threevue

Mark:
First of all, screw both of you guys for posting this without my review. You are both dicks. Now that that’s out of the way, on with my third of threevue review.

Hate to admit it, but MP3C was the first Metroid game I ever really spent time significant time on. I played Metriod Prime Hunters on the DS, but it’s hard to make a judgement on a series based on its portable game. After I borrowed this one from Russ, I promised myself I would finish it, and went on a two night marathon trying to do so. I never finished it, but I think I’m close.

So needless to say, I had a lot to learn about the series as I played through it, but once I learned how it all worked, I loved it. It still has some of the most precise controls of any Wii game, especially among the FPS’s. Elements it had such as the pushing and pulling of valves and moving levers around worked really well with the Wii’s motion sensing. The story is…the story, but the game did a great job of making you feel like you were playing it on a massive scale while traveling from planet to planet a-la Mass Effect. It’s a good game, not great, but good, and hopefully some day I’ll be able to finish it.

Russ:
I played nearly all of Metroid Prime when it first came out in 2002, and gave up on it because it got too hard during the last level. I played through a quarter of Metroid Prime 2 last year, until I realized that it was too similar to the first game to pique my interest, and that there were two dimensions of play that were mirror opposites of themselves. I hate playing the same thing twice, and back-tracking, and it seemed like that was where the game was headed, so I gave up.

I’ve spent about an hour total with Metroid Prime 3 and I easily saw that many of my annoyances were fixed (the control scheme worked well, and it has a more explorative and social storyline) and that I was going to really enjoy the game. I then lent it to Mark and haven’t seen it since. I’m not knocking down his door for it - because even though I saw a lot of things I liked about the game, it never filled me with an urgency to complete it. This is a game that requires patience and a fair amount of forgiveness, which I’m not ready to give out just yet. It’s one of those games I like to keep in reserve for those reaaallly boring weekends.

Tyler:
Metroid Prime was a landmark game, it took a big gamble bringing the beloved epic of Samus Aran in to the first of person-perspectives. The second game did more of the same good stuff, not really innovating so much as resuming the title. Corruption is here and this third game is starting to wear out it’s welcome. Honestly, all nostalgia aside. This game isn’t really a novel concept for video games, Nintendo or the Metroid Series.

The thing that I did like was the added Wiimote functionality, updated graphics and corruption mechanic. Things I don’t like the still wonky controls, endless corridors and gimmicky corruption mechanic. The original Prime on the Gamecube was an inspired reinvention, a Metroid Renaissance if you will. If Prime was Leonardo da Vinci, Corruption is Dan Brown. It entertains but makes you wish you could go and check out the source, where it all came from.