Noby Noby Boy - PS3

Katamari Damacy creator Keita Takahashi unleashed his new game on the world on Thursday, and Noby Noby Boy is another slice of utterly bonkers fun from the Japanese legend.

So what exactly is Noby Noby Boy? Well, there are no set goals and no real objectives, other than to have fun and play around.

You control BOY, a creature who can stretch, jump and eat. Like Katamari Damacy, both control sticks are used. This time, each analogue stick controls BOY's front and back. Pulling the sticks apart stretches BOY, allowing him to wrap himself around objects.

Each level is randomly generated, from sandy plains inhabited by camels and nomads, to dense forests full of mushrooms, each new map is lively and fun to potter about in. Noby Noby Boy retains Takahashi's weird and wonderful art style and everything in the level can be interacted with.

You can wrap yourself around trees, thread your multi-coloured body through house windows, propel yourself high into the night sky, destroy pyramids with a single bound, and take animals and people for a ride on your back.

Tapping the L2 or R2 triggers make BOY jump, and L2 is also used to eat objects. Pressing R2 when an object has been consumed, causes BOY to squirt it out, accompanied by a nice squelchy noise. Juvenile? Yes. But it's great fun.

While it's strange to play a game with no objectives, it clicks into place after just a few minutes and hours will slip by as you simply mess about.

I spent the best part of an hour trying to thread every donut-shaped object in one level together. Then, I tried wrapping myself around the legs of a giant robot, trying my best to take him down in a scene similar to the AT-AT battle in The Empire Strikes Back.

I also spent longer than I care to mention eating as many people as I could. I managed to get up to 16 before accidentally falling off the edge of the level.

While there are no set goals, everyone who plays Noby Noby Boy online can contribute something to the game. Pulling the camera all the way back into space reveals GIRL, an elongated counterpart to BOY, who stretches from earth into the inky black unknown.

You can pause the game and report your total combined length, which is then added to GIRL's length. Everyone in the world can do this, and the aim is to get GIRL to reach the moon.

It's a novel idea, and one that will keep you playing. After the moon is reached, who knows what Takahashi has in store for us. At the time of writing, I have only contributed 2831 meters, which ranks me at No. 2832 on the high score list! Still a lot of work ahead, then.

Noby Noby Boy is a wonderful little game. It has full Trophy support, you can take your own pictures (the ones here are my own) you can even film your antics to watch later - and all for just £3.19 from the PlayStation store. For that price, you would be mad to miss out.