A brief demo of the single player in Metroid Prime: Hunters was on display at the Gamers' Summit. Amusingly labeled the PAX demo, it demonstrated that Metroid Prime: Hunters is more than a mindless Metroid cash-in.

The single player mode no longer plays like the generic first person shooter found in Metroid Prime: First Hunt. I used the stylus control scheme, in which the touch screen behaves like a mouse and L shoots. Touching a small icon on the bottom screen activates the scan visor. Conceivably, players could trigger the scan visor accidentally while looking around, but I never performed such a blunder, since dragging over the icon doesn't count. As one would expect, players use the the scan visor to unlock doors and perform research. Upgrades also return: I found a missile expansion within the demo. Unfortunately, jumping is still mapped to the double-tap, which caused me grief during a platforming sequence. The double-tap complicates the timing, and I eventually walked away in frustration after falling too many times. I probably would have adjusted eventually, but I wish I had explored the demo's button-based control scheme for a comparison on responsiveness.

The game looks beautiful, impressively duplicating Metroid Prime's atmosphere. Pipes decorate corridors, Samus' shots conjure sparks, and textures define the enemies. However, due to limitations on texture filtering and screen resolution, I sometimes found it hard to distinguish enemies in the distance from the environment. On more than one occasion I unwittingly walked right into an enemy. Others seemed to have the same problem. If NST wants to solve this issue they may have to highlight the enemies at the expense of realism.

Manually targeting enemies is still a big feature of Metroid Prime: Hunters, but it seems NST has not forgotten Metroid's fans after all.