Being the video game nerd that I am, it's rare that I see a game that just completely flips me on my lid. Japan has had countless quirky titles, and some of them have managed to make the leap here to the States, but it's a rare treat when something arrives at our offices with all the goofy, insane, well Japanese-ness fully intact. Katamari Damacy is indeed one of those games, and while it may leave quite a few people left scratching their heads, all you have to do is spend about 10 minutes with the game to get what it's all about -- even if you don't actually get what the hell's going on all the time.

So here's the gist, and try to follow along here, but we won't fault you if this all starts to sound like a drunken hippy slurring his way through a recounting of an old acid trip. The King of the Cosmos has a bit too much fun one night and decides it's a good idea to go ripping through the night sky, smashing all the stars into dust (like you do), and the next morning, he decides it's best that his pint-sized son (that'd be you), replace all the starts before the Queen actually finds out what dear ol' Dad did last night on his little bender.

So, he sends you down to Earth armed with a katamari, a little sticky ball that can be rolled over anything within a certain size. As you collect more stuff and roll it up, the katamari grows, and can roll up bigger objects. Once you collect enough things in the environment, the King tosses them into the night sky and they become stars.

I used the catch-all "stuff" because it's literally the best way to describe what you end up getting. It starts small, with things like thumbtacks and mah-jongg tiles, but as the katamari grows, you can begin picking up bottles, sticks, small animals, and by the end of a level, you'll often find any combination of screaming, flailing people, flapping birds, and huge signs. It's truly a sight to behold, and there's no way to really describe how insane the whole scene is (which is why you'll just have to check out our screenshots).

We've had almost a week to pour over the game, and so far things are delightfully odd. The controls are about as simple as you could hope for in a game like this; both analog sticks control movement similar to tank controls or perhaps a better comparison is in SEGA's Virtual On games, so pushing up with both sticks rolls things forward, tilting both to the left or right will roll you that way, and then rotating around things is as easy as pressing up on one stick and down on the other. It takes a bit of work to get comfortable, especially considering your constant fight with inertia and gravity, but the system works well once you've played for a few minutes.

While we haven't yet gotten a whole lot of use out of it, there's an option to look around with the L1 button and to jump and hover in the air for a bird's-eye view of the level with an R1 press. As your katamari grows, the camera slowly pulls out anyway, so save for some random moments where the little Prince is backed into a corner or a big object like a tree is in the way, it's not too tough to figure out where you're going. Clicking both analog sticks down will hop you over the katamari and get you faced in the opposite direction quickly, and it's something we're still learning to use properly. A final move is a dash, used by flicking the analog sticks up and down quickly. It's a little spotty, and we've yet to figure out why you'd want to send your katamari screaming forward, since slamming into objects causes things you've rolled up to go flying.

Once you get over the bizarre backstory and start dropping into levels, the weirdness tends to take a bit of a back seat to the simplistic gameplay mechanics. Simplistic doesn't necessarily mean limited, however, since there's actually a fairly decent amount of strategy involved in the later levels. While you're never completely blocked off from exploring, just randomly rolling up objects because you can will usually stop you from getting to the good stuff buried under objects like tables and low-hanging eaves that are impossible to get under once the katamari has grown.

There's also the matter of completing the objectives (like grabbing as many pairs of things or snagging as many swan eggs as possible) and finding the hidden object in every level. The King tosses down a present, but doesn't usually tell you what it is, so finding that random thing in a hard-to-reach area is usually your best bet.

Katamari Damacy is certainly not the most visually impressive game on the PS2. In fact, a lot about it save for the sheer size and number of objects in the level feels like it could've been done on the original PlayStation. Still, it fits in with the completely nutso snippets of cutscens involving a mom and her unusually perceptive son and daughter that look crafted from Legos. Most of the objects in the world are very minimally textured and there's no real lighting or shading to speak of, but it honestly doesn't get in the way of the game, since most of the time you're just consumed with finding the next giant bear wearing a bib.

There's also the matter of the music, which is not only perfectly fitting, but damn near one of the best soundtracks a game has ever had, mainly because it's so off the wall. Children singing in Japanese, light jazz tunes and vaguely techno-ish beats regularly trade places while you cavort about Earth rolling things up. It's also enough to make anyone who happens to hear the game running pop their heads in just to see what the hell's going on. It's completely original, and usually ends up leading to a short demo and then a "I wanna play" kind of response.

There's still a couple of weeks before the game actually hits, and you'd better believe that we'll be all over a full review as we get closer to release, but for now, just trust us when we say you have to see this game to believe it. It's quirky, adorable and undeniably fun, and it's one of those games that people can't help but exclaim "what the hell" the first time they see it, and beg to play right after that. Now, we have some yelping dogs to go roll up...