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Katamari Damacy - A Critique
Beth A. Dillon writes "In this Game Career Guide feature, Katamari Damacy — A Critique: Part One, Ryan Stancl argues for game criticism in part one of a three part series on Katamari Damacy, this week featuring Biographical and New Critical forms of analysis." From the article: "Video games now, more than ever, need to be not just reviewed, but critiqued, because of their negative image in the press, in politics, in the general public, and quite simply because they are so ripe for critiquing. Games aren't just for kids anymore, and it's not because of the sex and violence. Over the next few weeks I will be introducing you to eight schools of criticism - Biographical, New Critical, Marxist, Structural, Jungian, Psychoanalytical, Feminist, and Post-Colonial - giving a little history behind each, and showing how they can be used to critique the video game Katamari Damacy for the PlayStation 2."
... is, is it FUN?
If a game doesn't have that, it doesn't matter what philosophical, political, biological, cultural viewpoints it presents.
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Game Design is about the unholy trinity: Abstraction, Logicalness/Consistency, Convenience
Unfortunately, far too mamy players are argueing about the wrong thing, usually the red herring of realism. If you favor realism over abstraction, you have a simulator, not a game.
I think you're looking at it in the wrong way. While I think that "critiquing" is complete bullshit, there are intellectual types who enjoy looking at "art" "poetry" and "music" only because of the "critiquing" While I don't mean to portray them in a negative light, but they are the same types of people who will exclude some things as art poetry or music simply because it "isn't intellectual enough", meaning that it hasn't gone through the critiquing, so it must not be "high level art."
You get the same kind of reaction with rap. I know that 90% of it is about "bitches and hoes" but I have heard some amazingly articulate poetry wrapped in rap which is instantly discredited as "real poetry" simply because it is labelled as rap. I know for a fact that if you were to present some of this rap on paper, it would somehow have more credibility with these types.
I guess what I'm getting at here is that if some video game is ever going to be viewed as an art form, it has to comply with this ages-old system of (for lack of a better term) snootability. The only way you could possibly sway these snooty art critic types is to present it in the same fashion as a painting, or a sculpture, or like the "classical" music.
While I didn't read the article, I can't comment on how high or low level the critiquing for Katamari, but I imagine if could be a step towards getting some form of art credibility for video games.
disclaimer: I've been known to store numbers in my ass for which to dig out when quantities are required.
Couldn't the same be said of literature as well? It's a good book if it's just "fun to read" or "draws you into the story"? Well, those are certainly important aspects of literature, and if that is what you get out of a story, great. However, it's always more interesting to dive deeper.
I was once very apprehensive about the validity and utility of critiquing literature myself(it didn't help that I had an extremely arrogant roommate who seemed to think that studying literature was the only truly "hard" profession in life) but after I took a class or 2 I got hooked. I admit it, I don't understand Jacques Dirreda(or however you spell his name) but discussing the cultural impact of literature as well as trying to decipher the intentions of the author in the setting (s)he wrote in can be kind of fun.
What makes games any different? In a certain way they are a combination of prose(code) and art(graphics, sound, presentation etc). Of course it whether or not it is fun most important, and I'm certainly not going to berate anyone who looks at a game from that level(which I do 99.99% of the time) but I think if you delve deeper you may find a topic you really enjoy discussing. Of course you, or anyone else for that matter, will not find anything definitive but that is part of the fun.
BR Pardon me for getting a bit Rumsfeldian here, but will critiquing this game cure cancer? No. Will it reveal some sort of fundamental truth about video games that will revolutionize the way they are made? No(though that won't prevent overly arrogant people from saying it could). Could it help you enjoy video games on a different level? Possibly. Is that truly important? That is up for you to decide.
Monstar L
Well, think of it this way: if you see Grand Theft Auto: Vice City as a satire, you'll get a real kick out of it. If you see it as an indoctrination into a life of crime, you may be wary that other people are playing it. An in-depth critique of the sort the author seems to want to apply could shed some light on the matter, and perhaps determine the creators' intent, or whether GTA:VC is "a good thing" in terms of the goals of one or another critical community (e.g. Marxists, who might take issue with the game's anarcho-capitalism). I don't know much about Katamari Damacy but I don't see why the same sense of academic study can't apply to it.
Give a hoot, read a book!
While I'm disappointed that I have to wait to read the other two parts of this critique, I'm glad it's being posted at all. This is a game worth in-depth analysis.
One of my favourite aspects of video games is the representation of the real world. Many people are enthusiastic about this aspect of gaming but most don't share my take on the subject. I wouldn't be a Slashdotter if I wasn't wowed by pixel shaders and bump mapping and advanced AI, but what really fascinates me is the artistic representation of reality - the statement made about our world facilitated by creative use of limited resources.
Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas is one of the greatest contenders in this field as its depiction of a fictional California-esque state is totally astounding, replete with buildings, streets, varied geography, natural wonders, rolling landscapes, and all juxtaposed by a pissed-off populace. There's a great scene in Lucasarts' Grim Fandango where Manny Calavera, protagonist and reaper, travels to the realm of the living to collect the souls of recently poisoned fast food patrons, and the real world is quite a ridiculous caricature that is completely alien through the eyes of residents of the land of the dead.
Katamari Damacy is unique in that the protagonists are not human at all, but permanent residents of deep space. To The King of All Cosmos and The Prince, Earth is one planet of millions, but it is not just any planet. The Earth is populated by excitable little people who have absolutely littered their entire planet with stuff, and it is this stuff that makes Earth a suitable place to collect materials to repopulate space with stars.
Stuff here, stuff there, stuff everywhere! Not only can anything smaller than your katamari be rolled-up and added to the clump, but every collected item can later be examined replete with a concise but innocently baffling description in the limited omniscient of the space-faring royal family. Some such descriptions of the hundreds upon hundreds of ordinary objects and creatures include:
Coconut Crab -- "A crab with strong claws. It doesn't look anything like a coconut at all..."
Peach -- "A butt-shaped fruit that is more tasty than butts."
Faucet -- "Hot and cold water comes out of the same place. We are amazed."
Loud Momma -- "Her voice is loud and when she laughs, babies start screaming."
This is why the game is deserving of critique - because the game itself is a critique of urban civilization. It patently points out how much more complex and frivolous and ludicrous our lifestyle is compared to the orderly motion of the galactic ocean.
Furthermore, this analysis goes to show how effective the game is at alleviating stress! Consider all the things you worry about in a day - the cost of living, pollution, rush hour traffic, long lines, crime, the environment, the fact that you'll never visit all the places you want to see, etc. All these things become insignificant in Katamari Damacy. You needn't worry about any issues - any objects - larger than your katamari until later on because for now they are simply obstacles, and anything smaller is all but an insignificant bump. To The Prince, ignorance is bliss. All that matters is to keep on rolling. Put your frustrations aside, block out all unneccesary data, and just keep on rolling. Just push and push, your katamari grows and grows, and before you know it you're towering over people and cars and buildings and mountains until the very curvature of the planet is a minute detail of the great cosmic tapestry.
There are a million possible interpretations of this depiction of reality. One could argue that the game is an advocate of Buddhism, declaring earthly luxuries as mere white noise. Or pe