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| Wednesday, September 26, 2007 03:36 PM |
| Thoughts on Metroid Prime 3: Corruption |
 by Fëanor |
It's been a while now since I pretty much decided I was done with first person shooters. The reason is a simple one, although it's also pretty embarassing: they just freak me out. Every FPS provides essentially the same experience: you're walking down an endless series of dark corridors, fearing every moment that a hulking, hideous monster will leap out and destroy you. What's worse is that most FPSes are also extremely difficult, and I hate extremely difficult games. I mean, the point of a game is to have fun, isn't it? Most FPSes put me in a state of constant fear and frustration, and that is not fun.
Even so, there's something about the genre that continues to fascinate me. I mean, I like action adventure games. I like puzzle games. I like shooting things. I like sci-fi and horror elements in my stories. Your average FPS has all these things. So once I'm far enough away from the experience of playing one, I tend to imagine that the next one will be far more entertaining and far less frightening and frustrating. Which is how I ended up purchasing Red Steel. And partially how Metroid Prime 3 ended up on my Amazon wish list, and amongst the gifts I received for my birthday. (Another reason is because I read some great reviews of the game which suggested it would feature far less backtracking and annoyances than Metroid Prime did.)
Last night I played through what I assume to be the introductory/tutorial section of this game. The look, the feel, and the gameplay is all very similar to that of the original Metroid Prime for the GameCube. It also has a lot of power-ups and story elements that have been with this franchise ever since the original Metroid for the NES. But there are, of course, some interesting changes. First of all, there's the Wii motion-sensitive control scheme. I'm still getting the hang of it, but so far I think it's really pretty fantastic. I mean, point and shoot! What could be more natural? (UPDATE: Also, for some reason, I get a huge kick out of the parts of the game where you have to open doors by pulling out a control handle, turning it, and then pushing it back in, all by pulling, turning, and pushing the Wii Remote. That's so cool! Oh, and the way the Grapple Lasso works, by throwing forward and then jerking back on the Nunchuck? Genius! So intuitive and fun!)
Secondly, there's the interesting addition of an entire world of characters around Samus. The journey in Metroid up to this point has always been a very solitary one - it's just you against a whole crapload of monsters. But in this game you meet not just other bounty hunters, but a whole race of humanoid, Galactic Federation types, who give you missions and occasionally help you out - although, admittedly, only during the cut scenes.
Also - although this might only be true of the introductory section - so far the game has been far more linear than any other Metroid game I've ever played. The original games were very much about giving you a big, maze-like world to explore, parts of which would be blocked off to you until you gained new abilities, but a large portion of which you would be able to wander through at will. But in MP3, very rarely has more than one path been open to me at any one time, and when it has, it has always turned out to be an illusion, and I actually had to go one direction first before I could go in another.
In a way, this is kind of disappointing, but I'm mostly actually relieved by it. One of the things I really hated about Metroid Prime was the constant backtracking and stumbling about through a gigantic 3D world trying to figure out which specific part of which room I was supposed to go to next to make the game's story move forward, all while trying not to be killed by all the enemies I had already had to fight a hundred times before. Do you know how hard it is to read a 3D map? It's really freaking hard!
Speaking of hard, so far the difficulty level has not been too bad in MP3. Sure, I did my share of cursing and screaming, but I was rarely stuck for long, and I don't think I ever died (except for those couple of times I fell down that bottomless pit, but that was just stupidity on my part). And there's already been at least one part of the game that I found really impressive and entertaining (spoiler warning): a boss battle wherein you have to fight your old nemesis Ridley (now in a "Meta" incarnation) while you're both falling together down a nearly endless chasm. This sequence got big points right off the bat for reminding me of Gandalf's struggle with the Balrog in The Lord of the Rings. But besides that, it was just a really unique, unexpected way to have to fight - shooting at a monster that's falling beneath you while dodging crap, and then fighting it literally face-to-face while it's got you grasped in one of its claws. Brilliant!
So far I'm definitely enjoying the game, and I'm looking forward to playing it again. I can already see how it might start to freak me out in the future, but here's hoping it entertains me more than frightens me, and I actually make it through to the end this time. |
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