Metroid Prime 3 – Corruption review

Metroid Prime 3 – Corruption review

WARNING – SPOILERS

First off, let me tell you my thoughts on the previous prime games: I massively loved the first game. Everything about it was so perfect. Not only did we get to reclaim all the lost powers, such as double jump, swing beam, enviro-suit, charge beam, etc, but we also got to play with all these great alternate weapons! The hot, cold and wave beams were so amazing. Aside from that, the game had a beautiful landscape that was begging to be explored and scanned (another great feature) and the music was so good I found myself sometimes just standing there listening to it and looking at the landscape. The bosses were so enjoyable to fight because they had a perfect difficulty – an equal balance of fun and challenge. The final boss of the game was so cool since you had to use your entire arsenal against it and even get a new temporary weapon to destroy it. Ah, I loved Metroid prime.

As for Metroid prime 2, I had very high expectations. I was hoping they’d be able to exceed the first game. Alas, I found myself very disappointed by the end. My main complaint was that it emphasized on one of my most hated aspect of a game – backtracking. The fact that the world was split up into two entities ala dark world vs. light world was horribly executed. In order to solve a puzzle in the light world, one had to travel to the point in the light world, figure out what needed to be changed, go to the dark world, endure the stupid darkness sapping your health (more on that in a second), find the place you needed to be, and solve the puzzle. THEN you had to go back to the light world to continue on. Blah. It was so very annoying. Speaking of annoying, the dark world’s darkness sapping your health was a horrible thing to use in a game. At first, I loved prime 2 thinking it would be just like prime 1, but after going into the dark world, oh man… trying to navigate through that shit was unbearable. At first, it made exploration almost impossible due to the massive drain on health. Sure, you’d get upgrades to be able to handle the darkness better, but I still died a good chunk of times just because I wanted to go exploring. Honestly, who thought it would be fun to be constantly sapped of health while trying to walk around and desperately having to find light beacons just so you would not DIE? Besides that, the bosses and enemies were pretty much just forgettable. I still remember very little of them or even of the game itself. All I can recall was being rather pissed at the game most of the time.

Anyways, after all that, I was hoping they’d be able to get back to greatness with prime 3. I saw all the trailers and I was anticipating it for a while. The fact that it was on the wii was a massive advantage, since I was getting so good at aiming and shooting (I got a platinum on the shooting range in Wii play and got every single trophy for the shooting range in RE4, so I am pretty good.) Finally, I got my hands on the game, and the controls, after a bit of practice were (and believe me I am not exaggerating) PERFECT. I thought the Gamecube controls were good, but these controls blew it out of the water. I almost wish pc games would adapt something like this, since I have so much fun with a light gun-like shooter rather than a mouse and keyboard. They managed to make the game so nice and smooth, it honestly felt like you were controlling it for real. Everything from aiming and shooting to the ability move and look around were all so well done. This was also the first game that I thought really used the motion sensing very well. Games like Zelda Twilight princess and Warioware were fun due to the motion sensing, but Metroid prime 3 really made it feel real/not tacked on. Though the motion movement sequences seemed a bit random, but I enjoyed using the controller as a hand. It was a fun experience, and I hope more games do like that. Really, about the only thing I did not like about the aiming was the fact that the reticle was a bit smaller and hard to see when in battle. Sometimes, I had to use the controller like a gun more than an aiming device because I’d be shooting and not seeming to hit anything, noticing that the reticle is a bit off from the target. Sigh, I suppose that’s the trade-off for the nice auto-aim system used in MP1 and 2.

One thing they really improved on other than the controls was the ball function. The ability to jump while in ball form by flipping the controller was sorely needed in the first game, and I’m glad they put in this one. (I find it weird they never mentioned it in the tutorial though…perhaps a last minute addition.) They seemed to put some more emphasis on the ball function this time around and I enjoyed them thoroughly. My only complaint was that the spider ball tracks were sort of lacking… I really liked having them in the first one. Regarding the screw attack, I loved how they implemented it in this game. After having it in prime 2, I don’t remember much of it, but I do remember getting REALLY angry at it for some reason. I seemed to have way too much trouble activating it and staying in the air for some reason. They did away with that control and made it nice and simple and fun, and really made some good areas to use it in, ala floating islands. I found myself just jumping all over the place because it was so cool. Aside from that, I enjoyed the hypermode ability. It was a great way to blast through a group of enemies as long as you did not use it all up right away or let it corrupt you into death. I also liked the enemies throwing phazon grenades at you. Oh man, a couple of times I was in a big battle and they threw one of those at me, causing me to go into hypermode, and I just thought to myself “haha, you dicks just made a big mistake” and blow them all away in a matter of seconds. The enemies in this game were pretty neat. I loved the boss battles and the regular baddies were very intelligent and would try to dodge my shots (but I was such a good aim, they barely had a chance).

The weapons were one of the few things I thought the game needed to redo. Once again, I loved how it worked in the first game, with all the different beams and such; but I did not like how they did it in this. Granted, it was not the limited ammo like in Prime 2, but it was not much better. Instead of getting new weapons to use when you wanted, you got simple upgrades that overwrote the old weapons. Ideally I would have liked a fire and ice beam, but instead we got an ice missile and a heat beam that replaced the good old regular beam. This disappointed me, since I like the regular old beam (yellow) that was used in all the previous games and the default beam I loved. Instead, I was forced for half of the game to use the fire beam, which made a strange sound when charging up that made me think an enemy was growling at me when I walked into a room. Not only that, but I was expecting a slight upgrade in power for the fire beam, but alas it was only as strong as the regular beam… tisk tisk. I suppose the justification for all this was the hypermode ability, but I don’t think it was a fair trade off, being one was temporary, the others permanent and selectable. I kept getting a bit disappointed by the fact that most of the upgrades were for the hypermode, and had an almost tacked-on feeling. Instead of really feeling like I upgraded to something that was worth having (like the ice beam being really useful against flying enemies in Prime 1) I just kept getting pretty worthless upgrades to a mode that I did not even use all that often, and most of the time they were just used to get to unlock a new area. At least at the end of the game you can stay in hypermode, however it is only a short time before you beat the game outright around that time.

The story was pretty nice. They definitely used it well as a vehicle to further the plot setup by the first 2 games. The dialogue was a bit longwinded, but it still managed to keep my attention for the most part. I really enjoyed the ending. It left a smile on my face when Samus sent the “Mission Complete” signal to the main ship and headed off with a thumbs-up. It was a pretty cool way to end the series. I did have a few questions though… When Samus defeated the hunters who were corrupted, they were absorbed by dark Samus… so are we to assume they died along with dark Samus? We only saw them for a bit and they became nothing more than some mini bosses… Was that their only purpous in the game? If so, it seemed kind of tacked on. Also, I wondered about the corrupted Aurora unit that fought as the last boss. Was this supposed to be akin to motherbrain? Exactly how did they get a hold of an aurora unit in the first place? Did they clone it after infecting the male aurora unit or did they somehow capture one of the units? If I remember correctly, the prime series takes place a while before the first Metroid game, so are we to think that perhaps another aurora unit becomes what everyone knew as motherbrain? Could dark Samus have taken over a clone of the aurora unit and essentially became THE mother brain and went to zebes??

Hopefully we’ll see either a Metroid prime 4 or a remake of the first game with prime controls and graphics to answer these questions. Bottom line: this game despite a few flaws was great and I enjoyed it thoroughly. It is a great addition to the somewhat small library of really good Wii games, and I highly recommend it for anyone who liked the first Metroid prime or anyone who like a good FPS. I’d give it a 4/5.