Metroid Prime

Lookin? good, Samus. Love the first-person view, love the new planet, love the new power suit?. Love it.

Metroid Prime has, since the announcement that it would be first-person and in 3D, enjoyed the kind of controversial hype that only a first-party Nintendo game can enjoy. Once Nintendo announced that Retro Studios was going 3D with the title, it quickly joined the new Zelda in the ?What are they thinking?? club. You (yes, you) most likely thought it would be ruined once it began to look more and more like a first-person shooter. You then read E3 impressions that said the game was good, but you probably didn?t listen.

Well, guess what, Mr. Smarty: Metroid Prime is good. Really good. Ha ha ha ha ha.

While Prime?s graphics lack a little polish and flair and the controls never really become second-nature, the game itself simply rules. If you?re an old-school Metroid fanatic, you can skip the next paragraph or two as we explain the idea to the new folks.

Metroid games have always been about exploration, secret areas, and collecting power-ups that are cleverly hidden in plain sight. You might see a door in the first room that you can?t reach until much later in the game, and behind that door might lie an entire new set of rooms to discover. You?ll do a lot of backtracking, but you?ll do it with a purpose as you realize that the cliff that was too high to get to in the beginning is a piece of cake with your new Space Jump boots. Within a few structural limits, you have free reign of the place to come, see, and conquer as you will. As you play, the world unfolds before you, and you become the powerful warrior you need to be to end the threat that enfolds the world of Tallon IV.

In the beginning, Metroid Prime suffers from its own expectations. Since it is a first-person game, you?ll likely fumble around with the controls as you try to play the game like, say, TimeSplitters 2 or Halo. At some point, though, you?ll realize that this is not Halo, and you?ll adjust. When you do, you?ll be surprised just how much like the old Metroids this game feels. You jump from platform to platform (always a pain in first-person games, but rather forgiving in Metroid), use your Ice Beam and Varia Suit, and fight the same enemies you remember from the older games in the series. Once you reach that point, you?ll fall right back into the old Metroid groove, and it?s all smooth sailing from there.

There are a few minor problems with the game. First off, while the controls are great once you get used to them, the learning curve is pretty steep, and even once you know them pretty well, they never seem to feel natural. Ten hours into the game you?ll still be accidentally firing missiles when you want to see the map, and the use of the triggers to look about and lock onto targets never feels completely right. Metroid?s graphics are schizophrenic in a way; some minor details, like seeing Samus?s eyes reflected in the visor in a bright glare, are spectacular, but others, like muddy shadows and simple enemies, are not. Lastly, Metroid Prime requires a lot of backtracking and going through places you?ve already seen, and that can get boring if you don?t know where you?re going. Hardcore Metroid players won?t have a problem with that, but others might find it exhausting to keep revisiting the same old places over and over and over.

Still, even with its minor problems, Samus?s latest adventure is a perfect tribute to the Metroid we all know and love. Salute to Retro Studios and Nintendo for giving us the industry?s Holy Grail?a next-gen game that significantly upgrades the genre while keeping all the classic feel of the original. Well done, folks, well done.

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