The most balanced Metroid Prime in the trilogy.
Story continues after the conclusion of Metroid Prime 2: Echoes. Samus is sent alongside 3 other bounty hunters to help Galactic Federation in their quest to stop the phazon corruption from spreading. Unfortunately Space Pirates attack the Federation´s headquarters and it seems that they have enhanced their armors and weapons by using phazon. Dark Samus seems to have something to do with all of this. I do not want to give you anymore spoilers so I encourage you to play the game for yourself.
Graphics are outstanding on Wii standards and that means it is slightly better than what previous games were on GameCube. Of course a true widescreen display and an HD-TV support helps a lot. Loading times are again hidden between rooms, but now they are longer and for the first in the Prime series you will notice this. Frame rate on the other hand stays solid and stable all the time, no matter how much stuff flies on the screen at once.
Music has been redesigned which helps to differentiate this third iteration of the series from its predecessors. Sound effects are mostly the same as you remember, but some of them have seen changes. But here is the big difference: there are other characters to interact with and there is real voice acting in this game. Samus herself is always quiet just like Gordon Freeman in Half-Life saga. All in all the audio visual presentation is that same high quality you have come to expect from a Metroid Prime game.
Gameplay has seen changes, because the control scheme is now totally different. Wii controls work like a dream most of the time and many of the game´s puzzles (and boss fights) are done with the Wii´s unique controls in mind. There is just no way to get this kind of experience in any other system besides Wii.
There are three different control options to choose from, but most of you will choose the advanced setting, for it is the closest choice resembling a mouse and a keyboard. There are some problems with the Wii controls though, but you will only notice this during tough boss fights, because of the excitement you might perform those needed motions too quickly to the Wii´s motion sensors to register. Usually this involves the use of Samus´ Grapple Beam.
Instead of exploring a one single planet Samus has a whole solar system of planets to choose from. This gives the game more variety and makes the structure of the game much easier to understand, because one giant map is divided into smaller pieces. There is some backtracking here too, but not as great amount as in previous games. Biggest reason for this is that in specific spots you can call your ship to land and use it to fly into a new area.
Save stations are here again, but you can also save in your ship and for the first time in console Metroid Prime games there is a checkpoint system, which was first introduced in Nintendo DS´s Metroid Prime: Hunters. Unfortunately there is no way to know when you have reached a checkpoint, but luckily you do not need to test that very often.
There are 2 difficulty options to choose from: Normal is for those who have not played a Metroid Prime game or a shooter before and a little harder Veteran mode is for – you guessed it – players who consider themselves as veterans in Metroid Prime games.
There is still one big disappointment: there is no multiplayer what so ever. Hunters on the DS showed that it could work in the Metroid universe, but for some reason it did not happen in Prime 3. I personally can not understand why they did this: I was so anxious to play Metroid Prime online and all of that waiting was in vain. Shame on you Nintendo and shame on you Retro Studios.
In the end I must say that if you have a Wii you should also have Metroid Prime 3: Corruption. An FPS game can work on the Wii, if it is done properly.