You get, say, three minutes to roll things up to a certain size, for example, for the orb to be as big as a cottage or a building as big as the Esplanade. This then allows you to absorb larger objects like people or parts of buildings.

There are pre-conditions too: You need to roll up enough food items - from a banana to sushi items - to reach arbitrary calorie counts.

One highlight is the soundtrack, offering a potent and hypnotic mix of modern jazz and electronic dance tunes that you could find yourself unconsciously grooving to.

Be warned though: all that rolling up and down and jumping around obstacles can make you dizzy. In fact, I found myself needing a break every half hour.

The camera is a little unwieldy and makes it hard to see, especially if you go under a bed or inside an object like a gingerbread house.

Niggles aside, this is an ideal pick-up-and-go game for the family to have a ball of a time.

This story was first published in The Straits Times Digital Life.

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