After an hour of Prime Time, is the game is the real deal? Read on to find out. http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/impressionsArt.cfm?artid=13951 When E3 closed down for day two, Nintendo opened up its hotel suite and invited me to sit down and play an extended session of Metroid Prime 3. For that hour of bliss, it was just me, the game, and a widescreen display running at 480p.
All of the hype and anticipation for Corruption will be met. That's a safe claim to make after playing the game for as long as I did. It looks absolutely fantastic in motion. The action moves at the speed and fluidity of F-Zero GX on the GameCube. That's not saying it looks like a GameCube game, however; although the models in the game have a "GameCube Turbo" look to them (not a bad thing), the scope of the environments and the level of detail is astounding. Lighting and particle effects in particular look great, as do the heat effects that warp and distort the area around where Samus fires her arm cannon, which look a lot better than they did on GameCube. In one of the early areas you'll be in a space station while a battle underway outside. In the background big ships fill the view and smaller ships fly all over the place, shooting laser canons that streak the landscape. The speed and scope combined really give off the impression that Retro has the first real Wii game on its hands, at least graphically.
The Wii controls are fantastic, too. The three different pointer sensitivities are designed with different people in mind, and the game will not play that much differently as you switch among them. The two slower settings allow for easier free targeting for newer players, and the lock-on feature (the Z button) makes up for the slower cursor speed, making the game play similar to previous Metroid Prime games. By default, shooting is done with the A Button and jumping with the B Trigger. These two functions can be switched in the options menu, but after trying to shoot rapidly with the trigger I found that I can't pull a trigger faster than I can press a button. I switched back to the default, but kudos to Retro for making the option available.
Flipping the sensitivity to expert is what puts Corruption in a league of its own. The cursor is fast and responsive, yet you can still perform precise aiming without the cursor jittering all over the place. The expert setting also turns on the "lock-on free look" option by default, which allows you to shoot anywhere on the screen while still locked onto an enemy. This makes it possible to strafe around one target and shoot something else that may be threatening, like airborne creatures making a dive for you. This control option is a perfect fit for Wii remote pros, because the aiming controls are so tight that you'll want to shoot at stuff without locking on to anything. The Wii remote setup makes Metroid Prime 3 feel like a true first-person shooter. The only other game on Wii that you could compare it to is Red Steel, which absolutely pales in comparison to the fluidity of Corruption's controls.
You're also going to experience a "wow" moment when you first activate your scan visor and have a look around, but I won't spoil exactly why here. With no second analog stick to switch visors, this time you hold down the Minus(-) Button to bring up the on-screen visor select menu. To choose a new visor you move the aiming cursor into one of three wedges in the circular display. Scan is in the top zone, and the new command visor is in the bottom right. The command visor lets you control your ship from afar, provided you're looking at the proper terminal by a landing site. After playing through the first two Metroid games on GameCube, hitting a button to change visors is a little strange, but I'm sure I will get used to it.
In last year's E3 demo, the grappling beam's controls were strange. Flicking the nunchuk forward still shoots it out, but in the old version you were required to pull back on the analog stick to yank whatever it was you grabbed on to. That has been changed in the final game to a much more natural movement: you must simply pull the nunchuk back to clear debris or de-shield enemies. This really reduces confusion since you don't need to worry about mixing up motion controls with traditional inputs.
The coolest addition to the game is the ability to actually go into Samus' gunship. Being inside the ship is a first for the series, and fanboys will no doubt be drooling over the prospect. It's not just for show, either; Samus can interact with switches and controls inside with the Wii remote by placing her hand on a panel or press buttons with her finger. Pressing the A button while moving her hand around with the remote pointer will make her poke at whatever you're aiming at. It is possible to whiff a simple button press if you aren't paying attention—I did on the ship's numeric keypad—so don't take this activity lightly. It may be especially important later in the game if Samus encouters passcode locks. I just hope that doesn't happen as you need to escape a collapsing structure, because dying because of an errant finger poke would sure suck.
The gameplay is pretty tight. The only thing I am concerned about, perhaps unfoundedly, is the game's voice dialog. Since I've only seen about 15 minutes of opening cinematic, I am in no position to comment on the script or plotline of the game. So I won't. But I will say that I think having characters speak to Samus, knowing that she will never speak back, really bothers me. Mario has never been a vocal character, and all of his games have had limited voice because of it. Samus is much the same way, yet the conversations taking place between her and the people she interacts with, including other bounty hunters, made it feel as though the story were being force-fed down my throat. I must admit that this is really more a nit-pick than a serious issue, especially since I was playing through the story-heavy opening of the game. However, I do hope that there aren't very many one-way discussions as the adventure really pick up. And hey, who knows; we might hear Samus speak. Her face was the original mystery, so maybe her voice will be the next?
Personal annoyances aside, Metroid Prime 3: Corruption is only a month away and it's time to get excited about it. I sure as hell am. Corruption is going to set the bar really high for first-person shooters that follow, which is a good thing for the genre moving forward on Wii. I can't imagine what future Wii FPS games will look like, especially ones out of the Nintendo camp, after Corruption. All I know is that I'm getting this game when it comes out. Will you?
Topic: IMPRESSIONS: Metroid Prime 3: Corruption (Read 12344 times)
