Metroid Prime

I decided to make another foray into Old-School gaming, this time using my Wii to play the original GameCube classic Metroid Prime. As a fan of the Metroid games of my youth, it quickly became clear that Metroid Prime faithfully recreates the feel of the older games’ mechanics, while still updating the interface to a first person perspective. This game was top of the line when first released in 2002 (can you believe that was six years ago already?!) It is an amusing, nostalgic adventure, a successful homage and a fun dungeon exploration… until, that is, the last three bosses remind you of the cost of trying to re-experience your youthful days.

First Impressionsby Tanx - Video Game Reviews by a Very Busy Math Teacher

Metroid Prime could represent a short academic course in what makes a game “Old school.” We begin with your crowded HUD, arranged to narrow your vision to what feels like a myopic squint like that of Mr. Magoo. Next add in the inability to both move and look around at the same time… maybe Samus’s spacesuit uses toe controls to incline the helmet or something. Now that your movement and vision are suitably impaired, the game introduces save points as the only place you can record your progress… and then conveniently “forgets” to place any on the most difficult levels of the planet. If this doesn’t guarantee forcing a player to retrace their steps a hundred times, why not fill the world with lots of specially locked doors behind which is Stuff You Need. This way each time you get a new upgrade to your access arsenal, you must run back across the entire planet to fetch the goods you couldn’t nab before. Oh, and did I mention the infinite and immediate re-spawning enemies in every room? How about tougher enemy re-spawns as the game progresses?

Okay, complaining out of the way for a few seconds, all this Old School stuff is what I expected to encounter when picking up this game, and it IS true to the original. I mentioned before that the game play mechanics faithfully recreate the Metroid side-scroller feel, and they really do, especially when it comes to the Morph ball that Samus is somehow able to Yoga herself into. Missiles, wave cannon, bombs and actual metroids… they’re all present and well-represented in this game.

The addition of a scan visor that gleans info from enemy computers and old alien scribbling added a nice touch of plot to an otherwise solitary dungeon crawl. I kind of wish I had a scan visor to interpret my students’ handwriting, personally. The scan visor also happens to give you details about every monster you face, reminding you of the weird little names they were given in “the manual” for the old Metroid games... names like “Geemer” and “Grizby” and “Jelzap” and “Zarblo.” Wait, I think I made up that last one sometime back when I was nine years old.

Heck, the trusty scan gizmo even gives you hints about how to defeat each boss, which is particularly helpful… until you reach the final three. Yes, I speak of Meta-Ridley, and the two incarnations of Metroid Prime. At about a gazillion hit points each, an unavoidable cut scene before Meta-Ridley and an unavoidable set of monster-infested caverns before Metroid Prime, taking these critters down in a perfect play would take you an hour. Of course, to play perfectly requires lots of practice and help from the internet. It took me about ¼ of my entire play time through the whole game to defeat these last bosses, something that had me howling epithets and shaking my fists at the TV in frustration. It is like a trap to catch gamers like me, who are determined to finish what they start in all but the most extreme of circumstances.

And what is your reward for slogging through these interminable, boring and relentless foes? Hard Mode Unlocked. Hard Mode?! I can just picture the game designers having a good laugh about that one, and then going on to design Arcana Hearts or some other equally impossible challenge. At least in the old games you’d unlock Samus in a leotard without her mech suit on, a very exciting discovery, again, when I was nine.

There must be a class of gamer out there who exults in these tedious, arthritis-inducing repetitive boss battles that take several practice runs to master, but I expect that few of them are over the age of 14. This is the great danger of revisiting the games you loved as a kid… as an adult, you just don’t have the kind of time, energy and devotion required to play and re-play impossibly hard game sequences like this on a regular basis. Will Metroid Prime 2: Echoes and Metroid Prime 3: Corruption follow suit? Like a moth to the flame, this reviewer is destined to one day find out.

Played For: about 30 hour

Will I play it more: I’m Sure Metroid Prime 2 will be similar enough