Retro Game Friday: Metroid Prime 3

This week for Retro Game Friday I’m covering the final entry in the Metroid Prime Trilogy! It’s Metroid Prime 3: Corruption!

Plot Synopsis: Admiral Castor Dane, leader of a Galactic Federation fleet, calls for a meeting with Samus Aran and three other bounty hunters—Rundas, Ghor, and Gandrayda. The bounty hunters receive orders to clear a computer virus from several organic supercomputers called “Aurora Units” in the Galactic Federation’s network. Suddenly, the meeting ends abruptly when Space Pirates attack the Federation fleet. Samus and the other bounty hunters are deployed to the planet Norion, where the Space Pirates are concentrating an attack on a Federation naval base. While suppressing the attack, Samus learns that a Phazon asteroid, called a Leviathan Seed, will soon collide into Norion. Samus and the other bounty hunters attempt to activate the base’s defense systems, when they are suddenly attacked by Dark Samus…

Plot: The plot is actually really good, and I enjoyed the heck out of the story for this game. It’s a pity that it played less desirably than the prior entries.

Gameplay: This was the only entry to be made for the Wii, which led to some unfortunate design choices like the choice to make use of motion controls. However other than that, it was easily the best entry in the series and was quite a blast to play if you could get over the awkward controls. It also was the first game in the series to take place on multiple planets instead of just one like the prior two games.

Art: It hasn’t aged well, but for the time it was pretty good looking. But if you were to play it now, it’d be an eyesore.

Music: Very well done, creepy in the parts where it was supposed to be and heart pounding in the action sequences.

Overall: A great entry marred by aged graphics and motion controls.

Video Game Tuesday: Where’s Metroid?

Hey all for this week’s Video Game Tuesday in honor of Metroid’s recent 30th anniversary I’ve got a question. Where’s Metroid?

We haven’t had an entry in the series since the horrible “Other M”. That particular game was atrocious, seriously why did Nintendo let Ninja Team touch the IP? The prior entry in the series was Metroid Prime 3 and while that was a decent entry, it wasn’t anything amazing either. I’m sorry, but the Wii didn’t have the power capability for the series and while there were a few interesting mechanics, the motion controls were more annoying than helpful.

The last great Metroid game that was released was Zero Mission and that is a remake of the original. Which leaves Prime 2 and Fusion as the last great games. Fusion was amazing, and while I didn’t really hate Prime 2, I didn’t enjoy it nearly as much as the original.

The only forthcoming Metroid game we know about is a spin off off the Prime series and that won’t even feature Samus.

I guess Metroid should be lumped together with Bomberman, Star Fox and Mega Man and left in the dustbin.

That’s it for this Video Game Tuesday.

Retro Game Friday: Metroid Prime

 

This week I’m covering a favorite game of mine, it’s Metroid Prime!

Plot Synopsis: Samus Aran, a Bounty Hunter, intercepts a distress signal from the Space Pirate frigate Orpheon, whose crew have been slaughtered by the Pirates’ own genetically modified, experimental subjects.

Plot: Well the plot in this game is very minor, and that’s actually to it’s benefit in that it’s all about the gameplay which was quite fantastic.

Gameplay: The game is a FPS game, but it has heavy elements of exploration and puzzle solving involved as well. I really enjoyed the gameplay, and my only complaint is that as a younger kid I got quite scared easily of all the bug-like monsters I had to destroy. Looking back it wasn’t that bad, but this game is probably a bit too intense for a kid.

Art: The art in this game was pretty good, but nothing spectacular.

Music: The music was amazing and very enthralling. It definitely helps set the mood for the game.

Overall: If you enjoy Metroid games you’ll love Prime.

For those who like: Metroid, FPS games with plenty of puzzles and exploration elements.

Not for those who don’t like: Any of the above, or have a fear of bugs.

 

P.S. Happy Independence Day to all the American readers.