Metroid Prime 3

[Fragony]

Why didn't any of you wii-owners post a topic about this? Was an act of mercy for europeans who had to wait for their release? If so thanks for that because I would probably would have died.

2 Hours in the game, and it is simply glorious, easily tops Bioshock as my game of the year. Metroid is fun enough on it's own, but the wii-controls make a fantastic game the mana of the gods. Perfect control, everything makes sense, while Metroid never was about combat having great combat can't hurt a game no? It takes a while before the quality of the graphics sink in, the first level is rather bland in comparison with the rest, and it's a bit halo-eaque, ah well. Having some story shouldn't hurt either. In case you didn't get it by now, I am really really impressed

[Geoffrey S]

Flatmate has it. All I have to say, it's stylistically one of the most beautiful games I've ever seen. Usually I'm bored quickly watching my flatmate play a new game (ie. Halo 3) but in this case I can just sit and watch the pretty visuals...

[Fragony]

wowowowoWOW! Excellent. This is not spam, just me pleading for a law that allows you to marry a videogame, move it to the backroom if you have to.

[Phatose]

It wasn't mercy to europeans, I just wasn't very impressed with the game. It's a Metroid Prime franchise game first, and a wii game only a distant second. The controls aren't bad, except for their overuse of the wii's very flaky in-out motion sensitivity. It's just that it sticks to the franchise which was designed in expectation of horrific gamepad aiming, so that greater accuracy in combat just isn't all that relevant. The parts where accuracy does matter - shooting panels on the roller coaster and whatnot - all end up feeling very tacked on.

Adding in genuine locational damage and speeding up the beams so they didn't move like a 6 year olds softball pitch could've helped tons.

I'm dissappointed, really. MP1 was a classic because they looked at the Metroid formula and rethought it to fit the environment. The changeover to the wii just doesn't get the full treatment - they stuck to the formula, added a few things in , but just didn't rethink any previous decisions.

[Fragony]

Well I remember you also didn't like echoes and yeah it is more of the same so no surprise that for you corruption isn't the revelation that was Metroid Prime, but it is a pure metroid game and I would have been dissapointed if it was anything else. Metroid Prime was a masterpiece alright, you never noticed you don't like this type of game after all ~;)

I get everything I want from this title, excellent art, fantastic level design and great bosses. It's Metroid! Look at the bright side, having fps gameplay is possible on the wii, can't wait for a let's say Unreal Tournament.

[frogbeastegg]

I was playing this on my holiday. I'm now right near the end. Overall it's the best Wii game I've played, and it's the first that I have felt to be worth buying the machine for. Much better than Twilight Princess; that game lacked something and I drifted away from playing it after less than 6 hours. The Wii elements for that game felt so tacked on as to be faintly embarrassing.

The good.
I found the controls to be near perfect. I used the advanced/free look setting from the start as I know it's a lot more sensitive and versatile than the other settings. The only issues I had were hangovers from the Prime 1/2 set up, namely the ease with which lock on gets broken leaving me wallowing around because strafe no longer works in the way I expect, and the ridiculous difficulty of executing the sideways dash move. The motion sensitive stuff worked brilliantly, I can only recall a bare handful of occasions where I had to repeat a gesture. It's a matter of being the correct distance from the TV, no closer and no further away, and of not having competing light sources which the remote might pick up on and mistake for the sensor bar. I used to have plenty of trouble with that.

The difficulty curve this time was spot on. That's not to say I struggled with Prime 1, more that Prime 3 felt more ... even. It grows harder at a rate which is perfectly judged for my skills.

Tiny little touches. I like the way Samus' appearance changes subtly as she grows more corrupted. Did anyone else notice that her eyes follow the cursor when you have the scan visor up?

The less so.
The world is so much duller than that of Prime 1. I dislike the way it is disjointed and scattered around landing sites and planets. It does not feel as epic and cohesive. I did not find any of the worlds to be as beautiful as the areas in Prime 1.

That first hour and a half was a bit umm. Metroid or Halo?

I had all sorts of problems with the grabble beam. Specifically, getting off the cursed thing without falling to my death with Samus' helmet brushing the ledge I should have landed on. The number of times I just *barely* missed a landing ...!

The plot. Alright, I doubt anyone plays Metroid for the plot, but if they make a larger than usual effort to include one, as they did with Prime 3, why make it such a wobbly affair? Why did no one seem bothered that the other hunters went renegade? Why did no one wonder if the same might happen to Samus? Why didn't Samus get corrupted - a proper reason, not some malarkey about firing your beam like a madwoman. Etc.


In short: I want a Prime 1/2 Wii re-release with these controls added! I played Prime 1 to near completion twice despite the controls, cursing and struggling every step of the way. I barely played Prime 2 because the controls still reeked and I wanted to battle my way through the first game. Prime 3 I started up, and now have nearly finished, because the controls represented such an improvement I couldn't see the point in struggling my way through the other two first. I wantto play them to completion; I don't want to deal with those hideous controls.

[Fragony]

Wow you have been busy, still at 30%. Yes this just begs for a wii version of the previous games. Personally I think the worlds are great, the original had some lesser parts as well, phazon mines/fire world, more of a feeling of being an ecology though.

[frogbeastegg]

Wohoo! Finished it. 93% in 19 hours 20 minutes. That final boss was a bit of a nasty chappy; we were both down to our last sliver of health and I was more accurate with my blast of red hot laser death than it was :gring:

The only thing stopping me from running back to the first two Prime games for more Metroid is the controls. They make me weep. If they were lousy before they are totally unbearable now ~:mecry:


Fragony, the famous Phazon mines is the part where I had to put Prime 1 on hold. I reached the savepoint as you enter the area, Returning several weeks later my skills were no longer up to the job of clearing the hardest part of the game, and that was the end of that. Same thing happened on my second playthrough. This is why I played Prime 3 so much over my week off - I didn't want history to repeat.

[Geoffrey S]

Fragony, the famous Phazon mines is the part where I had to put Prime 1 on hold. I reached the savepoint as you enter the area, Returning several weeks later my skills were no longer up to the job of clearing the hardest part of the game, and that was the end of that. Same thing happened on my second playthrough. This is why I played Prime 3 so much over my week off - I didn't want history to repeat.
Funnily enough, exactly the same happened to me. I got a bit bored there, stopped, and found myself unable to get any further later.

[Fragony]

You both missed the greatest boss battle (and hardest dear god) of the game then. When it comes to exploring, seen it all. Time for echoes then, better press on with that one because it's much harder then the firsy, still have nightmares of the boostball guardian.

[frogbeastegg]

That's why I always intended to complete Prime 1 first - training. After Prime 3 I'm in great Metroid playing shape, but those controls, gah!

I'm tinkering with the virtual console edition of Super Metroid. So far it's somewhat underwhelming for such a famous game. Fusion and Zero Mission both had more initial impact and more eyecatching worlds. It was neat when I recognised part of the first area as a certain location from Zero Mission ...