I just got my hands on Metroid Prime today for my GCN and it is pretty fricking cool. The graphics are unbelievable and the atmosphere is perfectly recreated. I have only been playing an hour or so thus far, so I don’t even have the morph ball yet. I just picked up the missles though.
My only complaint is that it is not dual analog control. Meaining you cant run forward and look to the side. It’s kinda counter intuitive since the defacto standard nowadays for FPS on consoles is dual analog. But I am sure I will over come this. I suck at FPS and every little thing will make or break me.
I think I need to go back to the begining because I think I may have missed the morph ball. Didn’t we get that almost riht away in the other metroids?
Oh well, I don’t want to spoil any of the scenes, but if you have a GCN go pick this one up. You won’t be disappointed.
BTW, WTH was Nintendo thinking going with Dolby PL2 instead of DD5.1 with the GCN? I have a $1000 system that I bought less than a year ago and it doesn’t have DPL2 so I can’t play these games in Surround. I don’t even know anyone who has a reciever with a DPL2 decoder in it.
I bought a GCN just for Metroid Prime. (Didn’t need to spend the cash, but dammit, the demo was so COOL!) You have the morph ball from the beginning, though. It’s X.
The game does seem to be pretty badass, though. Sucks that I have a paper due later this week that needs to be written now.
I’m thinking of getting a GameCube just for this game. I’m at least going to hold out until I play it on my friend’s system, but… damn, that game looks good.
I’ve gotta agree with pretty much everything you said. I bought it yesterday and have squeezed in as much time on it as possible. I have to admit playing it feels very much like playing the original on NES or Super Metroid. They weren’t kidding when they said the emphasis was on exploration. I’ve even done the old trick of bombing everything in sight to look for a secret passage.
For anyone who only played the demo, that only lets you play the weakest part of the game and could’ve been cut out or at least redone, IMO. The best measure of whether or not you’ll like this game is if you liked its predecessors because this game plays very much like them.
However in spite of all the praise the controls are indeed the one and only weak spot in the game. Still, once you get used to them you can maneuver about almost as well as any other FPS. I know some people feel that the game should have multiplayer as well but as odd as it may sound this game was not designed for fighting and blowing shit up, not that there’s not plenty of that, it’s more based on exploration and puzzle solving.
And on preview, Miller, this game is honestly one of the best games I’ve played in years. Haven’t played GTA 3 or Vice City however. Also of interest is a rumor going around that all three systems are going to have fifty dollar price cuts in time for Christmas so you might want to be patient. It’d be money well spent either way IMHO, but it might wind up being less money well spent.
And brian you lose everything but your basic beam by the end of the intro.
After the opening hunt in the space ship you lose all your gear, including the ball and charge beam. I just found the ball though but I have no bombs!
Good game. I bought Splinter Cell for my Xbox as well but I haven’t opened it yet. I also got the Metroid FUsion for GBA. I’ll let you know how that one is.
I just got an Onkyo Receiver a few months ago with DPL2. So do you just get Mono Sound? When I played Mario Sunshine for hours on end, the Surround made it really nice, I could often tell where the bad guy was coming from, much easier to find them.
I think Nintendo is making good with a lot of the games that came out this year, and a lot of potentially great games to come.
Eternal Darkness… (Rent it if you hadn’t played it yet).
Metroid… (usually ‘roids’ can be bad… but not anything Metroid).
Mario
Star Fox… (although not as good as I thought it would be, I’m sort of glad Nintendo got rid of RARE and is focusing on other second party developers. Most recent RARE games aren’t that great).
Zelda… (I hear it’s amazing).
Resident Evil
The new Capcom games
F-Zero
There’s so much that wets my appetite. I hate that Nintendo Cube owners are often still criticized. Not unlike when you tell a “nerd” that you use AOL for your online needs. Nintendo has a broader age group that they try to target, that doesn’t mean Mario is just for little kids. People mock it for being the least of the 3 to support online gaming… I know I don’t have the money for online gaming and personally think, at this time, it would be a bad business move to not ‘ease’ into it.
I just love Nintendo, and they have a good mix of reviving old classics and making all new ones. I just hope things start going a little better for them.
Metroid looks SO friggin good, I can’t wait to get my hands on it!
I asked for it for XMas so I don’t wanna buy it now. Still involved with Morrowind anyway, but damn I cannot wait. I knew Nintendo wouldn’t let me down, they never have…
You do get the morph ball, missles, charge beam, and morph bombs quite early. I found 15 missles and the rest of the stuff in under 1 hour of playing.
The control style is quite adaptable, and I think it relates to trying to make the FPS->Ball->FPS transition almost perfectly smooth. Which I think it is. The Gamecube’s two-step wing buttons are integrated perfectly to their function in the game. I am simply awed at Retro’s method of control here. At first I was shakey… hold a button to strafe? But, indeed, it feels very natural now after 2+ hours of playing last night.
How they managed to make the environment not feel like “ok, now go here” without making you ask, “Where the hell do I go?” is still beyond me.
I couldn’t believe (at the time) they could keep the Zelda feel when Zelda went to 3D. They did. I was sure (after Castlevania) they couldn’t do it with Metroid. I was blissfully wrong.
I can’t wait to get the grappling hook, that was quite fun…
