Neo
03-15-2004, 10:50 PM
Metroid Prime
By: Zachary Wright
Metroid Prime is Samus Aran's first journey into a 3D environment. It also happens to be her first time in a First Person perspective. The fact that this old school side scroller was delving into new territory sparked a huge war of controversy. But, as the day dawns when we finally get our hands on this masterpiece of software, we realize that it fits perfectly with the legend known as Metroid. We also arrive a the conclusion that this isn't a traditional FPS, rather it is a First Person Adventure (FPA.) Metroid Prime comes from a long line of Nintendo games. The original Metroid was called just that, Metroid. It was a side scroller that revolutionized video gameing, sparking a league of rabid fans. It was released in the August of 1986, and the gaming world has seen very little sidescrollers that compare with it. The next game in the series, Metroid II: The Return of Samus, was released on the Game Boy system, and picked up soon after the first ended, with Samus having defeated the Mother Brain on Zebes and heading for the Metroids' homeworld of SR388. Deep inside the planet Samus battles evolved forms of the Metroid, carving her way through the vast army of aliens until she finally defeats the Queen Metroid, destroying the entire species, except for one hatchling. The third game in the series took its home on the Super Nintendo. It was called Super Metroid and once again it lived up to the hype. In this game Samus returns to Planet Zebes to fight the resurrected Mother Brain, Ridley, Kraid, and more Metroids, plus new enemies Spore Spawn, Bowtoon, Crocomire, Phantoon, and Draygon to put an end to the Space Pirates' plans once and for all and rescue the stolen Metroid hatchling from their clutches.
Now it's time for Samus to show her metal mug on the Nintendo Gamecube. Does it live up to the impossible hype level set by its three predecessors? Sure it can, why not?
Graphics: 10 The visuals in this game will blow your mind. It takes full advantage of the Gamecube hardware and works it beyond its maximum. It is stunning all the actions taken by Retro Studios (RS) to make this the most beautiful game on the market. Let me paint you a picture, a brief scene in the game: Your standing outside, in the central hub of the gaming world. A steady rain begins to fall, and the area around you grows slightly darker, hazier. A fog rises off the water, and when you look up dropplets of water crash down on your visor and run off, distorting your vision. You can see the hazy blur of the sun through the rain, and all is quiet. This is but one taste of the graphical heaven RS has put us in. While on your adventure you will explore smoking lava chambers, scourge the freezing tundra of evil, and liberate the beautiful Chozo Ruins. And one cannot forget the underwater levels, which were so perfectly engineered. The textures in this game are so life-like you will feel at times that if you could reach out and touch them, you would feel the smooth cold of ice, and the rough brittleness of ancient stone. You will also be pleased to know that the cinematics in this game look exactly like it does during gameplay. Its not that they downgraded the cinematics or anything, its just that they have upgraded the normal gameplay to a level never seen before. The creatures in this game were designed with realsim in mind. The aliens and other space vermin are as superb looking as the surrounding environment. The realism put into these devils will never cease to amaze you.
Sound: 9.0 While there aren't any real voice acting in this game, the music and sound effects more than make up for it. The music in the game is good, and goes along with whatever scene or area is being played out, but the real meat of the sound development was put into the sound effects. The realist sound of your power gun blasting a metroid into peices, the noise given off by the arm cannon when your charging up an ice missle. These and every other sound in the game were worked to near perfection to immerse you in a sci-fi setting.
Gameplay: 9.0 It was tempting not to give this game a 10 in gameplay, it was so fun, and so good, but I have to face facts, it wasn't perfect. Lets start off with the cons of the gameplay that drove me to bring it down 1 point. First and foremost is the lack of interaction and interesting story development. The entire story and plot progression of the game is done through the scanning of space pirate computers and reading what information they contain. You are the only character in the game that possesses a trace of humanity, and thus you cannot communicate with any other life form. By saying this I am in no way saying that the story isn't good, it's one of the most intriguing sci-fi games on the market, but it could have been much better if RS had found another way to tell it besides the tedious hours of reading. As one might expect, reading three pages off of a TV screen is not just boring, but is a real strain on the eyes. The only other complaint I had with the gameplay was the fact that this game is very short. It can be beaten in roughly 10 hours, if you play through and dont go out of your way to get extra missle expansions or energy packs. If you do go after these extra items, and try to scan everything possible to get 100% complete, than you can expect close to 15 hours. When you're playing a game with such a high calibur of fun, 15 hours is going to leave you wanting more, and there is no more to be had.
Now that we have thoroughly discussed the cons of this game, we now have to look at what aspects of this game make up the 9 points it did recieve.
One of the most immersing and entertaining aspects of Metroid Prime would have to be the various visors available. The simple fact that you have more than one visor makes you feel all tingly inside and gives you the immpression that you really are a bounty hunter and that you have the technology to take on anything that comes your way. The visors include X-Ray, Thermal, Combat, and Scan. Each of these visors serves a purpose in successfully completing the game. For example: Your in a room full of Metroids, and its too dark to see your hand in front of your face, what do you do? Switch to the Thermal visor and pump energy blasts into any sign of heat. This is but one example, each visor serves a different, deadly purpose, and you will be thankful you have each and everyone of them.
Along with the variety of visors comes your standard bounty hunter arsenal of death. Samus is pack'n major heat, and you are going do love each and every fire arm she has. You start the game with her standard power blaster that shoots your standard balls of yellow energy, but not long after the begins you also come upon a missle expansion for your arm cannon. As you progress further through the game you will stumble upon many other weapons, including a freeze ray, plasma cannon, and the wave gun. You will have to learn the uses of each of these weapons to successfully tackle any enemy you come upon. It should also be noted that you can "fuse" the standard missle with each of the other fire arms. So you can take turn the ice ray into an ice bazooka, the plasma cannon into a flamethrower, and the wave gun into the ultimate extermination gun. Along with your arsenal of weapons comes the traditional morph ball. You will earn this upgrade pretty early on and use it for exploration rather than combat. When you morph into the ball the camera will switch to third person, and you can roll the ball into places Samus could never dream of fitting into. The morph ball also comes with a set of bombs used to catapult yourself to greater hights or take out small enemies. Not to be forgotten are the different suits samus will have at her disposal. The standard power suit allows you to survive falls from far heights, withstand extreme heat, and travel through water. The Gravity suit will allow samus to travel under the water, and the phazon suit allows her to withstand the deadly phazon radiaton. That just about sums up all of Samus's weapons and gadgets, but if you want to complete the game at 100% you will have to collect all the missle expansions (allowing you to carry more missles at once) and all the energy expansions (giving you a larger amount of health each time you discover one.)
By: Zachary Wright
Metroid Prime is Samus Aran's first journey into a 3D environment. It also happens to be her first time in a First Person perspective. The fact that this old school side scroller was delving into new territory sparked a huge war of controversy. But, as the day dawns when we finally get our hands on this masterpiece of software, we realize that it fits perfectly with the legend known as Metroid. We also arrive a the conclusion that this isn't a traditional FPS, rather it is a First Person Adventure (FPA.) Metroid Prime comes from a long line of Nintendo games. The original Metroid was called just that, Metroid. It was a side scroller that revolutionized video gameing, sparking a league of rabid fans. It was released in the August of 1986, and the gaming world has seen very little sidescrollers that compare with it. The next game in the series, Metroid II: The Return of Samus, was released on the Game Boy system, and picked up soon after the first ended, with Samus having defeated the Mother Brain on Zebes and heading for the Metroids' homeworld of SR388. Deep inside the planet Samus battles evolved forms of the Metroid, carving her way through the vast army of aliens until she finally defeats the Queen Metroid, destroying the entire species, except for one hatchling. The third game in the series took its home on the Super Nintendo. It was called Super Metroid and once again it lived up to the hype. In this game Samus returns to Planet Zebes to fight the resurrected Mother Brain, Ridley, Kraid, and more Metroids, plus new enemies Spore Spawn, Bowtoon, Crocomire, Phantoon, and Draygon to put an end to the Space Pirates' plans once and for all and rescue the stolen Metroid hatchling from their clutches.
Now it's time for Samus to show her metal mug on the Nintendo Gamecube. Does it live up to the impossible hype level set by its three predecessors? Sure it can, why not?
Graphics: 10 The visuals in this game will blow your mind. It takes full advantage of the Gamecube hardware and works it beyond its maximum. It is stunning all the actions taken by Retro Studios (RS) to make this the most beautiful game on the market. Let me paint you a picture, a brief scene in the game: Your standing outside, in the central hub of the gaming world. A steady rain begins to fall, and the area around you grows slightly darker, hazier. A fog rises off the water, and when you look up dropplets of water crash down on your visor and run off, distorting your vision. You can see the hazy blur of the sun through the rain, and all is quiet. This is but one taste of the graphical heaven RS has put us in. While on your adventure you will explore smoking lava chambers, scourge the freezing tundra of evil, and liberate the beautiful Chozo Ruins. And one cannot forget the underwater levels, which were so perfectly engineered. The textures in this game are so life-like you will feel at times that if you could reach out and touch them, you would feel the smooth cold of ice, and the rough brittleness of ancient stone. You will also be pleased to know that the cinematics in this game look exactly like it does during gameplay. Its not that they downgraded the cinematics or anything, its just that they have upgraded the normal gameplay to a level never seen before. The creatures in this game were designed with realsim in mind. The aliens and other space vermin are as superb looking as the surrounding environment. The realism put into these devils will never cease to amaze you.
Sound: 9.0 While there aren't any real voice acting in this game, the music and sound effects more than make up for it. The music in the game is good, and goes along with whatever scene or area is being played out, but the real meat of the sound development was put into the sound effects. The realist sound of your power gun blasting a metroid into peices, the noise given off by the arm cannon when your charging up an ice missle. These and every other sound in the game were worked to near perfection to immerse you in a sci-fi setting.
Gameplay: 9.0 It was tempting not to give this game a 10 in gameplay, it was so fun, and so good, but I have to face facts, it wasn't perfect. Lets start off with the cons of the gameplay that drove me to bring it down 1 point. First and foremost is the lack of interaction and interesting story development. The entire story and plot progression of the game is done through the scanning of space pirate computers and reading what information they contain. You are the only character in the game that possesses a trace of humanity, and thus you cannot communicate with any other life form. By saying this I am in no way saying that the story isn't good, it's one of the most intriguing sci-fi games on the market, but it could have been much better if RS had found another way to tell it besides the tedious hours of reading. As one might expect, reading three pages off of a TV screen is not just boring, but is a real strain on the eyes. The only other complaint I had with the gameplay was the fact that this game is very short. It can be beaten in roughly 10 hours, if you play through and dont go out of your way to get extra missle expansions or energy packs. If you do go after these extra items, and try to scan everything possible to get 100% complete, than you can expect close to 15 hours. When you're playing a game with such a high calibur of fun, 15 hours is going to leave you wanting more, and there is no more to be had.
Now that we have thoroughly discussed the cons of this game, we now have to look at what aspects of this game make up the 9 points it did recieve.
One of the most immersing and entertaining aspects of Metroid Prime would have to be the various visors available. The simple fact that you have more than one visor makes you feel all tingly inside and gives you the immpression that you really are a bounty hunter and that you have the technology to take on anything that comes your way. The visors include X-Ray, Thermal, Combat, and Scan. Each of these visors serves a purpose in successfully completing the game. For example: Your in a room full of Metroids, and its too dark to see your hand in front of your face, what do you do? Switch to the Thermal visor and pump energy blasts into any sign of heat. This is but one example, each visor serves a different, deadly purpose, and you will be thankful you have each and everyone of them.
Along with the variety of visors comes your standard bounty hunter arsenal of death. Samus is pack'n major heat, and you are going do love each and every fire arm she has. You start the game with her standard power blaster that shoots your standard balls of yellow energy, but not long after the begins you also come upon a missle expansion for your arm cannon. As you progress further through the game you will stumble upon many other weapons, including a freeze ray, plasma cannon, and the wave gun. You will have to learn the uses of each of these weapons to successfully tackle any enemy you come upon. It should also be noted that you can "fuse" the standard missle with each of the other fire arms. So you can take turn the ice ray into an ice bazooka, the plasma cannon into a flamethrower, and the wave gun into the ultimate extermination gun. Along with your arsenal of weapons comes the traditional morph ball. You will earn this upgrade pretty early on and use it for exploration rather than combat. When you morph into the ball the camera will switch to third person, and you can roll the ball into places Samus could never dream of fitting into. The morph ball also comes with a set of bombs used to catapult yourself to greater hights or take out small enemies. Not to be forgotten are the different suits samus will have at her disposal. The standard power suit allows you to survive falls from far heights, withstand extreme heat, and travel through water. The Gravity suit will allow samus to travel under the water, and the phazon suit allows her to withstand the deadly phazon radiaton. That just about sums up all of Samus's weapons and gadgets, but if you want to complete the game at 100% you will have to collect all the missle expansions (allowing you to carry more missles at once) and all the energy expansions (giving you a larger amount of health each time you discover one.)