Metroid: Other M Review
If you’ve never played Super Metroid from the SNES days, I recommend watching the ending on YouTube, as the intro cinematic for Metroid: Other M on Wii is a current generation remake of that fight and its spectacularness is only made greater by knowing the source material.
A direct sequel to the SNES iteration, the game takes place in the shadow of the events on planet Zebes an indistinct amount of time after Samus has recovered from her wounds from that game. Team Ninja and Nintendo have done a fantastic job of bringing Samus back into the 2D plane, having the player switch between traditional Metroid gameplay with the remote turned sideways and Metroid Prime’s first-person controls (without the nunchuck), marrying the best of both worlds with only a few imperfections. Unfortunately, this does not help to disguise the fact that the game largely presents the same environments and weaponry as before.
I’m not sure why Samus was not provided with new, original weapons and abilities. Metroid: Other M takes the Legend of Zelda route of rehashing previous abilities and locations with only slight differences, except unlike the Zelda series, it doesn’t feel like a new environment. The “Bottle Ship” Samus is investigating has rooms that intentionally emulate Planet Zebes, and yet ends up looking more like Metroid Prime 3 with an added 2D platforming element and less complex puzzles, though the variety of switching between 2D side-scrolling and first-person mode spiced up the gameplay enough for me to enjoy it more than the Prime series despite not being able to move in first-person mode (the only way to fire missiles) can be a pain.
This story-heavy game takes place after Super Metroid and before Metroid: Fusion. Samus is flying through space when she hears a distress call and decides to investigate, only to find a Galactic Federation team is already on the scene, including Adam Malkovich (his first chronological appearance in the series, as he is only otherwise seen in Fusion), a commanding officer she had trained under before becoming a bounty hunter, who she respects but had a rocky relationship with. However, through the melodramatic anime-inspired heavy-hearted cut scenes, Samus decides to follow orders for no other reason than out of respect for the guy who trained her. This limits your weaponry because you must wait for your weapons to be authorized for use even though you already possess the abilities, without any real reason as to why you would not be authorized to use them from the start. I can understand not authorizing the use of the Power Bomb, a weapon that can easily destroy a wide area, but what possible reason could Adam have for not authorizing the use of the Varia Suit, which shields Samus from extraordinary heat? Or even the Grapple Beam?
Despite the nonsensical limit on Samus’ abilities and an overdramatic backstory told through narration and flashbacks, these minor weak points ultimately serve the game by giving the player a larger context of Samus’ past and letting the map guide you in a predetermined order.
But it seems the big reveal of Samus’ past is that she is an emo, self-conscious woman who just happens to be able to defeat fierce alien life forms, and the game utilizes a running narration in her soft-spoken voice to tell the story. The voice acting is passable, typical of a shooter/action game, however, the dialogue becomes repetitive; characters begin reiterating plot points we had already discovered not long before, with Samus further insulting the player by repeating it during her narration.
Within the cut scenes, Samus is sometimes forced into first-person mode, marked by a green filter over the screen when you’re not pointing at the it. This means there is something you’re supposed to look for and lock on to in order to continue the cut scene, though more often than not it’s easy to overlook the detail even if your cursor has passed right over it, leaving you searching in frustration for many long minutes.
The cinematic aspect of the game may take some adjusting for longtime series fans, but it actually works quite well. It tells a story of how Samus became the woman she is, though discounts some of her perceived silent strength in the process, as it is odd watching her take orders from others, especially knowing she already possesses all her weapon upgrades.
Other M feels made to welcome newcomers with an easiness the previous games did not have, while keeping series fans engaged with familiarity of weapons and environment. Instead of replenishing health and missiles by killing enemies, you can recharge your missiles by pointing the remote up and holding A. If your health is critical, as it may be during the many mini-boss and boss fights, this will also fully charge one power node of health (more with upgrades), but keeps you from moving during the process, actually leaving you more vulnerable to being killed. Instead, it’s more effective to use the dodge ability, in which you hit the D-Pad as you are about to be attacked to preemptively move out of harm’s way and, if holding the attack button, instantly charge your shot.
The action game experience extends to special final blows Samus can pull off, like leaping onto an enemy’s back and shooting a charged plasma beam at point blank range, or attacking full blast at a downed enemy. Unfortunately, the first-person controls take away from the action as you must stand still, lock on, and fire at a target moving closer and closer, in what’s often a few seconds or less. Some enemies can only be defeated effectively using missiles, and having to stand still and aim as they attack makes it unnecessarily difficult to fight them. This is a symptom of the controls being created for use with only the remote and no nunchuck, a design flaw that would be smart to correct in the next game, should the series continue in this direction. A better idea would have been to use the nunchuck for movement, use A to shoot instead of 1, B to jump instead of 2, and have Z or C as the first-person mode trigger so aiming does not interfere with gameplay while running around in third-person. I understand why the decision was made to have the controller held sideways - Metroid: Other M is supposed to draw back to the Super Metroid days of SNES controllers and feel like a direct sequel down to the handling of Samus while modernizing gameplay with partial Metroid: Prime controls, but this run, switch, stop, shoot method can become frustrating during some boss fights.
For example, in a mini-boss fight between the 4 and 6-hour mark, Samus came across a trilobite-like creature that burst into the room in a 2-second cut scene. It knocked her down in-game because I didn’t realize I could dodge immediately after the scene — there was no transition between the creature’s intro and gameplay. After firing away in third-person mode and having each shot deflected off of its shell, I dodged each time it charged at me, waiting for an opening. It then stopped laying flat and stood up on two feet revealing a red spot on its belly. The regular plasma gun was barely harming it, even when charged, so I rotated the sideways Wii remote toward the screen, pointing at its belly, locking on with B, and fired a missile with A, all the while freaking out as it stumbled closer and closer, Samus unable to move while aiming. Luckily, the missile caused the creature to stumble backward and recoil before it could get any closer, and it flattened out again and dashed around the room dropping mini versions of itself who also set their sights on Samus. Now I’m timing my presses of the D-Pad so as to dodge just in time while holding 1 to gain an immediate full charge and firing off blasts at the softer mini trilobites while continuing to quickly dodge the hard-shelled larger one. After it made its rounds it stood up again, this time much closer to Samus because I had not moved her a sufficient distance away. When switching to first-person mode to aim at its belly I wasn’t quick enough and it came right up to my face and attacked Samus, knocking me out of first-person mode. I’d missed my window, and the dodge-shoot-dodge sequence repeated itself until I was able to land the right amount of missile attacks on its belly, killing the damn thing. It was a very close call, having been knocked down in the beginning of the fight, attacked by minis, and wounded by the mini-boss itself. Samus’ health was flickering between 0 and 1, flashing red and making me well-aware of the danger she was in. I had to make a choice toward the end of the fight whether to attempt to stand still and recharge her health or continue dodging and missile launching, hoping for the best; I chose the latter, and in that instance it was the right choice.
Despite the slight hindrances of the control scheme, Metroid: Other M is well put-together and enjoyable to play for any Metroid fan, though much of it will remind you of other games in the series. It is in fact a great game once you get used to the controls, but I ultimately felt like I had already experienced much of the game when I had played Metroid Prime 3: Corruption about a year ago. Samus’ backstory humanizes her, and will disillusion many players’ perception of her as a badass female bounty hunter. But the graphics are fantastic - Samus’ suit looks the best it ever has - even on an HD TV, and much of the battles feel epic, even smaller ones. This is a game anyone who loved Super Metroid or the Metroid Prime series should play, and a game anyone curious about the series should try.
Arc Rise Fantasia Video Preview (Wii)
I’m fairly interested in this game. I’ve never played an RPG on Wii before. No Japanese language track, though. =(
Currently gaming: God of War 3, Final Fantasy 3 (DS remake), Dissidia: Final Fantasy, LittleBigPlanet, The Conduit, Wario Land: Shake It!, and thinking of exploring more in Fallout 3. Think I’m overdoing it? I really wanna leave work and play.
Damn You, Sharp Packaging!!
Super Mario Galaxy 2 Release Date!
At the Nintendo Media Summit 2010 today, Nintendo announced that Super Mario Galaxy 2 will come out May 23rd. That’s the day of the LOST series finale.
Games Tried & Borrowed
My fiance and I were at our friends’ place yesterday to watch the latest episode of Caprica (good show, by the way) and while we were there we got a glimpse of Ghostbusters running on XBOX 360 and Scribblenaughts for the DS.
I’ve been curious about Ghostbusters for a while now but never got around to playing it what with new games coming out multiple times a month and older games being lent to me often. The part I played in the original demo was the library level, which I found dark, clunky and a bit annoying. Our friend showed us the Times Square Stay Puft Marshmallow fight, which I have to say looked like much more fun. He played on Professional and was lassoing ghost fools all over the street, toasting marshmallow demons and cracking possessed gargoyle statues with witty Ghostbuster banter in between (“Are you kidding me? A haunted laundromat? Come on!”).
It looked awesome and I’m excited again to give it a try at some point. This version is of course vastly different from the cartoony Wii/DS/PSP counterparts, so I can only really speak on the 360/PS3 game (though I can see how the Wii pointer would be very fun).
Scribblenaughts did not go over quite as well, though it entertained us plenty. We were all trying it for the first time and upon trying it I can see why critics took such a disliking to it. Though it boasts about having a large vocabulary of physical objects you can write into existence in order to help you collect Starites (essentially sparkly stars), the interaction with these objects are largely nonsensical or don’t work at all. For example, one level had the main character, a boy named Maxwell, approach a lumberjack. The game tells you “Help him do his job.” There’s you, a lumberjack, and a tree. The logical way to win would be to create an axe or chainsaw and cut down the tree. That works fine. But if you’re going for creativity there are other ways to do it. For the record, setting the tree on fire helps no one. Blowing it up with a bomb pisses off the lumberjack and kills Maxwell. All logical. However, if you get into a bulldozer there is no way to interact with the tree to push it down. My fiance tried this, and, frustrated, decided to summon lightning. Unfortunately you can only create physical objects that can be touched and held and can exist on their own, so it did not recognize “lightning” and asked if she meant “lemming.” Blown away by the absurdity of being able to call forth a lemming (because in what case could a lemming ever be helpful in accomplishing a task?) she chose it, and as it appeared on top of her useless bulldozer she decided to grab it and try to throw it at the lumberjack. This didn’t work. The lemming would not be thrown. You can, however, “interact” with objects, and in this case it meant tickling and chasing the lemming - a disturbing image. In the end she created a chainsaw, which the lumberjack promptly snatched and cut down the tree with. The greedy bastard.
On other levels I opted to use a laser gun wherever possible, i.e. to shoot bees or flies. Note: Typing “laser cat” creates a regular black cat for some reason. Wings, jetpacks, and helicopters work well. And it turns out firemen aren’t smart enough to climb a ladder to save a cat from a roof. You have to climb the ladder yourself and pick the cat up while the fireman you summoned stands there like an overpaid asshole. Not like real firemen whatsoever. There was a garbage fire across the street from my apartment a few weeks ago and the firemen put that out less than five minutes after I’d made the call. Scribblenaughts is insulting to the intelligence of real people. Though you’ll have quite a laugh over the nonsensicalness of it all.
Lastly, I’ve been playing God of War II, part of the God of War Collection (PS3) I’d borrowed from a friend. It’s a great game, but often shows its PS2 roots in movements, and environmental interactions. I also can’t figure out why deadly gears are in ancient Greece, but I suppose those are required prerequisites for any action/adventure game that involves jumping, exploring and beating up people simply because they’re there and they’re angry. Most recently I’ve climbed Atlas after tearing the wings off of Icarus’ back. All very epic. I’m probably 2/3 done with the game - I’m at the Palace of the Fates - but I may take a break to play the newly delivered No More Heroes 2: Desperate Struggle, where nonsensicalness makes perfects sense within context. That’s the kind of sense I like.
Netflix Coming to Wii this Spring
Netflix’s streaming content will finally make its way to the Wii this spring, utilizing a disc-based system like the PS3’s version. Though the Wii cannot output HD content, this is a great step in pushing more internet content, TV shows and movies onto the Wii - a system without the capability to play even DVDs.
Preorder your Wii Netflix disc now.
No More Heroes 2 Gameplay Trailer
I’m a sucker for Travis’ cat, Jeanne. =)
My Holiday Gaming Wishlist
Note: Not all games I want are on here, as I plan to borrow several from friends.
PS3
LittleBigPlanet: Game of the Year Edition
God Of War Collection
Dragon Age
Demon’s Souls
Prince of Persia
PS3 Dual Shock 3 Controller w/vibration
EDIT: I forgot to add Brutal Legend
PSP
Final Fantasy Dissidia
LittleBigPlanet Portable
GTA: The Chinatown Wars
Half-Minute Hero
Assassin’s Creed: Bloodlines
Wii
Silent Hill: Shattered Memories
New Super Mario Bros. Wii
Resident Evil: Darkside Chronicles
MadWorld
Dead Space: Extraction
Muramasa: The Demon Blade
XBOX 360
GTA IV: Episodes from Liberty City
Halo 3: ODST
Halo Wars
The Last Remnant
Infinite Undiscovery
Magna Carta 2
XBOX 360 Controller
PSN, Wii, or XBOX Live Gift Cards
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