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| Title |
Metroid Prime |
9 |
| Publisher |
Nintendo |
| Developer |
Retro Studios |
| Genre |
First Person Adventure |
| Players |
1 |
| Version |
US NTSC |
Don't argue. Buy!
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When looking at the greatest Nintendo games, nay the greatest games period, of all time, Super Metroid, and indeed the whole Metroid franchise, will be up there with the best of them. Despite Super Metroid not making it big in Japan, it still hasn?t stopped Nintendo from putting a great deal of effort into this affair and creating what is possibly the greatest game on the Gamecube.
Indeed, it could well have been the disappointing Japanese sales that led Nintendo to giving the monumental task of developing this game to a western-based company, namely Retro Studios. It is no secret that Metroid has also been a lot more popular in the West than in the East, but that didn?t stop me from having my doubts when I heard this news. You see, I am a believer that the Japanese process of making games is far superior to that of Western companies, and thus on the whole make the better games. Further controversy spread when it was announced that the classic side-scrolling affair would be done away with and, of all things, placed into the first person. Could Nintendo and retro really recreate the feel of Metroid in the first person? Would it even be Metroid anymore?
Alas, my fears were in vain. Nintendo, it seems, were very careful in maintaining the feel of the series and had made the conscious decision that in the first person perspective they could still accomplish that, and they have. In essence it is classic Metroid; you begin your adventure in a small quest to get you into the game and familiar with the controls, much like in the Super Nintendo incarnation. Once that is defeated you are thrust into the planet where, upon landing, you are given the choice of routes you wish to take, again, same as the previous encounter. But of course, this being Metroid, you will soon realise that there are only one or two routes you can walk along leaving the others tantalisingly out of reach ready for you return later in the game. Samus? arm blaster makes it?s return also but this time it comes in several flavours, each of which will be picked up through the course of the game. These don?t just have different effects on enemies, but they also act as keys to different doors as with previous games, Samus must shoot the door to open it. If the colour of the door does not match your weapon then you must come back when you have it. These different weapons add a great deal of strategy and depth to the game now as certain weapons are better against certain enemies, but also you may want to change weapons mid fight as another weapon can become more useful later on in the battle. Couple this with the new weapon combos that combine the missiles of old and the charge beam, also seen before, to make a devastating effect on the enemies.
But obviously, many things have had to change, or at least be altered, thanks to the new perspective. Now, many people have made the incorrect assumption that this is a first person shooter. Yes you are playing the game from the first person, and yes you do shoot, but the gameplay mechanics make it feel more like an adventure game than a shoot ?em up. Just in the same way that Super Metroid was not a side scrolling shooter, Metroid Prime is not a first person shooter. It?s that simple. The game requires you to play through a story that has been centred around a dying civilisation and the relationship Samus has to this planet and it?s previous inhabitants. As the player, you will learn about this story through various hieroglyphics and other stored information placed around the world. These are read using the scanning visor. The visor you see, is one of the most important improvements for this game over traditional first person games as well as the Metroid series as a whole.
Retro clearly did not want to make a normal first person game and so they took the usual aspect of having a HUD on your screen, and made it into the centrepiece for the games action. The visor now acts as more than just a heads up display giving you information on health and other vital statistics, but it now has many other functions. The first of which you have at the beginning of the game and is the aforementioned Scanning visor. When activated (you can change which visor you have activated by pressing a direction on the D-Pad) you can scan the areas looking for clues, hints on how to solve puzzles or information on enemies. It is an invaluable tool and early on in the game you will find yourself switching to this view every time you enter a new room. Before long however you learn as to where scan information would be located so become more efficient with it as you progress. The other visors have a more elaborate approach to them, as they are the Heat Sensitive visor and the X-Ray visor. This is truly when you realise how much effort has been placed into this game. The Heat Sensitive visor turns your view into that which you may see on a Predator movie. It even has the correct crosshairs. The X-Ray visor is equally impressive in that it allows you see through certain walls and when fighting enemies in this view you can even see their skeletons. It?s also the case with Samus as if you are hit and Samus bring her hand up to cover her eyes, you can see through her flesh into her bone structure also. Pure genius. Each visor obviously has it?s own uses but discovering what they are is part of the fun.
A major concern I had before playing this game however was how the jumping would be handled. With other first person games I have played, the jumping has always been a cumbersome and arduous task and down to the perspective, making accurate jumps was close to impossible. I was worried that, since so much of Metroid?s gameplay is based around jumping, that traversing ledges and such would be a painful experience. Luckily though Retro has done a good job here and although early in the game the jumping can be a tad frustrating, it is no more so than it was in the side scrolling version. Once you collect the double jump it becomes even easier. However, there are still issues here as it Is not fool proof. Obviously the jumping shouldn?t be made so easy that there is no point in having jumps that could cause hazards, but when you don?t make a jump thanks to the fact that you couldn?t see where you were in relation to the ledge it is nothing short of frustrating. Thankfully this doesn?t happen too often so it doesn?t detract from the game as a whole. It should be noted that this problem may not have occurred if the controls were closer to those used in other First Person games, ie move forward and back as well as strafe left and right with the left stick, and look around with the right. In fact the controls here are closer to that of Goldeneye on the Nintendo 64 in that you use the right shoulder button in conjunction with the analog stick to look around meaning moving and looking at the same time are not possible. The reason for this change though is clear and it?s not long before this way of playing becomes second nature.
That second nature will come in very handy though as you will do a LOT of travelling around here. The game is not over once you get from point A to point B as it is structured that you have to visit areas that you have previously traversed in order to continue on. Indeed as was mentioned earlier, there are many many areas that you come across on your first visit that are inaccessible to begin with that may need a special weapon or other accessory that you don?t have yet meaning you will need to return later. And you will. The game is structured so well that moving from point to point is so fluid and you will not find having to get from one part of the world to the other just so you can get that missile upgrade that you missed more fun than a chore and this is a very important point to make. Exploration is encouraged and the more you explore the more you will get out of the game. In fact at points you will think that you are exploring but are actually following the plot, while at other times you will think that you are making progress in the plot but are actually just discovering a secret. It is that clever. This has always been the largest gameplay element in these types of game though ? the fact that you WANT to go over places you have previously been through in order to get that secret you couldn?t get before. In other, less fine tuned games this sort of experience gets boring and tedious, but not here, and that is why the game is so special.
A special mention needs to be made for the morph ball however. As with the previous games in the series, Samus can turn herself in a ball that allows her access areas previously inaccessible. While in this mode the view pans back into the third person allowing you a clear view of the ball and the action surrounding it. The reason I feel that this deserves a special mention though is that once you have seen this ball in motion, you realise how inaccurate other attempts at making a ball move in a game were. Now this sounds like an incredibly stupid thing to say, but the dynamics and the physics on this ball make it look and feel like a real ball and it?s incredible how it feels. It falls and rolls in seemingly random ways, but at the same time exactly how you would expect. Couple this with the incredible looking ball anyway and you can have a lot of fun controlling that little thing around the levels and it?s uses are many.
Of course graphics do not maketh the game, but they certainly can make your jaw drop when you see them. In this reviewer?s opinion, Metroid Prime has perhaps the best graphics I have ever seen on any system. Quite a bold statement I know, but never before has a game captured so much detail, so many effects and so much atmosphere and still run at a cool 60 frames per second. Every nook and cranny, every conceivable detail has been lovingly created here, be it ruined ancient architecture to caverns in the deep core of the planet, the sheer amount of effort put into the visuals is awe inspiring on it?s own. The physics engine will also leave you drooling as rain drops from the sky in random patterns, snow falls calmly and touches down on the crisp white ground and fire engulfs you in the caverns of the planet. Jump into a pool of water and you see the splash and ripples slowly fade away from you. They are all small things but really add to the whole picture of this masterpiece.
Samus? visors also need another mention here. As I talked about earlier the visors allow you to see in other aspects, but the visor has also been programmed to act as if you are really inside a suit, rather than the HUD being beamed directly into your brain. So simple things as just turning your head makes this clear as the HUD is half a second behind you. The world is distorted at the edges of your sight showing off the curved Perspex around your face. Jump into a pool of water or lava and droplets of the liquid will remain on your visor for a few seconds. Exterminate a giant bee as it flies at you head on and the orange goo left over on your visor makes the kill all the more satisfying. Walk through some steam and Samus? breath will leave condensation on the inside or the visor or if a particularly strong lightning bolt goes off in front of your eyes you will see a reflection of our heroin in the visor looking back at you. Indeed it is small effects like these as well many others that increase the feeling that you are indeed Samus Aran in this strange and fantastical world. It really makes this game more than just a joy to play, but an experience in itself.
The sound is also of top quality although admittedly nothing out of the ordinary. You can hear the crunch of snow as you make your way over snow fields, you hear the splash of water as you wade through lakes and pools and you hear the grunts and groans of Samus as she is hit by the multitude of enemies that you face along the way. The music however is something special. Each score is crafted for each area of the game and really captures the feel of each landscape. The quality of the music is particularly evident in the opening menu with its dark, melodious, yet gothic undertones.
It?s really quite difficult to fault this game. I am usually quite critical of games and find it easy to point out faults (whether that is a good trait or a bad one I leave up to you) but in this instance I am hard pressed to even mention one bad point about it. This is because the game is almost flawless. It won?t be to everyone?s tastes, most likely the Japanese for a start as they persecute every western made game, but I hope that the fact that it was closely made with Nintendo will encourage that audience to pick this up as it truly is a gem of a game. In fact I urge every Gamecube owner to pick this one up. It is the Halo of the Cube as it is the major must own title on the system and will most likely outshine every up coming title until Zelda. It has secured it?s place in gaming history, a rare feat in today?s mainstream gaming world.
Seth Powell |
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