An Excellent Entry in the Metroid Prime Trilogy
The increased interactivity between the player and Samus's ship is one of the main upgrades this entry boasts. In addition to this Samus will find various upgrades to her weaponry and even gain special techniques by infusing phazon into her suit. While these special techniques are only absolutely necessary in a few situations the fact that they can be used at any time to rip apart your enemies makes this one of the coolest new features in this game. The gameplay is similar to the previous entries in the series and involves plenty of scanning data to learn more about the plot as well as a generous amount of combat and puzzle-solving.
In Metroid Prime 3 you actually get to meet other bounty hunters, who are apparently friends of Samus, and become corrupted with her when Dark Samus strikes early in the game. These other characters are fairly significant because they will eventually be encountered later in the game, creating interesting boss fights, yet the lack of a really historical relationship to Samus doesn't really make these fights feel epic.
The sound is solid with ambient tracks for the world themes and remixes of past Metroid Prime themes for fights with the space pirates and the saving theme. As far as the weapon related sound goes, I feel some of the weapons' sound quality was rather lacking, and didn't do a great job representing their destructive qualities. The voices of the various characters Samus encounters were all well done and suited the characters properly.
The controls were very different from the previous games in this series considering this game was made for the Nintendo Wii console which sports a very different controller than the Nintendo Gamecube. Moving around, switching weapons and visors, and opening various menus and maps was all quite easy and aided the already excellent gameplay. However, some of the more interactive controls such as pulling on a lever, wasn't very responsive and performing tasks such as these felt more like a task of finding the right way to move the remote to get Samus to properly use the device. Yet, other new interactive controls such as pressing a keypad or electronic screen actually required movement of the Wii mote is if it was a hand and added a very realistic value to the game. When it came to doing tasks such as this there were no problems at all and I almost looked forward to opening a door with a keypad lock. Shooting, and aiming with the remote was enjoyable, however there was one minor problem which involved a slow to very fast movement of the reticule once you reached the visible edges. The addition of a lock on mode (Except for boss fights) mitigated any of the turning problems during the majority of combat. When boss fights did occur it was understandable why the creators chose to leave out a lock on mode because this would be rather ineffective for the boss situations.
Visually the game is very well done. This game features more planets and areas than either of the previous two and the designers did a great job of giving them each a unique feel. The game also captured the feeling of being a lone bounty hunter on an unknown planet, creating a true sense of adventure. The environments all captured that science fiction type feel that is a trademark of the Metroid series and the other bounty hunters were drawn very well.
This entry features the same modes of playing as the previous entry, sporting both single player and multiplayer action. There are also unlockable galleries, and different endings based on completion percentage just like in the other games of the Metroid series. While the stories in the first two games were intriguing and kept the gamers attention, the plot in this game felt rather bland and almost cheesy. However, the inclusion of the Valhalla area, an abandoned spaceship with a good bone chilling theme, made up for the rather weak plot and engages the player to discover the story behind this mysterious ship. Lastly, I'm not going to spoil anything, however I thought the ending was disappointing and I couldn't help but wonder why they chose to end such a great series in this way.
Metroid Prime 3: Corruption is an excellent game that will please many newcomers to the series and followers who have been playing Metroid since its debut on the NES. The gameplay is exciting and a good length, and the game has enough extra content/modes to keep players coming back for more. While hardcore fans may find the ending disappointing, I think they will agree that overall this was another solid entry in the Metroid Prime series. And while it's not the best in the series it is certainly worth playing for those who have not experienced the greatness of the Metroid legacy.