Here I rate Metroid: Other M, and give you both sides of the coin, the good and the bad, and I'm honest with it.
My first thoughts: The game looks awesome. I've been keeping up with it for some time. I had actually planned on buying it, reserved it even, but the more I read, the less like Metroid: Prime it seemed. I just recently played through the trilogy (again) and each time I'm mesmerized. For the most part, Prime had always two things going for it.
1) Knowledge is power. Whip out that scanner, you'll be surprised what you can learn.
2) Be prepared. Yes, it is worth going out of your way for that energy tank you passed. Yes, it's worth getting that missile expansion.
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Negative Reactions to Metroid: Other M
I missed my scanner. I wasn't expecting one to be there, but I sure to miss it. After a while, it began to feel like a hand-held game. I enjoyed the 'authorization' angle of the game, where not only could you find pick ups, you'd also be told to 'use' a certain item, and therefore would unlock it. And at some points, Samus would use them herself, having no choice but to do such. However, this eventually had a downside that made me want to murder somebody. (This is NOT a spoiler). Towards the end of the game, there will be this boss, in which you will have to use an item you:
1) Where not told you could use.
2) When you unlocked an item, the game would pause, enter your 'status' screen and alert you that a new power has been unlocked - for this particular item, this screen did not show up.
3) Samus did not say "hey, I'm going to use this item"
Ending in the player dying 400 times, and then looking it up online.
Also, on this particular part - you are left with 2 boxes of energy (not very much, compared to 10) NO MATTER WHAT. After the cut-scene, that's all you have. And this part was hard, and this killed the 'preparation' I enjoyed from the Prime series. No, apparently, it was not worth all that work.
These really annoyed me. And since I've already covered the other two things that bothered me about this game, I'll go ahead and cover the third.
And some point earlier in the game, you come to a 'dead end' accept we all know, it's never a dead end, there is always a way out. For the most part, you could enter first person view, find the area, point at it, and the game would scroll through and tell you which item/weapon to use. Not for this one part, so you run around for 4 hours, not knowing where to go, there is no 'hint' system or anything, leaving the player, once again - pissed off, having to go online to look up something.
There are two holes in this game in which it leaves the player with NO knowledge of what to do next, and this is a big pet peeve of mine, nothing is more frustrating then being a 'natural' at Metroid game, only to have something so stupid slow you down.
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Positive Reactions to Metroid: Other M
• The dodge system was simply, bad ass. To try and explain it would be a disservice.
• In fact, the combat was solid entirely.
• The visuals where sharp, I enjoyed looking around at everything.
• Where I believe first person mode is Prime's (Retro Studio's) territory, Other M did an amazing job implementing it.
• Boss fights where epic (accept the one where you had no clue what to do)
• Searching for hidden items was phenomenal, and many where cleverly hidden.
• The screw attack and power bomb kept there 'bad ass-ness' if you know what I mean, they have always been the powerhouses, and they kept that in Other: M.
• There where also many complaints about this game the Gamespot pointed out, that I can't help but utterly disagree with.
• Samus' voice was fine, if not perfect. Low resolution textures? I'm playing the game with HD cables and it looks fine.
• The voices where not cheesy. Simple at best, but not cheesy.
• Pacing issues? I didn't feel like the cut-scenes where too long at all (at least for the first time through) and thought they where placed well.
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Finale
To sum it all up (or if you just wanted to skip down here and read it) Other M, should not be robbed of its credit, or given too much. This game is great, but there will be a couple of times in which the game will frustrate you with lack of information.
Team Ninja has surely earned they're place in the Metroid world; it simply doesn't match up to Prime, in my personal opinion. But I hope Ninja doesn't stop here.
Like I said, I prefer Prime - but I hope neither set of series vanish, as they simply shine on the Nintendo Wii.