First Beautiful Katamari shots rolled out

As wereported yesterday, Namco-Bandai's bonkers Japanese roll-'em-up is making its way to Xbox 360 and PS3 and we've got the first screens of Beautiful Katamari Damacy, as it's currently known, right here.

If you haven't been fortunate enough to experience the joys of Katamari, you play as that little green dude with the hammer-like head and you roll around a sticky ball - called a Katamari - to pick up small objects around a giant house. As more stuff accumulates on your Katamari, it gets bigger and you're able to roll up bigger things, like people and sofas. Eventually, you grow big enough to roll up entire cities, the Eifel Tower, the Great Wall of China and Zeus - from paper clip-sized ball to planet-killer in a few hours.

No, there's not a massive graphical difference - that's not Katamari's style anyway. But the new game promises to use the extra processing power to let you make bigger, meaner Katamaris. We can't wait. A release date is yet to be announced, but theofficial Japanese websiteis up for you to poke around.

April 20, 2007