Metroid Prime

Retro Studios and Nintendo have created a true masterpiece, once again setting standards and defining a genre all over again.

It's a massive title, too. The 30-hour mark is definitely something most gamers will hit. There's so much to it. Most impressive to me is that Tallon IV's seperate worlds -- lava, ice, water, etc -- are all connected. It's just like the old Metroids, and load times are nearly nonexistent; a truly amazing feat.

It is Super Metroid brought into 3D. All the naysayers who said it couldn't be done right -- including myself -- are completely wrong. I need some time to absorb it, but it's absolutely as great a game as Super Metroid, and perhaps...better.

When I say the game is amazing, I mean it. From level design, to rewarding the player for exploring, to power-ups, to the bosses, to the music, Metroid Prime is amazing.

Example: I'm in the Phendrana Drifts, the ice area, and I see a sheet of ice blocking a hole that leads downard. After scanning it, you realize it must be melted. It was a very long time before I returned to explore that pathway. This is one example of at least 100. You see so much -- grappling hooks, spiderball tracks, ice beam, etc, etc. -- that you realize you must return to later.

Like I said, the game is Super Metroid in 3D. There are even some extravagant vertical platforming areas. You won't believe how good the first-person jumping is. It's the best I've ever seen. It feels totally natural and not even remotely frustrating.

As for the music, that also made be very happy. It's stunning: very atmospheric, TONS of interactive audio cues that make SENSE, and lots of throwbacks to the tunes in Super Metroid.

The story is very involved. A lot more detailed and rad in a sci-fi way. It's really rewarding to read through the scans.

The difficulty is no slouch. It keeps you on your toes by ramping it up through the whole game. You will be frustrated -- for the better.

Graphics-wise, it's the best engine I've seen on GameCube. No loading, really. Brilliant texture diversity. Stellar architecture. Your jaw will drop. Most of all, it's the art direction that is stunning.

Everywhere you go to look is so pretty! Everything is a Kodak moment. The artists have to be some of the best in the industry.

Definite system-seller.

Absolutely my favorite on GCN.

Evil waits below the surface. But first it must be found.

There's that mysterious music as the camera looks into the depths of space, pulls back, and reveals... a creepy space station sitting above Tallon IV. This vessel appears to be a space pirate frigate, and the Space Pirates have invaded Tallon IV mining Phazon and trying to collect artifacts.

Metroid Prime is a complex action/adventure game that weaves dark webs with story lines containing the dead Chozo race, the powerful Space Pirates, the mysterious element Phazon, and a beast only known as 'The Worm'. You are Samus aran, and you must find out how all these connect AND bring order to it! This is the best game to date. It contains a lot of action without being annoying. The graphics are stunning, and the boos fights are worth the wait. Metroid Prime takes you from the fiery tunnels of the Magmoor Caverns, to the beautiful snow land of Phendrana Drifts, to the rainy forest of the Tallon Overworld, to the barren shrine of the Chozo Ruins, and to the powerful mining base built by Space Pirates called 'Phazon Mines'. Prepare to have your mind blown, cause this game rocks! Evil waits below the surface. But first it must be found.

This is the best Game for the last .....well it's one of the best ever. The Graphics are stunning, you actually feel that your there on Tallon IV. The bits which made me gasp were things like Samuses face reflecting on the inside of the helmit, the condensation when you go neer a waterfall.

The atmospheric sound effects and music are the best on gamecube, PS2 or X box. Exept the music acumpining Meca Riddly, which was pants.

When i first heard that this game was NOT going to be made by Nintendo, but by Retro Studios, i almost cried, me being a massive fan of the whole secries, but to make me dred this even more was when Nintendo shut down Retro's other project, Raven Blade, for looking and playing like a piece of old tarmac. But much to my relefe Retro proved me wrong, thank the lord.

Buy this game, if you dont have a Gamecube, buy one and get this game, I Will give this game 97%, or 10 out of 10, easy.

Metroid Prime is Retro Studio's freshman release, a promising American developer from Texas. With its release, Prime has garnered much critical acclaim, including 'Best Game of the Year' awards from such videogame websites like gamespot.com and gameforms.com, and even print magazines like Electronic Gaming Monthly, to name a few.

Metroid Prime is the second game chronologically in the long running Metroid series, starting back on Nintendo's first major console, the Nintendo Entertainment System (Famicon in Japan). It is also the first Metroid game to leap into the third dimension, making the transition gracefully.

Graphically, Prime is a gem. Prime sports detailed textures, an unwavering 60 fps of animation, and outstanding use of color and lighting. Aesthetic touches like lens flare (probably the best lens flare for a console game ever), heat distortion, and reflections add to the overall atmosphere of the game. The sound design accomplishment is on par with the rest of the game's high design value. The music, like Super Metroid, is an inspired accomplishment, so very fitting for the areas, for the situations, not creating emotions or moods, but reinforcing them.

The game is set in a first-person viewpoint, but also moves into a third-person view whenever you access the 'morph-ball mode'--allowing the protagonist, Samus, to form into a sphere, which in turn allows her to perform various tactical and exploratory functions. The inclusion of this element is evidence of the diversity in the gameplay and innovation as well as its preservation and accurate translation of previous Metroid games' elements.

Though the game is primarily in a first-person view and involves shooting as its main offensive gameplay element, it does not necessarily play like any other FPS; it does feel and play like Metroid games of the past since it utilizes so many gameplay elements and items from Metroid games of the past, a notable achievement in itself. The shooting element uses a lock-on system if you so choose, allowing you to engage one-on-one's more effectively; although this might make it easier, it doesn't particularly detract from the enjoyment of the fighting. True, hardcore FPS fans aren't generally going to like the control scheme or the battle system, but it will appeal to the more casual gamers or the newcomers to the genre. The lock-on system is probably necessary to make the game playable because Samus' speed of movement and (especially) turning is limited compared to other FPS (most likely because of hardware limitations so that there weren't as many graphical compromises): there's no way for some gamers to deal with the potential onslaught of enemies if you couldn't lock on; there's no mouse.

Prime is a milestone achievement in level design. Every room, every area has its own personality, its own backstory, providing an alien authenticity rarely found in games. The game effortlessly moves from one environment to another, from a lush, wet jungle-like environment, to subterranean caverns of molten rock, gaseous vents, and expansive openings. There is also a serene, harmonious area of ice and snow, the arid ruins of the previous inhabitants of the alien world of Tallon IV, and deep caverns/mines which is home to a lethal and profitable ore, "phazon." There is no cheap rehash of previous environments.

And if the level design based purely on its merits of originality, detail and aesthetics wasn't enough, it also helps tell the unspoken story of the game. Prime is one of those rare atmospheric games that do not rely on narrative or other common storytelling elements to tell its tale. Older cartridge-based games attempted this feat because it was all they could do: the use of text or voice-overs in a game took up too much room on a cartridge to be used in an effective manner. Yet, their graphical capabilities weren't no where near that of Prime's is, and telling the story through visuals was also limited. Hence, the story was usually told at the beginning and end. Prime, however, is one of the first games that foregoes strong narrative--that gained much momentum during the Playstation/N64 era--and instead uses environmental cues, mood, and notes/logs left by previous and current inhabitants. You have the option to use one of Samus' pieces of technology that allows her to scan objects in the environment. You can scan a variety of objects like various bioforms, computer terminals, stasis tanks, power-ups for Samus, enemies and creatures that inhabit the planet, etc. There are also logs you can decrypt that are left by a marauding group of Space Pirates who are on Tallon IV conducting experiments on its inhabitants using the mysterious, alien organism called 'phazon.' In addition to the Space Pirate logs, there are the scribblings left on stone throughout the world of Tallon IV by the Chozo--bipedal, birdlike creatures from which Samus shares blood ties to. Throughout the game, you begin to notice contrasting views--simplicity vs. complexity, natural vs. technological.

The writing is well executed and has a scholarly overtone to it through its choice of words and use and references to science: biology, astrology, geology, physics, etc. However, it can be a bit vague in its references and usage at times.

Prime is the best game to grace the Gamecube thus far. Every detail and aspect of the game seems to have been pored over meticulously. Not only is it a technical achievement in game design, it is more importantly an artistic achievement, elevating videogames beyond forms of entertainment, to the realm of inspiration, evoking emotions, moods, and higher thought.

[Author's Note: Some text is borrowed from a preliminary analysis of Metroid Prime by the author, published elsewhere on the web. All work above remains the original work of the author.]

I never thought I would actually get Metroid Prime back in 2002. I thought I would get Super Mario Sunshine or Wind Waker (which was released the next year). I gave it a rent and it really sucked. I never played any of the Metroid games before Prime, nor did I ever hear of Metroid in the first place. One day, I went to the EB store in the Falls in Florida. I played Metroid Prime, which was on a Gamecube demo disc, wondering "what the hell is 'Metroid'?" before playing it, and BEHOLD! I played what may be the BEST GAME EVER! I was awestruck by how beautiful the graphics were, how innovative the gameplay was, how beautiful the soundtrack, the sound, everything. I HAD to get that game. Luckily, I got it as a holiday gift in around November-December, and it was good.

You play Samus Aran, a female bounty hunter who must investigate the "Great Poison" released throughout Chozo Ruins, which is among four different planets connected to Tallon Overworld through elevators. You defeat Flaagra (a giant plant creature that grew from the Great Poison) and you get rid of the Great Poison but you stumble across information of Space Pirates mining for Phazon and a creature known as "Metroid Prime". Then you must backtrack and find the twelve Artifacts scattered everywhere to get to Impact Crater and kill Metroid Prime.

Your travels take you to a Space Station (which crashes after you defeat the Parasite Queen), Tallon Overworld (which is a hub connecting four different planets through elevators; it is also the site of the Artifact Temple and the crashed Space Pirate Frigate), Chozo Ruins (where the Great Poison was released; home to the Chozo Ghosts, who were ghosts of the warriors of Chozo [they slowly get annoying as you backtrack through Chozo {at least you don't do it a lot}]), Magmoor Caverns (which is a giant group of caves with lava and flames; it is the home of the Magmoor, which is a series of fire-breathing dragons living in the lava), Phendrana Drifts (a snowing, freezing area which is home to the Sheegoths and its children, which were one of the greatest monsters in any game), The Crashed Space Pirate Frigate (a crashed spaceship crashed to water, which serves as a quick route from Tallon to Phazon Mines; it is accompanied with the best music of the soundtrack), Phazon Mines (a bleak, industrial area where Space Pirates are mining Phazon; is home to the Metroids [the jellyfish-like creatures that suck energy and play a major part to the story]), and the Impact Crater (home of the great Metroid Prime).

I liked the gameplay, which was a rare case of innovation in a new era. It fused the action of a first-person-shooter game with the depth and exploration of point-and-click adventure games such as Myst. You shoot a bunch of aliens ambushing you and then you put on your Scan Visor and you walk around all the rooms and you scan certain areas of importance. There are other visors, such as the Thermal Visor (you see things through heat) and the X-Ray Visor (where you see in the dark). That is how you learn the story in the game. There are no cutscenes (except when you approach an area or access an elevator), and you learn a story through whatever you scan (especially from the Space Pirate Data [which details what the Space Pirates are doing] and the Chozo Lore [which details what happened to the Chozo ruins]). You use the Morph Ball ability to go through small areas and solve puzzles. There are many suits and beams. There is the regular Power Suit (which you start off with in the game), the Varia Suit (which protects you from heat), the Gravity Suit (which lets you walk in water), and the Phazon Suit (which protects you from Phazon). There is the Power Beam (the normal beam you start off with in the beginning), the Charge Beam (a charged shot from any beam, the Wave Beam (which attracts and kills Bombus), the Ice Beam (which freezes enemies. You must use an Ice Beam and a Missile to kill a Metroid), the Plasma Beam (which melts frozen ice and is the most powerful regular beam), and the Phazon Beam (where you stand in a pool of Phazon in a Phazon Suit and you use your Plasma Beam to suck in Phazon and shoot powerful spurts of energy). There is also the self-explanatory Missile. You then get missile combos for each regular beam (the Super Missile for the Power Beam, the Wave Buster for the Wave Beam, the Ice Missile for the Ice Beam, and the Flame Thrower for the Plasma Beam). You can change beams and visors on the fly by pressing in the D-Pad or in the C-Joystick. This may pose as a problem to those used to the controls in Halo where you change camera with the C-Joystick in the Xbox, as you turn around completely. There is also a lock-on system with the L and R buttons.

The soundtrack and sound was good. I liked the screams and groans of the aliens you kill in the game. The music is very good. It is the best in Phendrana Drifts and in the Space Pirate Frigate. The only part where it may pose a problem is in the fight with Mecha-Ridley. It is cheesy 80's-ish rock in the fight with Mecha-Ridley. It does pose a problem to few people while I consider it as a tribute to the cheesy soundtracks of older Nintendo games (I played some old Nintendo games after Prime). There is no spoken-word dialogue (except for the "EVACUATE IMMEDIATELY" voice heard in the Space Station level and Samus's scream if she dies), but alien speak and soundtrack.

Value-wise, the game had to end somewhere. There is no avoiding it. There is no multiplayer (whether it is split-screen or online, it is good without multiplayer), there is no downloadable content. It must end, which is why the game is absolutely long and vast. You can take multiple paths through. It is still very good if there is no multiplayer or downloadable content, and it won't kill in ratings. To top that off, there is no slowdown at all. Sheer beauty and detail is crammed into one disc, and there is no slowdown. Usually, games that high of caliber are crammed into two or three disks with bits of slowdown. It does the impossible. Ironically, Gamecube does not have as much graphics as the others, yet they can cram that big a game into one disc. If you beat the game, if you link it with Metroid Fusion, you will play the original NES Metroid game (I played it. It was alright but you must get used to the password system). You play Prime with the Fusion suit if you do vice-versa.

When the game was released, it existed in the shadow of Grand Theft Auto: Vice City. As a result, the game did not sell very well until in 2003, when GTA began to cool down. It went from sleeper to cult-favorite to smash hit in a long course of months. I am very happy it sold enough copies to be a Player's Choice title, which sealed the deal as a smash hit.

I can't wait to get Metroid Prime 2: Echoes. It will have a different story. It will have multiplayer (I'm split on the bizarre choice of adding multiplayer to #2). I hope it will duplicate the smash hit Metroid Prime was. However, it will exist in the shadow of Halo 2, which is a sequel to a game that has been a chart best-seller for three years. Hopefully, MP2 will have a good chance at the spotlight.

MP is the best game on Gamecube and one of the greatest games of all-time. I even played the older games (I played all of 'em except Super Metroid. I liked Prime better than the 2D games, although they still are great [I sort of consider M2 for Game Boy the black sheep although it is decent]).

My Score: 10/10