Metroid Prime 3: Corruption

[Scott_Arm]

This is one convention from the 16-bit era that really needs to die. It's absolutely nonsensical when you have voice acting, but even when you have just text, come on, no one is going to take 2 hours to read 2 lines.

As long as you can pause during those scenes it's ok. I hate it when you're forced to sit and watch or skip and the phone starts ringing or something.

It's also good if it's subtitled and I just want to read through as fast as I can and not have to listen to crappy voice actors.

 

[Scott_Arm]

Picked up the game and I just finished the opening tutorial. Seems to be a lot faster paced than what I remember of my short hour with Metroid Prime years ago. I'm really liking the controls. I'm playing on advanced sensitivity. I haven't tried normal to see what the difference is. You can turn much quicker than in Red Steel, but still not fast like with a mouse. Basically, if you move the cursor off center, you'll start turning. The further you move the cursor away from the center, the faster you turn. The way you interact with keypads etc reminds me of Doom3. You see your hand reach out and you steer it with the wiimote to push your finger onto different buttons. Sometimes you'll have to do a pull, turn, push move to move levers etc. It's kind of neat. I really like the cockpit of the ship and how you look around and press different buttons. Graphically, it's really nice. It's definitely not in the league of Bioshock or something, but it has a really good look to it. I can't remember the GC Prime games well enough to compare, but I think it's definitely a step up from GC graphical quality. The first boss fight was pretty good, but simple.

I was worried the game would be unplayable without using the lock-on controls. I can actually do pretty darn well without them, so far. These controls would work really well for other fps genres I think. Everything is really fast is in this game, so a more realistic shooter where people move around a bit slower would be a cake walk. You still get a bit of a slow turnaround, so getting caught in a corner with an enemy behind you can be a pain. I wish there was a way to do a quick 180 turn. Maybe there is and I haven't discovered it yet.

So far, I'm having fun. The first level is pretty standard to get you used to the controls, and has a bit of a cinematic feel to it. It got me into the game well enough. I'm really looking forward to seeing the other levels.

One thing I'm having difficulty with, and maybe it's just my tiny tv, is I'm getting a bit visually lost at times with the business of colours and movement on screen. I lose my cursor a little, or when I was rolling around as the morph ball I had a bit of a hard time telling which way to go.


Edit:
Also, the advanced sensitivity is pretty darned sensitive. It took me about 10 minutes to get used to the controls, but I play mouse/keyboard games with sensitivity CRANKED, so maybe that helped.

 

[Cryect]

This is one convention from the 16-bit era that really needs to die. It's absolutely nonsensical when you have voice acting, but even when you have just text, come on, no one is going to take 2 hours to read 2 lines.

Well its only for new mission goals you receive luckily but still its really annoying because I'm trying to scan something and suddenly I can't and I have to move my hand awkwardly to advance through them. The reason why its there I'm guessing in case you are in the middle of a fight and they start telling you a new objective also they wouldn't want to flip you to the map screen right away at the end without some user input (unfortunately there isn't a way to cancel it and you have to goto the map screen to get rid of the messages so you can scan again).


The morph ball its yeah hard to tell which way you are facing which really isn't an issue till you get to half pipes and it takes a little bit to position yourself correctly.

Oh and if you find a way to do a fast 180 let me know few times it would have been really helpful. Also reminds me I hate pressing down arrow for missiles and wish Nintendo had included another face button side by side the A Button.

 

[thatdude90210]

I only got in an hour, the advanced sensitivity is a little too touchy for me, I think I'll play it on standard sensitivity first. In standard, there's a little bit of free play in the center. Advance was making me a little dizzy.

I might go back to advance later on, when I get better at this game. It still beats dual analog stick any day. Years ago, I briefly played the first Metroid for the GC, I gave up after a couple of hours of getting lost plus not liking the controls.

The graphics are pretty good. If other Wii games have this level of graphics, I don't think we would be seeing the kind of complaining we currently do.

 

[Natoma]

Well, Nintendo is definitely pimping this game. I just saw the 6th Metroid commercial in the last 2 days. And I haven't really watched that much TV over the past 2 days since I've had to work so much.

 

[Scott_Arm]

When you get off the space station and onto the ground base, you really see how graphically improved this game is over the GC ones. It runs real smooth and looks pretty slick. Good art direction, but I find some things are a little too busy.

 

[Scott_Arm]

I really hope this sells well and we see some fps games with a little more investment. This title definitely deserves to be played, and I think it shows that the Wii is capable of some decent production values. They could make some really good action shooters for this system.

 

[Eteric]

I bought the game, and thus far it's nearly perfect. The iteractive controls (pull, turn, push) can be sketchy sometimes, but it's pretty fun. The shooting is awesome, and kicks the hell out of dual-analog. I also love the grappler, which works quite awesomely.

The intro was a little Haloish, but from what I understand, it was done to sort of "pull in" non-Metroid fans. It supposedly gets more Metroidy as you go.

Definately worth buying. Best Wii title yet.

 

[Anvil]

After about 5 hours into the game I have to say that I am very impressed. I started with advanced controls right from the start and everything just feels so natural. I love the controls.

The graphics are also very nice as well and is a very good step up from what the GC versions had. Perhaps one of the best if not the best looking Wii title to date. And running at 60fps to boot.

The game itself is very fun although the inclusion of the other bounty hunters is sort of a mixed bag for me personally. I love the isolation of Samus in the previous games. I have read that as you progess into the game it becomes more like what the other Metroid Prime games were about. However I can see why Retro may have started the game off in this fashion as it will not scare people away who have never played Metroid Prime before.

Anyhow, overall the game is outstanding in everyway for me personally. To the extend where I have put off picking up Warhawk for a while.

 

[Scott_Arm]

It's too bad that it's so difficult to try out Wii games in stores. EB Games requires a drivers license and credit card to borrow a controller to try a game at the kiosk. So the Wii pretty much sits unused. This would be a really great game for people to get their hands on.

 

[tongue_of_colicab]

You dont buy software because you cant try it out? In the average store here you cant even try out any game. Maybe a ps2 game if they have a demopod in the store but thats it.

 

[Scott_Arm]

You dont buy software because you cant try it out? In the average store here you cant even try out any game. Maybe a ps2 game if they have a demopod in the store but thats it.

I bought MP3 without trying it. There have been other times where i was skeptical of a game and didn't buy it because I couldn't try it. Game demos can go a really long way toward selling a game, or at least silencing skeptics.

If I go to EBgames I can play PS3, Xbox360, DS and maybe the PSP. Can't play the Wii though.

Edit: Correction. I can play the Wii, but I don't feel I should have to give my driver's license and credit card numbers to a store clerk just to play a video game.

 

[Teasy]

I don't understand why these stores don't just attatch the controller to the demo unit...

 

[tongue_of_colicab]

Probably because they get stolen or because they are afraid to get sued because some kid pokes out a other kids eye while swinging the controller or whatever.

 

[DeadlyNinja]

Nintendo should release demos. This way, people can try out the game without ever having to deal with this ID crap.

 

[Cryect]

Just finished the game and can say the level variety is nice. Unfortunately the ending is blah but its kinda hard to have a good ending when there is pretty much a lack of a storyline like most Metroids.

 

[DemoCoder]

After 2 hours of playing on advanced sensitivity, I am not impressed. They weren't as bad as I thought they would be, but my reticle still moves around to much and my arm gets tired, something that you never experience with mouse control.

Yet, when I turned down the sensitivity, I just felt like I was playing with an analog stick again, in the sense that it was too slow to move/turn around. So, the issue for me is, better than analog stick requires advanced sensitivity, in terms of speed of movement.

Unfortunately, advanced sensitivity provides the speed of movement, at the price of too much imprecision. Frankly, I was getting a little dizzy, because invariably, as you move the controller aim too fast, the imprecision makes you end up moving the camera (unless you use lockon)

Also, I found the 'interactive' stuff to be hit and miss. For example, the very first thing, when you activate your ship's thrusts, half the time, it does not respond to my wiimote motion property. Other times, when dealing with the door lock thing in the security check section, you're supposed to grab the thing, pull it out, twist it, and put it back in. Well, well over 50% of the time, the first two parts succeeds (I grab it, pull it, and twist it), but pushing it back in fails, and I have to restart my arm motion. it's like it failed to recognize that I pushed my arm forward.

So once again, I am unimpressed. It's like handwriting recognition on PDAs when they first came out. Sorry, but a 90% succeed rate still isn't good enough. I don't want errors 10% of the time. The WiiMote reminds me of this.

Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. But once thing I know is, my dual analog controllers *always work*, and in the days of optical USB mice, I almost never experience the mouse giving me trouble either.

I fundamentally, do not like control mechanisms with a probabilistic succees ratio of my input being recognized as something like 1 failure in 50 inputs. It's just too high.

I give them credit, since the potential of this surpassing the control you get in other FPSs like Halo on consoles, is real. Unfortunately, the implementation for me leaves something to be desired.

I'm still looking forward to the day when consoles permit mouse/keyboard combos, or perhaps some kind of knee-pad strapped trackball.

In the meantime, I made it to Pro level on Wii Tennis, and I actually like it more than my initial review.

 

[Cheezdoodles]

I'm still looking forward to the day when consoles permit mouse/keyboard combos, or perhaps some kind of knee-pad strapped trackball.
.

PS3 says hello

 

[Eteric]

I honestly don't get how people's arms are getting tired. I can sit back and relax completely with no issues.

It sounds like some people are holding their arms out or something.

 

[fearsomepirate]

Unfortunately, advanced sensitivity provides the speed of movement, at the price of too much imprecision. Frankly, I was getting a little dizzy, because invariably, as you move the controller aim too fast, the imprecision makes you end up moving the camera (unless you use lockon)

Hmmm...sound a lot like the first time I played Doom with a mouse. That's not an inherently bad thing.