I waited forever to play this game, because the demo was roughly ten minutes of gameplay with several more minutes of story scenes. When I finally got to play, I requested the second of two available save files. This one starts later in the game and has less exposition, but still takes place in the Galactic Federation ship and is only about thirty minutes into the game. It seems that Nintendo is still keeping most of the game a secret, which makes it hard to evaluate a progression-based game like Metroid. So, I focused on controls and overall feel of the game.

In person, Other M looks very clean and generally impressive, with vibrant colors and shiny surfaces on the Power Suit. My first action upon gaining control of Samus was to run around, jumping and shooting to get used to the controls. On the plus side, movement is fast and responsive; Samus is definitely back to her agile self. Jumping is very quick, but you can get a lot of height by holding the button longer. The Charge Beam takes a while to build up but feels powerful, even before you shoot. When the charge is released, Samus is knocked back from the blast. 3D movement feels a bit awkward with the D-pad -- tell me again why the Nunchuk isn't being supported? I do like the action of lifting the Wii Remote and holding A to recharge missiles (and a bit of energy).

Normal shooting auto-targets enemies in the general direction you are facing, but the game seems to balance this feature by sending enemies from multiple directions at once. The auto-aim is not perfectly accurate, and many enemies can take a couple of shots, so I was hammering away on the button. This frantic style of shooting fits well with the fast character movement and agile jumping. When you need to manually aim or use missiles, you just point the Remote at the screen. The transition to first-person view is quick; in fact, the game will probably be ready before you are. That's because your hand and finger placement need to change every time you switch control modes. I found this repositioning to be distracting, time-consuming, and briefly confusing -- for instance, the shoot button changes from 1 to A. Having two controller positions is neat, and it works okay after some practice, but players should have other options. If Nintendo wants to make Metroid more accessible, they can start by supporting all these controllers we have lying around the Wii.

Once you actually get into the first-person position, the pointer-based aiming works a bit differently than you might expect. Normally, you can only move the cursor around within the existing field of view. In other words, when the cursor reaches the edge of the screen, Samus does not turn. Instead, the game assumed you are returning to NES-style controls and goes back to third-person view. If you want to turn while aiming, you must hold the B trigger, which is also used for locking onto targets. The A button shoots your beam weapon and can also be charged. Missiles are fired by first locking on with B, then firing with A. Missiles are homing (since you already targeted the enemy) and reload quickly, which helps on the insect hives and other large enemies that can take two or three missiles to destroy.

I didn't get to try the melee attacks (which are situational), which is one reason that I plan to try the demo at least once more before E3 closes. In terms of gameplay, I am encouraged by what I've played so far, but I want a Nunchuk option more than ever.