ACTUALLY, this isn't a Chap topic, or at least I don't THINK so. 
I bought Metroid Prime (PAL version, and yes it's totally fullscreen and runs really fast and smooth) on friday. I have since played it quite a bit I should say.
This game impresses me SO MUCH. It's fabulous, it's worth getting a cube just to play this awesome little GOD (Gamecube Optical Disc, hehe). It's so detailed, everything animates really smoothly, there's tons of geometry in every scene; loads of little details everywhere that really doesn't serve any purpose other than to impress and create a sense of realism. There's not even much in the way of jaggies. Textures are also super nice and smoothly trilinear-filtered (and the extra scanlines PAL res allows sure helps too I guess), and weapons effects and explosions and such are impressive as hell. The visor works great, the way it really LOOKS like a visor is awesome, when it frosts over when cold or is decorated with raindrops or a film of water etc.
The game hardly ever slows down. Usually it's only when blowing up multiple enemies or gobbling tons of powerups at the same time do I see some chugging, any other time it happens is few and far between. And I mean FEW and FAR.
Only thing I can complain about regarding graphics is the total lack of bumpmapping. Maybe they thought it would make it stand out if they just used it on some surfaces, and I don't think the cube could have coped with an additional texture layer on everything. Small niggle really. Would have been cool to see, is all. Bumping stuff isn't a mean unto itself after all, there has to be a reason for it, and overusing an effect just looks plain bad. Besides, I heard it mipmaps poorly, maybe it just would have made the graphics look sparkly instead?
The only thing that might be considered suckyness is the control scheme. Walking and turning on the same stick isn't really ideal, and the turning speed is too slow for my taste. Fortunately the game doesn't rely on "twitch" gameplay, but still it would have been nice with an adjustment in the options menu. I also don't like that the view doesn't auto-tilt (very much) with the ground. You feel kinda blind walking down a ramp this way, or when trying to approach the edge of a ledge or platform.
It would also be nice if the gun would auto-target enemies to a greater extent, the view jerks around a lot when one locks onto multiple enemies with L in quick succession, but again this is a minor complaint. The rest of the controls work just fine, and the buttons are easy to use. The "clicks" are put to good use in this game, which is cool. No unused button functions, hehe!
A testiment to this game's hookability is that I played it for three hours straight without even realizing it. It felt more like 20 minutes had passed, and when I moved my eyes from the TV screen they were all gritty like I hadn't blinked at all almost! Haha! YES, there is a lot of backtracking and passing through old areas, and the save points are few and far between. I haven't died that much though, and just about every time have been due to clumsyness (blame the somewhat quirky control scheme for that; Turok was much more precise), me dying from falling into poison or lava or such.
I don't know how far into the game I really am. I haven't found any of the extra guns yet, or extra visors either and I lack power bombs, highjump, grappler and spider ball too. Hehe, I want more guns! LOL! Come to think of it, I seem to miss most stuff actually so I'm probably not that far in yet.
Certainly money well spent. Both for the game AND the cube. Nintendo has always stood for solid quality, and both hardware AND software delivers this in spades. Fluid framerates, excellent visuals and immersive audio. People ragging on the chips in this little box should be ashamed of themselves! I was terribly worried about all the stories we heard about trouble at Retro, but this really turned out to be a fantastic experience. Gumpei Yokoi, the Patron Saint of Metroid would be proud of this game I am sure!
Only thing I miss from the good old days (apart from the spin-attack powerup that made you invulnerable while jumping) are those bird statues that held the powerups in past Metroids. Where did they go? They were soo cool!
*G*
I bought Metroid Prime (PAL version, and yes it's totally fullscreen and runs really fast and smooth) on friday. I have since played it quite a bit I should say.
This game impresses me SO MUCH. It's fabulous, it's worth getting a cube just to play this awesome little GOD (Gamecube Optical Disc, hehe). It's so detailed, everything animates really smoothly, there's tons of geometry in every scene; loads of little details everywhere that really doesn't serve any purpose other than to impress and create a sense of realism. There's not even much in the way of jaggies. Textures are also super nice and smoothly trilinear-filtered (and the extra scanlines PAL res allows sure helps too I guess), and weapons effects and explosions and such are impressive as hell. The visor works great, the way it really LOOKS like a visor is awesome, when it frosts over when cold or is decorated with raindrops or a film of water etc.
The game hardly ever slows down. Usually it's only when blowing up multiple enemies or gobbling tons of powerups at the same time do I see some chugging, any other time it happens is few and far between. And I mean FEW and FAR.
Only thing I can complain about regarding graphics is the total lack of bumpmapping. Maybe they thought it would make it stand out if they just used it on some surfaces, and I don't think the cube could have coped with an additional texture layer on everything. Small niggle really. Would have been cool to see, is all. Bumping stuff isn't a mean unto itself after all, there has to be a reason for it, and overusing an effect just looks plain bad. Besides, I heard it mipmaps poorly, maybe it just would have made the graphics look sparkly instead?
The only thing that might be considered suckyness is the control scheme. Walking and turning on the same stick isn't really ideal, and the turning speed is too slow for my taste. Fortunately the game doesn't rely on "twitch" gameplay, but still it would have been nice with an adjustment in the options menu. I also don't like that the view doesn't auto-tilt (very much) with the ground. You feel kinda blind walking down a ramp this way, or when trying to approach the edge of a ledge or platform.
It would also be nice if the gun would auto-target enemies to a greater extent, the view jerks around a lot when one locks onto multiple enemies with L in quick succession, but again this is a minor complaint. The rest of the controls work just fine, and the buttons are easy to use. The "clicks" are put to good use in this game, which is cool. No unused button functions, hehe!
A testiment to this game's hookability is that I played it for three hours straight without even realizing it. It felt more like 20 minutes had passed, and when I moved my eyes from the TV screen they were all gritty like I hadn't blinked at all almost! Haha! YES, there is a lot of backtracking and passing through old areas, and the save points are few and far between. I haven't died that much though, and just about every time have been due to clumsyness (blame the somewhat quirky control scheme for that; Turok was much more precise), me dying from falling into poison or lava or such.
I don't know how far into the game I really am. I haven't found any of the extra guns yet, or extra visors either and I lack power bombs, highjump, grappler and spider ball too. Hehe, I want more guns! LOL! Come to think of it, I seem to miss most stuff actually so I'm probably not that far in yet.
Certainly money well spent. Both for the game AND the cube. Nintendo has always stood for solid quality, and both hardware AND software delivers this in spades. Fluid framerates, excellent visuals and immersive audio. People ragging on the chips in this little box should be ashamed of themselves!
I was terribly worried about all the stories we heard about trouble at Retro, but this really turned out to be a fantastic experience. Gumpei Yokoi, the Patron Saint of Metroid would be proud of this game I am sure!Only thing I miss from the good old days (apart from the spin-attack powerup that made you invulnerable while jumping) are those bird statues that held the powerups in past Metroids. Where did they go? They were soo cool!
*G*
