Metroid Prime: Hunters is the kind of game that many people won’t “get" the first time they play it. The controls are truly weird, and there’s a significant learning curve. But once you get the hang of it, the game is really fun and surprisingly robust.

You play by moving Samus forward, back, and side-to-side with the D-pad. You can double tap the D-pad to jump in that direction. You turn by dragging a stylus across the screen, and yes, it feels really strange. Luckily, you don’t need to turn once you have locked on with the L-trigger, but the lock-on does not automatically aim your shots for you. The aiming is manual at all times; simply tap the screen where you want to shoot, and that’s where Samus will shoot. Thanks to this odd little feature, the shootouts in Hunters are arguably more tense than those in Metroid Prime 2, because it takes more effort to hit your opponent, even at close range.

Rounding out the demo’s move set are missiles, which are turned on and off by clicking the missile icon on the right side of the screen, and the Morph Ball with bombs. Missiles are very powerful but in short supply in the level shown, and they do home in with limited effectiveness. The Morph Ball is activated by clicking on an icon on the left side of the screen, and then it’s controlled entirely by the D-pad. Tapping anywhere on the screen will drop a bomb under Samus, and you can still do bomb jumps and roll up hills, etc.

What’s so impressive about Hunters is that the game looks exactly like Metroid Prime. The character models, textures, and architecture are immediately familiar, even though the multiplayer deathmatch gameplay and the playable level are completely new. Even the Morph Ball physics behave just like they do in the GameCube titles.

The game is quite addictive and definitely fast-paced. There are currently some problems with how Samus turns in response to your dragging, and you always fire at the start of a turn – the game doesn’t yet differentiate between tapping and dragging. Hopefully these small problems can be ironed out, because the game is shaping up to be a total blast. It’s one of my favorite games at E3, and we haven’t even seen the single-player mode.