Platform

GameCube

METROID PRIME IMPRESSIONS
PLAY TIME: NOT ENOUGH


Rounding out the trio of blockbuster game demos currently doing the rounds at TRU stores across Japan, is the Retro Studios/NCL joint venture, METROID PRIME.

Let me just say one thing: I’ve had lower expectations for Metroid Prime, than any other title in Gamecube’s line-up this year. I’ve been expecting this game to be a disaster zone. A totally failed mish-mash of styles.

I only got to spend about 30 minutes with the game. But – boys and girls – Metroid Prime is the real deal. Having now played Zelda and StarFox Adventures, and nearly finished Mario Sunshine, I can say with no ambiguity that Metroid Prime is a strong contender for best game I played this year, right behind Mario Sunshine.

Let’s talk about why:

Detail. Detail. Detail. This game is beautiful. Laser beams light up the sky. Weapon blasts heat up wall sections into red-hot glowing steel. Sparks fly off grinding elevator shafts, lighting up the blinking face of the girl behind the mask – but just for a second. I played Metroid Prime in starry eyed wonder, and crazily enough, Rutger Hauer was sitting in the back of my head saying things like “I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate.” And so on. Like so many great Nintendo games before it, you feel part of events in a world which is larger than the game itself. It is stunning.

Metroid Prime is not a hi-res game -- and the graphics are better for it. This is an issue that bothers me about some Xbox and PC games – too high a resolution, with not enough creativity to use it. Consequently a lot of these high res games just feel strangely empty, without life or warmth. Design hasn’t caught up with technology in being able to fill all that extra space effectively. Metroid doesn’t have the icy lines or endless vistas of Halo, but for my money, it kicks five rounds of crap out of it artistically. It’s more attractive, more focused, more detailed, better DESIGNED.

Nintendo’s touch is all over this game. The controls are instantly intuitive. Now think about that. When was the last time you could say that about a first person console shooter? I’m not sure about the lack of strafe yet. I didn’t like it to start. But as I played, I realised that it gave me the same kind of restrictive fear, as the fixed camera in Biohazard. In this game, what you can’t see, CAN harm you. And it adds to the atmosphere. Control fault or not? You decide.

I think some people will have the wrong expectations for Metroid, which is a pity. Metroid Prime will have you stopping every 20 seconds to switch on your scanner, and check the room out. The game is very much exploration, with a bit of action. Not the other way around. This isn’t a first person shooter at all. It’s a first person adventurer. Most of your time is spent navigating underground caverns, finding strange items, analysing control panels on the wall to open cues, and so on. The mystery deepens as you venture further into the core. Warning sings are given. And when boss monsters do finally appear, they have more impact as a result.

The key things that I love about Metroid are present and correct. Number one: the atmosphere. A creepy, hot, abandoned maze of steel, with something terrible wrapped around the core. Minimalist, scary, war drums echoing through the stages like a giant heart beat. Metroid Prime is an experience much like the originals, except this time we get a better view.

What else – exploration. Metroid Prime is almost pure exploration. Some of the rooms you go through are amazing fuel for the imagination – giant tanks with mysterious creatures gestating inside, massive, mysterious broken down machinery, blood stained, visibly cracked glass domes with nothing but stars beyond. Design is necessarily superb for a game where the objective is to observe, move quietly, and kill efficiently.

I didn’t play enough to pose anything close to a final judgement, or indeed a judgement of any kind. But I like what I see. I’m comfortable with the controls, I love the graphics, and I’m excited to see which direction the game will take me. Metroid Prime already looks to rank amongst the best of Nintendo’s collaborations, along with the original StarFox. Who would have thought it?

Justin
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