Being the old-school gamer that I am, my list of all-time favorite games is largely comprised of classics from the SNES era. Thus, to say that Super Metroid is one of my favorite games of all time is clearly an understatement. Absolute perfection in platforming form, Super Metroid took a fairly mediocre series and turned it into a work of art. So, creating a format that would evolve the series into 3D seemed daunting, if not impossible. Retro Studios, a second party developer for Nintendo, took the task personally upon themselves and what ensued was a game that blew away any and all expectations.
Metroid Prime was one of the major reasons to own a GameCube and Metroid Prime 2: Echoes followed in its footsteps to bring a longer, darker, more difficult version of the game. Now, Nintendo’s bounty hunter babe Samus Aran is finally closing out the Prime trilogy in flying colors on the Nintendo Wii. As the unique “first person adventure” can obviously garner further polish from the control capabilities of the Wii, this game looks to be a true masterpiece. But does it hold up to all of the hype?
Prime Time
Before launch time, the Wii looked to have a slew of launch titles that would blow away the competition. As Wiis hit the shelves, people began to find out that fully using the Wii’s functionality would take a little longer than wii’d expected (I know, that pun got old last year). For instance, the hit title, The Legend of Zelda: The Twilight Princess was an excellent game, but it didn’t really show off the Wii’s capabilities aside from a polished fishing game and the ability to precisely aim your precious items. Also, people drooled over the idea of having an FPS that controlled like a mouse using the Wii’s controls but at launch we were given Red Steel and Call of Duty 3, two games that just felt a bit sluggish and certainly didn’t give you the control of a PC shooter.
Thus, we’ve been waiting for the time where a game would show some of the more interesting and intuitive ways to use the Wii’s special control scheme, and also a time when someone would create an FPS system that actually functioned well on the Wii. Metroid Prime 3 succeeds in both of these tasks by providing you with a cohesive control scheme (but still not perfect by any means) and some very clever ways to implement Wii controls giving the player more “control” of their game. Examples of clever implementation include small puzzles that use subtle Wii controls such as twisting the Wii-Mote to crack locks, pull levers, push buttons, and weld wires. Each of these intuitive control uses pulls you further into the game and adds to the overall realism.