Hey, it beats the hell out of Coded Arms.
In Hunters, you take the role of the female bounty hunter, Samus Aran, who seeks an “ultimate power.” In order to find this power, Samus must go to a galaxy of planets known as the Alimbic Cluster to find eight different artifacts called octoliths. Octoliths are scattered all over different planets and areas in the Alimbic Cluster. You’re not the only one who wants these sctoliths though.
Throughout the game, you will engage with other bounty hunters who have their own weapons and special abilities. If you become defeated by one of these hunters, they will steal your sctoliths. If you happen to get your sctoliths stolen, you can always track down the bounty hunter that stole your goods in the first place and gun them down.
The thing that really amazes me with this game are the controls. At first, they were very tricky to get used to, but once I eventually got it, I found how efficient they were. You get a great amount of precision with the stylus and the touch screen being used for aiming. You can easily aim at enemies quickly. The bottom screen is also used to switch weapons, check your map, or morph into a ball.
You simply tap the symbols on the bottom screen with your stylus to switch to whatever you need to quickly, although I found the touch screen tapping to be annoying at times. You can never really focus on what’s going on in the main screen while using the touch screen.
You can switch what hand you would like to aim with in case you’re left handed, and you can also switch the control scheme to that of Coded Arms, and use the four face buttons to aim. The L and R triggers are used to shoot and jump in this “Dual Mode” control scheme. This method will not give you much precision, and can be difficult because there is no auto-aim feature.
Cut scenes in this game are also pretty amazing. Though they are short, the look of the cut scenes is very well done, especially for a DS game. The in-game graphics are superb. I didn’t have any frame rate problems, but the graphics did become a bit chopped looking at times when there was too much action on the screen.
The single player game is a great feat for a DS game, especially because of the fact that this is a first person shooter. The stylus can be the equivalent of a mouse for your computer, and probably is just as precise. Each world you go to has few mazes and puzzles, which were all fairly easy to figure out.
I was pretty disappointed at the fact that there weren’t that many hidden passages or alternate routes through each world. I felt like the game play was very linear. Constantly tapping the trigger button to shoot became kind of annoying at times when you wanted to attack enemies, and did strain my arm a bit, but you can eventually get used to it.
The downside to the single player experience is the constant respawning of enemies. If you leave a room and come back later, I’m sure you’d most likely see all of the enemies you previously defeated come back out of thin air and attack you.
After you defeat a boss, the game decides to time you. This in itself is puzzling. You must get off of the planet before the planet self-destructs. On the way out, you will be flooded with enemies and blocked passages. Once you do make it off of the planet, there isn’t a heroic cut scene or huge explosion. Instead, the game just acts as if you never had to leave in the first place. The planet never really self-destructs, since you can always go back.
What I loved the most about this game were the other bounty hunters that were introduced. The character designs were all very cool and well done. I can say the same for each boss in the game too. Each rival bounty hunter is equal to you in terms of power, but each has its own different weapon and abilities. Just as you can change into a ball, enemy bounty hunters can as well, but their morph forms are very different from yours. For example, some may change into little critters that look like parasites.
Multi-player is a strong point in this game. Wi-Fi can be either very fun or very difficult. My first time playing on Wi-Fi got me 13 deaths and zero kills. It’s clear that I lost. This wasn’t just a mindless FPS game. If you’re skilled enough, Wi-Fi matches can go on forever. Constantly collecting health and more power-ups throughout the multiplayer matches can give you the lead in a match — and you will need it!
Online Wi-Fi has you playing against local/worldwide players who are either on your rank or just random players. If you are playing against random people, the only available online mode is deathmatch. You can choose one of seven bounty hunters to play as. Levels will be chosen by voting. Whereas the majority of votes will determine the location you will play.
If you decide to play against your friends or rivals, you have more modes open to you. Multi-card play also has more modes. The only downside to single-card play is the fact that all of your friends have to play as Samus, and you can only play “Battle” mode.
The multiplayer even has voice and a touch screen keyboard to talk to your friends in the lobby.
Something very neat about the multiplayer game play is the rival radar. You can turn this option on and walk around with your DS on sleep mode. Anyone else who you come in contact with that has their rival radar on will be added to your DS rival list, so you can have more friend codes on your roster.
Metroid Prime: Hunters is a fine example of how to make one genre of game work well on a console it’s not meant for, and is one of the biggest accomplishments lately for a handheld. The multi-player is also a big step up for Nintendo Wi-Fi games thanks to the voice chat and communication. Overall, this game is a solid DS title, one you will not want to miss.