Metroid Prime 3: Corruption

Another game, another 15 hours of my life spent vegging out. Well spent :) I have not played the previous two Metroid Prime games. I have however played the NES, Gameboy (original), SNES titles. They rocked my world as a young man. I have a Wii and was in command of a 100 dollar shopping mall gift certificate. So I bought this game and Burnout Revenge for the 360. So onto the review.

My opinion is that Metroid Prime 3 looks and feels "so-so" in 3D. Somehow being able to move in all directions is awkward. Your visor really sucks up screen real estate, during the full playing time of the game. If Halo or any other FPS did this it would be inexcusable. Oh and you will need to use different visor modes, such as the "scanning" visor to accomplish your goals. The 'Prime' incarnations obviously put a new spin on things by playing down combat in favor of searching out minute details of the environments and recording data. What is this Poketroid? I don't want to record information I want to blow shit up. This really kills the action. Ergghhhh... This actually is my only gripe: MP3 does not flow smoothly. You constantly are switching visors and moving back and forth between areas. I would just like some steady combat. I would like to work through areas and have the story flow in lock step. I don't want to backtrack areas once, twice, even three frickin times! That just screams "padding out the game". It destroys replay value since most people do not like running around the same areas. They want, nay expect new and interesting experiences. This game tries to do many different things but never lets you just get immersed in any one thing. That kills the chance of getting sucked in.

Nintendo, remember Super Metroid? Fantastic game, remember all those cool weapons and power ups? The constant battle? What about enemies that only are effected by using a particular weapon. Your beam in MP3 just upgrades over the course of the game. There isn't any switching it up. I kinda though that was annoying as having you change up your arsenal to fit different combat situations could have made things more interesting. There was a "corruption" mode where you deal out more damage, while risking an "overload". Really though that didn't pique my interest in the game at all.

I do have some words of praise. The voice acting and cinematic sequences are good, I would say on par with Halo, though the story is not. The graphics are also pretty good relative to other Wii games I have played. The controls are not bad, although I don't feel the Wii remote beats a keyboard and mouse or 360 gamepad for FPS gaming. Maybe some game will eventually prove the Wii controller superior for FPS. Mostly I'm just impressed the controls can pull it off, and be so precise.

I recommend you give MP3 a play this if you enjoyed any of the previous Prime games. If you didn't play any of those games there was probably a reason. You were likely off playing more combat oriented shooters like Halo or Half-life, or tactical shooters like Rainbow Six. If so I suggest you save your time and money and try something else.