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GameCube | Adventure | Metroid Prime

Boxart for Metroid Prime
Metroid Prime 57 screen shots
  • GRAPHICS: 4.5
  • SOUND: 5.0
  • CONTROL: 4.0
  • FUN FACTOR 4.5
  • AVG USER SCORE 4.5
  • AVG CRITIC SCORE 4.8
Winner of the GamePro Editor's Choice Award

Update: Metroid Prime

Update by STARDINGO | 09/06/2002 | 13:24:19 PM PST

Samus Aran leaves her past behind her to take on Space Pirates and the mysteries of the Chozo? but is there room in these new regions of outer space for a good ol? faschioned Screw Attack?

A Long Time Ago, In A Galaxy, Etc. Etc.
It?s been nearly ten years since Samus Aran gave Mother Brain the headache to end ?em all on the SNES. The wait for Metroid Prime has been a migraine-inducer in its own right, marked by fears of Retro Studios dropping the ball, leading to a a first-person shooter fiasco that bore little resemblance to the game that so many gamers hold so dear to their little 8-bi hearts.

E3, however, washed most gamers? worries away, as Nintendo (more or less) proved to everyone that there?s still plenty of classic flavor to Samus? ?first-person adventure;? and a recent Nintendo demo made the point even clearer. Samus? morph ball ability will still feature heavily in the game, with old bomb-yourself-up tactics and newer rollin?-in-a-halfpipe techniques getting lots of play. Old standbys like the Wave Beam, Ice Beam, Grapple Beam, Energy Tanks, and Missiles will be an integral part of Samus? interstellar arsenal. She?ll also employ new techniques such as the Spider Ball, which lets her defy gravity by rolling on certain types of tracks, and a ubiquitous scanning system that gives her clues about how to proceed, and lore about the environment she?s exploring.

In Space, No One Can Hear You Morph
The latest demo of Metroid Prime displayed some amazingly gorgeous environments (most impressive: frozen ruins with structures trapped beneath the ice, and a room projecting a rotating holographic solar system), with some of the most extraordinary visuals to ever grace the console screen: weapons that seem to warp space as they fire; awesome thermal vision; condensation, ice crystals, and water droplets appearing on Samus? visor; and enormous bosses like a giant insectoid Parasite Queen, and a creature made of whirling, gravity-defying boulders.

But a few questions still loom large?will Samus still be able to use frozen enemies as platforms? What?s to become of the Screw Attack? And what the titular Metroids?did they happen to hitch a ride to the Chozo ruins on Tallon IV? Nintendo also revealed that the game will link up to Metroid Fusion for the GBA, as lots of people previously speculated?but Nintendo wasn?t saying just how the link would work. Ever the enigma, that Samus Aran.


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