The Metroid franchise is undoubtedly one of the most popular that Nintendo has to offer. And with good reason. Every instalment of the series presented something, new, unique and wonderful. Infact Super Metroid is considered by many to be the greatest game ever made. But while I'm not about to praise the game that much, I can still understand why the hardcore fans of the series cried bloody murder when nintendo announced that Metroid Prime would be not only in 3-D but also in first person. And on top of that, they were entrusting the development of the game to a production studio that no one had ever heard of. But now it seems that everyone who said that Metroid Prime would be just another generic FPS game now find themselves with their feet firmly inserted in their mouths, because MP is anything but generic. In fact its one of the most unique satisfying and utterly stunning original games to come out in quite some time.
You play Samus Aran an intergalactic bounty hunter hot on the tail of the infamous Space Pirates. These beings hope to harness the destructive power of the metroid creatures for their own evil gain, and it's your job to put a stop to them.
The story takes place sometime after the first Metroid game but before the second. And though nary a word is spoken through out the course of your journey, the story is very captivating, and unfolds through various cut scenes, ancient documents. After battling on a doomed ship you find yourself on TalonIV and the game proceeds from there.
Long time Metroid fans will be happy to know that most of the enemies from previous games have been implemented into MP. Almost all of your enemies are recognizable from previous games in the series and are accompanied by new ones. The bosses however tend to be new, and unique to MP.
Graphically this game is superb. Every enemy every local every special effect is dripping with visual flair the likes of which gamers have never seen before. The character models for instance are ultra-detailed. Of all the various enemies you encounter none show any sign of graphical deficiencies. No sharp edges, no visible aliasing problems, no drab textures. Just crisp clean sharp detail. The environments are equally astounding, complete with breath taking draw distances and beautifully detailed rain snow fog and other such particle effects. Also worthy of mention is the amount of detail involved in your visor. They thought of every thing. If it's raining water droplets hit your visor, and when you look up they hit it faster and more violently. When approaching a distorting electrical signal your visor will become static filled, and steam even fogs it up! Its the little details like this that make a real gamers eyes water.
Speaking of the visor, you will assess four during the course of the game. The combat visor, which is your default visor, the scan visor, the thermal visor, and the x-ray visor. Each of which serves a unique purpose and adds interesting and unique elements to the gameplay. You will also find a variety of cannon suit and morph ball upgrades.
The morph ball is possibly the most creative in the Metroid series. It allows you to roll into a small ball, (much like a doodle bug) and lay small electrical bombs (much unlike a doodle bug). These bombs assist in finding new paths and destroying certain creatures that would mistakenly try to eat you.
Which leads us to AI. For the most part your enemies have nothing against you (save for the space pirates). Mostly they are indigenous creatures that are just as afraid of you as you should be of them. They will only attack if threatened. This becomes all the more apparent with larger enemies, who wont even try to harm you if you are in ball form because they aren’t afraid of you. Sure they may sniff at you or claw at you, but they don’t put any effort into making sure you stop moving. Of course since these creatures are mostly just protecting their territory they are still dangerous. But the space pirates, on the other hand, are skilled in combat and will avoid your shots by any necessary means as they attempt to pummel you with theirs. To sum up the AI is incredible. The various creatures do what they have to do to keep their nest from harm, which often means suicide bombing intruders. The gameplay however is the most important part of any game, and how it controls is the prime factor of how good the gameplay is. To be blunt the controls are not perfect, however the are very very close. You are provided with only a single analogue control for movement, an aspect which will take some getting used to for FPS players, but which is never the less, very intuitive. Despite the first person perspective jumping feels natural and accurate. And the lock-on feature works tremendously well. But these two aspects seem to be the biggest problems the game has. Some times its hard to find your footing well enough to accurately jump from place to place, and every once in a while the lock-on will give you small problems. These are minor quibbles however and don't hurt the gameplay very much at all. Otherwise the controls are top-notch in every way. But be warned you will do a lot of back tracking. Quite frequently you will find yourself travelling through familiar territory to find new paths. Fortunately the upgrades you get along the way manage to keep things quite interesting. Still all too much of this incredible 30 hour adventure is made up of exploring already explored territory.
A very solid audio package rounds out this gaming experience quite nicely. The background music is utterly gorgeous and perfectly accents each environment. And during particularly intense battles (of which there is a plethora) the music picks up the pace and becomes completely frantic. Each creature has its own variety of unique sounds, the most haunting of which are the battle cries emitted from your space pirate "friends". In addition each creature lets out it's own unique splat, crack, or smoosh sound upon its destruction.
Of all the games to come to nintendo's newest console Metroid Prime is most certainly the best in most every respect. It also manages to have, not only the best graphics of the year but my vote for the best game of the year. An excellent title, worth every last dime you spend on it.
This is what hardcore gamers have been waiting for. A solid, moody, astounding, beautiful, deep, and innovative title with an exceptionally long life span and some amazing surprises. Retro Studios officially has made its first masterpiece.
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