Who could have imagined that rolling random stuff up into a giant ball would spawn three games -- and now a fourth which will hit Xbox 360 in early 2008. The King of All Cosmos and the Prince will all return to this big rolling fest; this one with high-resolution graphics and for the first time, an online multiplayer mode. A recent demo of the game shows that while small tweaks have been made, the game seems largely similar to its predecessors, which could be good or bad depending on who's behind the ball.

Several years ago, a quirky game called Katamari Damacy hit U.S. shores in 2004 and almost instantly found a cult following among gamers. Using a sticky ball called a 'katamari' to roll up everything from flowers, juice cans, fences, cars, buildings and people (and then shooting them into space to recreate stars destroyed by the King of All Cosmos) contained the perfect balance of Japanese-style humor and innovation that it turned into a big sleeper hit. Then a second game followed in 2005, along with a a third on PSP a year later.

Just when we though the ball-rolling escapades were over – for a while rumors swirled that the game series would be more -- the charming roll-stuff-up game makes its way to the Xbox 360 -- complete with high-resolution graphics, new levels, characters, J-pop music soundtrack and for the first time, a new online multiplayer mode and downloadable content.

We got our hands on the game for about 10 minutes at Namco Gamer's Day event earlier this week and were both drawn in and a little disappointed by the familiarity of the game's controls and goals. Our first mission -- to roll up a ball of junk 20 cm high in a limited amount of time almost seemed a little too familiar. The colorful cel-shaded environments looked sharp in high def, but the objects and the layout in the world looked almost identical to previous Katamari games.

The demoer said the final version will contain more unique levels, like a level where the player's required to roll up as many Japanese items they can -- sushi, samurai swords, etc, and another level where the katamari will "get really big."

Another back story starring the condescending King of All Cosmos, the Queen of All Cosmos, the Prince and the royal cousins will link all of the levels together, but the demoer stayed mum on the plot's specifics. We suspect it will be largely similar to the other plotlines, since the majority of changes seem to be centered on the multiplayer modes, online and off. Two-to-four players will be able to play online -- rolling up everything or specific items. Players waiting to be matched with others online will be able to play minigames in the online lobby.

A Wii version of the game is also in the works, though don't expect that anytime soon as game director Jun Morikawa has said that they'll need extra time to make the Wii controller work with the game. In the meantime, look for Xbox 360 Katamari game to roll into stores in early 2008.