The last time I saw a chick in boxers was when I had insatiable dreams of Lara Croft (Miss Jolie Pitt), running around ancient Mayan Temples hunting for ancient artifacts. Those were naughty days all right, under a waterfall… Ehhh… (Pause…Deep Breath), all I have to say is this ain’t about Croft; this is about a chick, whom I rather call a Woo-Man drifting in space.
Sigourney Weaver did it in the Alien series so why can’t Samus Aran? Nintendo’s prized bounty hunter returns this season fresh from the scars that were inflicted on her encounter with her evil alter ego Dark Samus. The loop is finally closing on Samus, not only does she have to battle the insidious Space Pirates and their lust for Phazon the deadly mutagenic substance which threatens to wipe out entire civilizations in a go (Talon IV, Aether), but also confront Metroid Prime who lurks in the shadows as Dark Samus.
This is straight up from the E3 2007 fact sheet:
“Six months have passed since the events on the planet Aether. The Galactic Federation’s network computers, Aurora Units, are suddenly and completely corrupted with something like a virus, and only quick action saves the entire network from going down. The Federation believes Space Pirates may be behind the problem and, beginning with Samus, starts to contact bounty hunters. As it explains the situation to the assembled hunters, the Federation is attacked by the pirates.
Samus and the other hunters leap to the defense of the Federation capital, only to find that the enemy the hunters face is the presumed-dead Dark Samus. Dark Samus defeats Samus and the other bounty hunters, corrupting them with Phazon in the process. They are all subsequently outfitted by the Galactic Federation with Phazon Enhancement Devices (PEDs) that can harness their corruption to enhance their powers. After learning to use this enhancement, called Hypermode, Samus sets off after Dark Samus, who has begun to seed other planets with Phazon by launching enormous Phazon seeds called Leviathans into them. As the Phazon begins to slowly corrupt Samus, the final saga in the Metroid Prime trilogy begins.”
I’ve always been a sucker for the Prime series ever since it came out, and loved it to the last bit. I mean this is what first person games should be like. It plays out more like an adventure than a blazing fast action game, and this time seems no different. Retro Studios has managed to get me sucked into one of its space warps once again.
E3 2007, Reggie Fils-Aime finally gave out a date for the final chapter of the trilogy, 27th August 2007 on North American shores (almost a month before Halo 3 hits the 360), 26th October for Europe. No release date has been announced as of now for the land of the rising sun, but given their undying dislike for the FPS genre altogether, its release hardly seems to make a difference.
“Cryogenic systems stable. Corrupted life support anomaly detected…Bleep…Bleep”
The game begins just like the movie Aliens. Dark Samus is shown for a split second breaking free from a room whilst Samus lays peacefully in cryogenic sleep, is it a nightmare that traverses through Samus’ mind, perhaps not. A corruption seems to be spreading across the galaxy. There is an eerie sense of unfamiliarity that is meant to baffle the player and at the same time create an atmosphere that keeps one immersed. The silence of sound could have never spoken so much in the entire series.
Samus Wakes up from her slumber and the player takes control of her, this introduction is done to familiarize players with the new control scheme. Here’s how Matt Casamassina from IGN describes it:
“You can look around the cockpit with the nunchuk’s analog stick and you can point to various switches and levers with the Wii remote. A simple tap of the A button may bring up displays, activate boosters, and so on. Retro Studios hasn’t suddenly given you the freedom to roam the galaxy – this is still a very controlled situation created specifically to familiarize you with the basics – but it’s very atmospheric all the same.”
I’d bet it has all of you drooling already. Hold onto that drool, there’s plenty more to come.
The gameplay mechanics of the entire Prime Series have remained the same. Explore a few areas, gain power ups for your suit, do the morph ball thing, and use these power ups to un-lock previously locked areas. These core mechanics have seen a complete flawless transition on the Wii with a bunch of additional techniques now performed by the Motion sensitive controls.
The biggest and probably vital addition to the gameplay is the hyper mode which unleashes her fury within, basically it’s the Phazon infection taking its toll on Samus. On entering the Hyper Mode Samus goes into an overdrive, which directly starts affecting the Corruption Meter and a Phazon Meter. The Corruption Mode can only be entered once the Phazon meter builds up. Samus can perform Phazon attacks in the corruption mode. This mode basically allows players to enhance their skills from the regular suit. Samus can move and shoot faster in this mode.
However this mode also has its drawbacks, remaining in the Corrupt Mode for prolonged periods may lead to imminent user demise.
E3 2007 had two playable levels; the first one was on star station called Flagship Olympus, where Samus lands her ship. The chatter among the NPC also seems to have been clamored up from the previous games, as Samus moves around she is greeted by various members /marines who seem to acknowledge her greatness. On the ship Samus has to maneuver herself about, this portion of the game requires to perform numerous context sensitive moves with the help of the Nunchuk and the analog before she can finally go about to attend a meeting, called upon a military officer who will be commissioning a fleet of bounty hunters to track down this corruption. The first level on the station reminds me of Half Life. It gave me a sense of navigating through various corridors to reach the destination, which would alter Gordon Freeman’s life forever
This meeting is interrupted by a space pirate attack and forces Samus to leave Olympus in hot pursuit of the pirates. This stage according to many is highly reminiscent of the “Pillar Autumn Stage” from the original Halo, the difference being it is more chaotic, in the sense there are tons of stuff that is happening around the world which may help/complicate Samus’ in her quest.
The second level that was shown was called Skytown Elysia, a somewhat floating city in the clouds. Players navigate through the level with the help of rails which Samus can attach herself to with her all new grappling lasso. This level seemed to radiate a sense of freedom from the previous claustrophobic Metroid worlds, and also gave an insight on the variety of foes that Samus would face on her current outing. There seems to be going beyond the regular organic stuff, one of her boss confrontations included a Steamlord, a large flying robot that fires green lasers. This mech-demon only comes out in the open when one of his bots is blasted by Samus. I also saw another boss battle on the Star station and it looked and played awesome, check it out yourself:
So there what you have witnessed were two levels that were shown on the floor.
The controls of the Wii also seem to have been fine tuned to suit the preferences of both new-comers and veterans alike. Like always here’s a brief lowdown of the controls from the veterans themselves.
1UP states: And the controls, while fluid and fast, are also a little cumbersome in places. Using the Wii Remote’s + and – and 1 and 2 buttons still doesn’t feel natural, and the – button in particular is used excessively. Appealing though this new faster take on Metroid may be, the previous games’ slower pace made their complex control schemes viable.
IGN reports: In Metroid Prime 3, you can lock-on to enemies by holding down the Z button. This function is not nearly as important as it was in the previous games since the new and improved manual aim is so responsive, but it’s still helpful when you want to quickly cycle between foes. You can now lock-on to enemies and retail manual aim with the Wii remote, essentially enabling you to pinpoint shoot Space Pirates and other baddies if you so desire. If you’d rather not bother, turn it off in the options menu and forget it ever existed. Press the 1 button at any time and you’ll bring up the map, options and logbook screens, where you can easily change your control sensitivity and toggle lock-on with manual aim on or off.
CVG says: Boss fights do, however, reveal a slight mishandling of the lock-on. Maybe we had a dodgy nunchuk, but the Z-button-controlled lock-on seemed to break whenever we turned too violently. Unlike GC Primes, in Corruption it locks your direction, not your weapon, towards enemies.
There the lowdown is that the controls lay somewhere between fluid and exhaustive, yet frustrating at times. These minor complaints will be present throughout the game and hopefully will not ruin its rich experience.
There are a couple of new visors as well in the game, which will aid Samus in her dangerous journey. The musical score seems also in flow of the mystery and thrill surrounding the game; it serves best for its atmosphere. The graphics also seem to be in flow with the Wii’s finest, according to Game Informer, the title looked better than Halo 2, and ran silky smooth at 60fps.This game stands next to being Wii’s finest games ever and is a must have for this season.
The biggest drawback of the game is the lack of a multiplayer component, but who cares when the single player component has such an atmosphere to it.
So there you have all the info on Retro Studios going with their final lunge with the Prime Series. If you may be wondering whether earth’s next on Retro’s list, maybe but that’s reserved for the Covenants this season, probably on the “Wii-cube or Square”.
–By Neelesh Mukherjee