Noby Noby Boy First Impressions « PS3 Blog and Community | PS3Blog.net

Noby Noby Boy First Impressions

nobynoby1

Early Summary

If you like artsy-type games at all or if you liked the style of Katamari Damacy (same creator), this is a must buy. If you don’t have patience for the more arty stuff, you probably won’t like this.

Bullet points

(for easy skim reading)

There is no clear purpose or direction or point to the game at all. On the surface, you are just fooling around with this long noodle thing, wrapping around stuff, eating things, and growing your length, however, from what I’ve played so far, the more you play, the more pieces of the game there are to discover. The gameplay truely is very exploratory and non-linear and non-guided.

I’m only a few hours in, so I really have to see how much more there is to this. At this point I’m both charmed by the surreal exploratory whimsy and the daring design and worried about the potentially limited lifespan of the core noodling play mechanic. However, there may be much more to discover and unlock…

There is a shared online community aspect to the game. You upload progress from your own play, and when the global player community reaches a certain point, new worlds are unlocked.

The integrated instruction manual is fully playable with a 2D Noby Boy type creature. Even the loading screen is interactive.

While the genuine exploratory nature of the game will be fascinating to many, it will frustrate others. Mainstream-types won’t have the patience or curiosity for this abstract stuff.

Similarities to Katamari Damacy (same creator): The art style, the surrealism, the zany characters and objects, the progression of growing your character, progression of starting really small and growing to planet size.

Differences from Katamari Damacy: Katamari had wildly abstract art and narrative, but the game had very clear and conventional objectives, levels, and progression. Noby Noby Boy is less of a “game” and more of a toy; it offers absolute exploratory gameplay and provides a more thoroughly abstract experience.

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One Gripe: Screenshot feature. When I do something cool in the game, I want to be able to freeze the game, adjust the camera to get the perfect viewpoint, and snap my picture. As it is, the user has to hit the PS button, and while game is still running and the desired cool scene is unfolding, navigate the XMB as fast select the screenshot feature.

Thoughts?

Written by: Darrin - Contributing Editor

This entry was posted on Friday, February 20th, 2009 and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through RSS 2.0.

#1 by Emrah on February 20th, 2009 [ 7049 Points ]

I bought it and downloaded to my brother’s ps3, where we gave it a go. I must say, we were strangely hooked to it, and we laughed a lot. It is pointless, but somehow manages to get your attention. I couldn’t get all the games mechanics, sometimes my head gets too big to go back to the house, it just doesn’t fit the door, for example

We contributed some 3-4 Km for the cause..

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#2 by Annie on February 21st, 2009 [ 0 Points ]

You seemed leery of the fact that it looked too much like Katamari Damacy. I guess the game is different enough for you?

#3 by Emrah on February 21st, 2009 [ 7049 Points ]

I guess you directed the question at Darrin, but just in case, I have not played Katamari Damacy.

#4 by darrin on February 21st, 2009

Yes it’s definitely different enough from Katamari; the look is the same but the game is different. A very worthwhile experimental experience for $5. Emrah’s experience is a great summary.

#5 by mpz on February 23rd, 2009

Got it last night. It’s not really obvious what’s going on. A very odd experience. I had to get it for the weirdness of it all, although I probably wont play it much (knew was i was getting at least).

The awful camera controls don’t really help the enjoyability of random exploration, unfortunately.