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Katamari Damacy and Gamespy Wireless on the DS

Posted by Zonk on from the rollin'-rollin'-rollin' dept.

Hit quirky game Katamari Damacy will be coming to the Nintendo DS sometime in the near future, according to Joystiq. From the article: "The game is listed under Namco's planned DS titles. Squint hard at the top of the image, and you'll see it. Get that stylus ready. You're going to be pushing around a world of crap with it, soon enough." At the same time, GamesAreFun.com has information about the DS Wireless Service, which is going to be hosted partially by Gamespy.

2 of 41 comments (clear)

  1. Can the DS handle it? by Corngood · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I have my doubts. The game takes advantage of the huge polygon pushing ability of the PS2 (loads of similar objects, very little texturing or blending). The DS is nowhere near as capable in this respect. I reckon they would even have some trouble on other home consoles, or PC.

    1. Re:Can the DS handle it? by MilenCent · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I'm pretty sure it can handle it.

      1. The DS has a lower resolution. This lets 3D hardware that's slightly better than a N64 provide relatively better visuals than it did. If the game only provided 3D on one of the screens then so much the better.

      2. The PS2 can't handle Katamari Damacy, in a manner of speaking. I read in the post-mortem of the game in Game Developer Magazine that the game "cheats" when the ball gets loaded with stuff, removing difficult-to-see and relatively small stuff on the interior of the ball as it increases in size. Just increase this cheating factor on the DS and there you go. It'd be less noticable on the DS because, again, of the reduced resolution.

      3. Katamari Damacy isn't all that bad. The PS2 is still relatively underpowered when it comes to Gamecube and Xbox. It's still more powerful than the DS (or PSP for that matter), but see #1 above.

      It's also possible that Namco could cheat, by using sprites for some objects. If the camera is not very moveable then this may work for objects not yet collected, as the game could use the DS' sprite scaling to simulate 3D to some extent.

      They could also cheat by not actually allowing objects to stick to the ball and using a generic katamari model for it that just gets bigger, but a lot of the game's charm would be lost in that event. That would be a worst-case scenario for DS Katamari Damacy, I'd guess.