Metroid Prime 3: Corruption is an epic adventure with great gameplay, sound, presentation, and graphics!
Metroid Prime 3 has you once again playing as the bounty hunter Samus Aran. Samus and a few select hunters are sent to repair and get back online the infected Aurora units, which are biological supercomputers for the Federation. But along the way you and the other hunters get corrupted with Phazon that not only greatly affects the story but the gameplay as well, which I’ll get to in a second.
Now then Metroid’s controls are by far the best first person controls on Wii. You’ll notice there are three different control types, but don’t bother with the first two just use the advanced system as you’ll love it! Metroid uses the closed box system of movement. Basically the father you move the cursor, through the Wii’s IR controls, the more you’ll turn around. While this system has been used for games in the past; Metroid has perfected it into a smooth and accurate control making past games obsolete.
Because of these new fast and accurate controls Retro has upped the combat a bit. You now find more aerial enemies since you can see higher faster. You’ll also notice that there is more combat then previous Prime games, but that isn’t a bad thing. While it does have more combat they still keep the exploration part of Metroid alive. There are also new additions to the combat. Besides scanning enemies you can use a new visor, you switch visor by holding – and pointing to visor you want which works great, to control your ship to land places and bomb the crap out of things! This adds a whole new layer of interactivity with you ship that makes it feel almost like a partner with you on the adventure. And of course there is hypermode. While in hypermode Samus uses the power of her infected Phazon to become super powerful. But of course this comes with a cost. When you use hypermode you are using Samus’s life force, every shot you take decreases you life force. This creates a find balancing act that especially comes into play with boss battles.
As for the other controls you use the analog stick on the nunchuk to controls Samus’s movement. You can jump with B and shoot with A, or vice-versa if you wish to. You press C to change into the morph ball, where you use the control stick to move and you can now jump up at any time with the flick of the Wiimote; you can still jump the normal way if you wish. :P And for people who didn’t like the lock on system in past Prime game prepare to fall in love. The new lock on system has you press and hold Z and you’ll lock onto the nearest enemy. But when you are locked on you can still move the cursor so you can aim at anything on the enemy and it works great! The only problem with this is that some enemies can break out of the lock on, mainly flying enemies. And you have a new ability in Corruption, the grapple hook. The grapple hook is assigned to the motion control on the nunchuk. You can use it to rip off doors and shields which feels awesome.
One of the best things about Metroid Prime is the amazing presentation and polish of the game. Nearly all of the scenes have great voice acting and cut-scenes. But it doesn’t stop there. Retro went the extra mile and made all the menus in the game interactive. Whether is controlling Samus’s arm to pilot the ship, to using the grappling hook to power up keys, etc. While this doesn’t seem like all that much it adds up to making really fell like you are Samus and are inside the game.
Wells that’s enough rambling on about the gameplay lets finally get to the graphics! :P While Metroid doesn’t necessarily push the Wii technically, it has some of the best art style of any Wii game to date and is very polished and detailed. Everything just looks amazing, each world and setting has its own art style that is very believable and unique. Everything blends in perfectly and the level design is amazing. And the effects are spectacular! Setting off a bomb, using charged shots, blowing up things, ripping a door off it’s hinges all looks amazing and is easily one of the higher points of Metroid.
And the sound of Corruption is equally impressive. The opening is a full choir singing making for an epic feeling that is just amazing. The music for Corruptions is amazing; it can be upbeat or moody, but it all blends perfectly into the game. And the sound affects are just as good. Hearing the boom as your ship bombs the place or hearing the roar of a boss makes for and incredibly epic feel to the game.
Even if you beat Metroid don’t think the game is done yet. Once you beat the game you can replay it on Veteran or Hyper which adds a huge challenge to the game combat wise. And of course you probably didn’t collect every single powerup in the game. You’ll want to get those missing powerups since the best ending is only available if you get 100% of the powerups and scans. And of course there is also a huge selection of unlockable content. Varying from a screenshot tool, to concept art, to music, it adds a lot to the replay value if you want it all.
Up until now I haven’t said much to the negative side of the game and with good reason. There really isn’t much to complain about in the game. The major complaints I have are for the motion control. When you are in the morph ball and want to jump sometimes it doesn’t read the motion of the Wiimote at first. This doesn’t happen often but it does happen. I also found the grappling hook to be a bit unresponsive at times, but for the most part good. Besides that and the above mentioned enemies breaking out of the lock on there isn’t anything to complain about which is great because I don’t want to put down the game and the complaints I’ve listed so far are sort of pushing it. :P
Overall Metroid is an amazing and epic game. It has spectacular graphics, presentation, and sound. And it has gameplay rivaled by none on Wii so far. This is a true game for gamers on Wii and should be in every Wii owner’s collection.