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Metroid Prime.

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 4 / 6
Date: December 01, 2002
Author: Amazon User

Metroid Prime is simply one of the best games out yet on the `cube. The graphics are stunning, the level of detail is simply jaw dropping, and the level design is some of the best ever seen since banjo kazooie. The world is huge, but even though you have to backtrack many times, it never get tedious, you will often find that you are at your destination before you know it. The map seems confusing at first, but after a while reading it (and using it) becomes second nature. The helmet effects are great, if its raining droplets will splatter on your visor. When jumping out of water, it will run down your screen. Some enemies might splatter on it when destroyed, and if you look close, you will see the refection of Samus' face if there is a bright flash near by. The visor has many modes, you have the basic combat visor, the scanning visor, and you can even find thermal imaging, and x-ray visors for your suit. There are many weapons, and upgrades, and eventually you can combine different beam weapons, and missile attacks into extremely powerful special moves. Metroid prime isn't a classic FPS (first person shooter), though it is mostly from the 1st person mode, and there is lots of combat, its really more of an adventure/exploration game. Unlike many FP games, In Metroid Prime you can jump, which is pulled of very well. It actually FEELS like you are jumping, the distance, and trajectory are done right. I would recommend this game to anyone who owns a game cube, and it's a good reason for you to GET one if you don't.

Don't fall for the over-inflated review ratings.

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 7 / 16
Date: August 26, 2006
Author: Amazon User

Despite what you may be tempted to believe, based on the many "Game of the Year" awards this game received and it's seemingly endless five star ratings at gaming sites, this is far from a perfect game. While it has its merits, it is certainly far from being the best GameCube game ever released. The quality level of this game is simply not up to Nintendo's standards of perfection; it is, in fact, more in the vein of X-Box or Playstation games - good but flawed.

Remember the first time that you played the original "Tomb Raider"? If you reacted as I did to that game, roughly half of your time was spent having fun, and the other half was spent feeling unbelievably aggravated. "Metroid Prime" is similar, although its good sections aren't nearly as stunning, and its irritating sections are ten times worse.

Here are just a few of the cardinal sins of video gaming that "Metroid Prime" is guilty of:

- Un-fun 'busy work' in order to extend the length and 'replay value' of the game. The idea that you must "scan all the items" in the game in order to fill your log book is simply tedious and boring. There are rooms in this game where you'll do nothing but scan objects and read text for ten minutes. That's a very poor way to tell a story.

- Endlessly respawning enemies. One particular room that I remember clearly contained three Chozo Ghosts. These are quite monotonously difficult enemies, in that they disappear and reappear and, if they hit you, your gun loses power and your screen flickers momentarily. And this room had four exits to explore. So every time I would leave to explore a region and come back, I'd have to fight the Chozo Ghosts again. A five minute battle just to pick a different door? Come on...

- Compulsory backtracking. There will be times in this game when your radar will send you off to a particular section of the world only to find that it is a dead end unless you go all the way back and pick up an item. The first time you enter the crashed ship, you'll be allowed to go a third of the way through before it tells you to go all the way back to the Phendrana Drifts (which is, incidentally, where you just came from.)

- Along with compulsory backtracking...upgrading enemies in previously beaten sections. Sections that you traveled through hours ago will suddenly contain three or four of the most difficult enemies you've yet faced. Chozo Ghosts will appear in a room that used to contain nothing but vines and little creepers. Old level bosses will show up where simplistic enemies once stood. Part of what makes compulsory backtracking fun is that you can revisit areas that were difficult and explore them properly without worry. Such a scheme was used very effectively in the original Metroid and in the Castlevania series. In "Metroid Prime," however, backtracking is simply a nuisance.

- Faking 'challenge' with the "disappearing powers" trick. I've lost track of how many bosses or 'level challenges' in this game are a fabricated challenge simply because they force your 'lock-on' to malfunction, or because they can 'flash-blind' your infra-red scanner, or something else equally mindless. Note to game developers: if one of your features is deemed necessary to make the game playable (like 'lock on'), creating a boss battle in which the player has to do without said feature is not fun, or challenging, or surprising; it's simply mean. The game creates 'challenge' by evading its own rules, rather than by being clever.

- Limited save points, or saves behind locked doors. I can't be too emphatic about this one...any game in which enemies constantly respawn and upgrade cannot have limited save points. On several occassions I lost 45 minutes worth of gameplay (and 'item scanning') because I was trapped between two save points and in both directions lay difficult enemies. I don't know about you, but when I lose a significant amount of work simply because I had no way to save, it tends to decrease my enjoyment level to zero.

- And, including 'bonus features' as a sales pitch. The booklet and the case (and even the start screen itself) on "Metroid Prime" with leave you perfectly well aware that, if you go out and buy "Metroid Fusion" for the Game Boy and link the two games together, you get to play the original NES Metroid on your GameCube. That is simply amoral. If you're going to put a 'prize' on the game that I already paid for, make it unlockable by beating that game, or finishing with 100% of the scanning, or something. Don't make me buy another game in order to unlock something on this game. That's beyond ridiculous... What's next? "Send in proof of purchase seals from the previous 15 Metroid games or you don't get to face the final boss"?

That's not to say that the game is entirely bad, however. On the contrary, when the game isn't throwing endless Chozo Ghosts or flying Space Pirates at you, some of the level exploration can be quite fun. There was even a time or two when a bit of exploration was done so cleverly that I actually felt like I was playing an old two-dimensional Metroid game. About 50% of this game does feel like it deserves all the praise that it has received.

Unfortunately the boss battles, the backtracking with upgraded enemies, the limited saving, and the continual need to 'scan' everything turns this game into a tedious and unbelievably irritating experience. I have been playing this game for three consecutive days and its irritation factor has got me so stressed out that I have a tension headache. I've thrown my controller at least five times while playing and I'm not usually the controller throwing type.

To sum up, if you don't have a high tolerance for aggravating gameplay, avoid "Metroid Prime" at all costs.

The Legend Continues

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 3 / 4
Date: September 09, 2002
Author: Amazon User

So the Legend continues. Nintendo hasnt had too many GREAT games for their systems over the last few systems. Yeah there was Zelda, Mario and James Bond on N64, but besides that, the games basically have [disappointed]. Metroid Prime will put Nintendo back on top. Forget Halo and the upcomming sequal. People say, oh but they changed it into a first person shooter. i say, "and thats bad how.....?????" First person shooter will only make the game more fun and more realistic. Retro has done an outstanding job rendering this game's graphics. This game alone will make you forget about all those baby, Seaseme Street games Nintendo has put out. Expect a lot of action, huge levels, and stunnig game-play. This is going to be the best game of the year, period. All i have to say is, Nov cant come soon enough.

Closet thing to the perfect video game?

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 3 / 4
Date: November 11, 2002
Author: Amazon User

This game is....amazing. To say the least. Everything i had read promised great graphics, great gameplay, and an enthrallign story, none of this could have prepared me for when I actaully had the chance to play the game. The developers of this game seem to have taken full advantage of the Gamecube with sound, graphics, terrific frame rate, and simple controls. Metroid Prime's controls fit perfectly to the GCN's controller. Everything is just plain great.

Nintendo Raises The Bar Yet Again

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 3 / 4
Date: November 15, 2004
Author: Amazon User

I really enjoyed this game and would say it is one of the very best i have ever played. Nintendo really has been doing a great job on the Metroid series, but this was unexpected. This game takes all other platform shooters and blows them out of the water. What really annoys me is the large number of trashy games that obviously took no work. This is more of an intelligent game. There's still plenty of alien-blasting for all, but it's the characters and story that get me almost as much.<br /><br /><br /><br />Samus is supposed to be a bounty hunter, but instead of just hunting down space pirates, she usually ends up tangled into a huge alien-breeding operation and decides to play the hero. That's exactly what happens here. Samus infiltrates a space pirate frigate, destroys a monster alien bug, and pretty soon the whole place is in meltdown mode. The thing she's after, a big robot dragon named Ridley, escapes the explosion and flies off to the planet Tallon IV. Samus follows, and discovers that there's more going on here than what it seems. Throughout your adventure, the entire story unfolds through little journal entries left behind by an ancient alien race before they were killed by... The Great Poison. You later learn exactly what's going on and why.<br /><br /><br /><br />Another thing is the unique playing style. If you've ever played other Metroid games, you know the formula. At the beginning, you're physically pretty weak. But as the game progresses, you pick up weapon and armor upgrades like the Plasma Beam and the Thermal Visor. Not only does the player get better at the game, but he/she gets satisfying new weaponry and such. And the controls are much different than you would expect, but at the same time, feel totally natural after about 10 minutes.<br /><br /><br /><br />The music and graphic design are great as well. The music perfectly fits what's going on around, and it feels natural. The graphics are something to be reckoned with. Everything looks as good as it should. All the designs of the animals and worlds and equipment, everything looks great.<br /><br /><br /><br />This is a dazzling game, and was worth the money even back before the price was lowered. It's intelligent and fun. Happy alien-shooting!

A Gamer's Game

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 3 / 4
Date: November 01, 2004
Author: Amazon User

Well..., I've honestly beaten this game about 100 times or more over the past two years, and many are the times that I've proclaimed it to be my personal favorite game of all-time. Here is an accomplishment within it's form elevating it far beyond it's peers in terms of graphical detail, game design (not level design), and completely immersive sonic atmosphere and music, that I can only hope it's sequel can measure up to it's splendour.
The basic plot picks up shortly after the original Metroid. (Or Zero Mission) Samus Aran has finally located another Space Pirate Vessel, this time orbiting the remote planet Tallon IV. After a brief touchdown and some skirmishes the Station is of course almost completely destroyed and Samus is once again exploring the surface of a foreign and hostile planet. Typical of Metroid plots, but enjoyable nonetheless.
The transition that this revered franchise has made from 2D to 3D can only be compared to the revolutionary leaps of Nintendo's other main franchises, Mario and Zelda. Essentially, the franchise has retained all of the basic gameplay elements and themes of its predecessors, while successfully feeling like a completely new and modern game. A feat unmatched in terms of quality by almost any other veteran franchise, with the execption of the now slightly blemished Metal Gear series.
This may very well be Nintendo's( as represented by Retro Studios) first foray into the supersaturated realm of first person shooters, and in typical Nintendo fashion, it strays as far from the norm as possible. Introduced is a control scheme that could not reasonably be applied to any other FPS unless it be a blatant rip-off of Metroid Prime. What to gamers well-versed in the ways of FPS games might be considered a problem, I attribute as a testament to the unflinching dedication of the programmers and designers at Retro to faithfully create a 3D Metroid game using whatever means neccessary. Not only does the unique control scheme work almost flawlessy, it really lays down the foundation for the explorative nature of the game, and the strategic combat system. Without detailing button layout, the control scheme is very similar to that of Nintendo's other adventure franchise, The Legend fo Zelda, complete with lock on and circle strafing. Which means that battles aren't concerned with aiming at all, and revolve around reflexes and a strategic picking apart of enemy weaknesses.
Also introduced is a comepletely realized Heads Up Display (HUD) focusing on the other new attraction to the series: the Visor. The entire interface is modeled to make you feel that that you ARE Samus Aran, as such all noteworthy information is conveniently laid on the inside of her visor, NOT on your TV screen. A brilliant device that I'm sure will and already has been implemented in future first person games. The visor has four distinct modes: Combat, Scanning, Thermal, and X-Ray. Each one is fully graghically realized and displays the entire environment through its filter.
The game, upon its release showcased a level of graghical detail well beyond its contemporaries and it still stands today as an amazing achievement. Every single room is unique in its design and architecture, and boasts miniscule details that two years later I still find myself stumbling upon. Crumbling rock formations, dusty hall ways, moss-covered lichen, realisticly reflective ice, beautifully falling snow.... All presented in Progressive Scan(for those who can afford it) at an unfaultering 60 frames per second. Simply gorgeous.
The sound, not to be outdone by any other aspect of the game, is of the absolute highest caliber. Every object in the game has its own immediately recognisable and realistic effect, and no one sound outwieghs any other when multiple sound effects are being heard. Indeed, for someone who has played the game far too often, it's possible to locate hidden items in the game by the resonating sound that they give off when your'e in close proximity. Retro seems to be a studio absolutely obsessed with detail.
The music is itself a work of singular magnificience. Composed by series composer Kenji Yamamoto, it fully acclimates itself to each situation and in some cases each room, providing a very carefully orchestrated emotive state perfect for each moment of gameplay. Bravo.
The gameplay in this game goes hand-in-hand with the level design, and despite vast acheivements in all other areas of development, I think this area is what really sets Metroid Prime apart from other lesser games, and will insure its immortality within the ranks of the video game elite. Always present in any Metroid game is an unrivalled (save Zelda) sense of exploration and freedom slyly tethered to the logical progression of the games plot thread. You basically always have something to reach and something in the back of your mind, usually up until the end of the game. Metroid Prime provides such a smooth gradual progession that there is no real learning curve. It provides a constant challenge that always seems to be what you can barely accomplish. Most representative of this core design element are the boss encounters. Every one seems as challenging as the last, requiring all that you have learned up until that point plus a strategy to win. The sense of accomplishment that you get from trouncing each one of these Goliath's is equalled only by the excitement that you get picking up the next upgrade that the beast was harboring. Moments like these would be the highlight of any game, but Metroid Prime manages to accomplish this with every one of the games over ten bosses. Again, the design of this game is absolutely faultless.
For me, no problems exist in the game that I have scrutinized more than any other, but that is a personal opinion. I honestly wouldn't recommend this game for everyone, because of its decieving exterior. A first-person shooter it is not. It belongs in a genre that hitherto didn't exist and will probably only contain Metroid games from now on: the first-person adventure game. I'm fortunate that Nintendo saw fit to reintroduce the world to gamings first and most respected Heroine: Samus Aran

Hats off to Nintendo! Great work!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 3 / 4
Date: March 04, 2006
Author: Amazon User

I would like to start on this note: This game is not PERFECT so don't believe anyone who says it's the "Best game ever made". Don't get me wrong. I love this game. But it has only a few flaws that really bring it down. Here's the scoop. Metroid Prime for the Nintendo Gamecube was one of the first I ever got. I had read the reviews, seen the TV spot etc. So I knew that it would have to be one of my first. The game starts off nicely. I have to say I got chills the first time I saw Samus leap from her ship and onto the edge of the Pirate freight.

Graphics - 10/10

The graphics are utterly beautiful. There's every detail you could ask for from the drops of rain on your visor to the splash of a flying Space Pirate crashing into the water. Not a single flaw with these.

Music - 9/10

The music is wonderful. The music sets almost half of the atmosphere. Like when you walk into a room and the music begins to flow into a low and constant note. This means that there are Space Pirates in the room. But they could be anywhere. They could be cloaked. They could be waiting for you to pass before they drop down from the ceiling. And then your heart beat begins to get faster. And then CLANG! the sound of Metal feet hitting the ground and vicious roars coming from every direction. Freeze that image. What got your heart going? The music. They have done an excellent job with the music. The only thing keeping it from a 10/10 is the fact that it can get particularly repetitive if a battle goes on too long or it can be annoying if the music becomes without and rhythm or beat and just becomes random sounds. That's the only music issue.

Controls - 6/10

The controls can get frustrating at times. You will probably often confuse the Morph Ball button with the missile one and waste a lot of missiles. And sometimes you might mix up the jump button with the fire button. This is bad in a scenario like this: You are up on top of a hard climb. You are almost at the top to get your prized Wavebuster. You take a step forward, and hit the fire button by mistake. Meaning that you plunge all the way down to the bottom of the climb, and you have to start over. Finally, the beam and visor system requires you to change by pressing one of the directionaly arrows either on the c-pad of the d-pad. Sometimes you don't have time to look down and see which direction you need to press. Say you run into a Wave Pirate (a space pirate that can only be injured by Wave Beam.) and you need to change your beam. But he's coming at you fast. so you press a direction on the c-pad... and change to ice beam. D'OH! He hit you and you get a lot of damage. The controls can be a major issue in this game.

Enemies - 10/10

Clever and well thought up. Even some old enemies return with a whole new look, Including Zoomers and Llielas! In the enemies department, you will not be disappointed.

Difficulty - 4/10

Ah yes. The difficulty. I guess no one can deny that this game is almost IMPOSSIBLY difficult. Situations can be excruiating and sometimes may take hours at a time to figure out. And sometimes you learn later that you could have done it another, less complicated way. For example: You may have to cross a lake of lava. You can't jump over it. There are no platforms to land on and save you. The only thing you can think of is to wade across the painfully damaging lava and jump to the other side. When you reach the other side you look up and realize you could have avoided taking all that damage. There was a stalactite hanging from the ceiling that you could have shot with a missile and created a platform. It can really tick you off. The Bosses evolve from hard to nigh impossible. The hardest, not being the last boss but the Elite Pirate, took my 3 excruciating tries to beat, each try taking at least 1 hour. Finding items can be a pain too. Energy tanks and missile expansions are the biggest kick in the ass. The fact is, without a strategy guide, you probably won't find many.

To wrap it up, it is a recommended game for someone looking for a serious challenge. I would not, however, recommend buying this for someone under the age of 13. Not for violence reasons but because it's just so dammed difficult!

Don't Worry About Stupid ESRB With This!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 3 / 4
Date: November 25, 2004
Author: Amazon User

ESRB rates things wrong. Don't worry about that. Rating the Incredibles(stupid game, but you get it) T, geesh.

Metroid Prime:

You start on the Space Pirate Frigate and there you also practice features and weapons. Later on you have to defeat the Parasite Queen. But it ruins the Reactor Core. So you have 6:50 to escape! It combines Action and Adventure and is longer than most Action Adventure games. Maybe Rayman original as only one exception. 70 long levels in Rayman. This game has awesome AI and graphics! The best graphical game I've seen!!! Learn enemies weaknesses and collect data with the Scan Visor. In some areas like after the Chozo Ruins in the Magmoor Caverns you need the Varia Suit. Think like Samus Aran in this first-person shooter bestseller. If you don't have this, what are you waiting for? Even though it's kinda late since Metroid Prime 2: Echoes is out. They both are awesome! Speaking for both, VERY HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!!

A good game, but far from perfect

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 5 / 10
Date: November 26, 2002
Author: Amazon User

I felt that as a long time Nintendo fan and a diehard video game fan in general that I was pretty much obligated to buy Metroid Prime, and I don't regret it for a second, but there are some frustrating things about the game that are pretty hard to understand. First, I'd like to get the good stuff out of the way, since I find complaining far more fun and interesting. The graphics and sound are both outstanding, the best you'll find on the Gamecube. There is no voice acting, which I consider a good thing, since if done poorly it can destroy a games mood and tone. The game is relatively dark in tone, similar to previous Metroid games. Fans of previous Metroid games shouldn't be too upset with this one simply because it takes place in the first person. This is clearly a Metroid game with all the trademarks that made it a classic. The level build is traditional, the monsters are traditional, the weapons are traditional, even the music is fairly traditional.

As many people already know you can now acquire various new kinds of visors in the game that each serve different purposes. The scan visor is really an interesting addition as you can scan pretty much anything you want to and find out some pretty useful/interesting information. You can learn about various monsters feeding habits, what they do to defend against predators, and other interesting information.

The bosses are huge and (misleadingly) intimidating. These fights are a lot of fun because, as with all good games, different strategies are required to defeat different bosses. Figuring out the puzzle of the boss can be a most rewarding experience. Actually defeating the boss is generally more relieving.

Unfortunately this game is far from perfect. As mentioned in other reviews, there is no good way to look around. This makes every jump you make (of which there are a lot of) a leap of faith in a sense. You can hold the R button down and (slowly) look around that way, but the R button is intended more for aiming then for spinning around or planning out a jump.

The battle system is terribly simplistic most of the time. As long as you are targeting an enemy, you simply will not miss them when you press the fire button. In some games you would have to stand back and carefully snipe out an enemy floating through the air between 50-100 yards away. After doing so you feel a great sense of satisfaction, even if it wasn't that hard. Here, you just simply hold L and press A and that enemy will almost surely die.

The worst part about the game is the constant backtracking. The game would be far shorter if you didn't have to go into every single room 3 or 4 times. Nothing's more discouraging than realizing you have to go across the entire already explored map just to go into one room you couldn't previously access. What makes this worse is that the rooms you've already been to are often replaced by monsters that are far more difficult than the ones you first encountered there. Some may say this keeps the action fresh and interesting. I say that if I have to go through a room I've already been to 4 times, I don't want to fight a worthless non-rewarding battle against 3 enemies who take a good minute and a half to beat. I want to get the hell out of there as fast as I can and move on. Besides this, the enemies respawn almost immediately after you leave the room, so if you forgot something in the previous room, you have to go through another worthless battle.

Even with the negatives, Metroid Prime is a pretty good game that should at very least be rented and for most people I would probably recommend a purchase. It is undeniable that there are some frustrating parts, but the reward of exploring new territories, finding new items, and beating tough enemies is pretty hard to pass up.

The greatest comeback.... ever.

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 4 / 7
Date: November 29, 2002
Author: Amazon User

This game was great. There was a lot of worry about being able to bring the classic Metroids into a 3D world, something that has never been done to Samus. But Nintendo and Retro studios did an excellent job. At times, it is hard, and confusing, but it all adds to the realness of the game.

If you are a fan of Metroid, Shooters, Platforms, or just want something to keep you happily entertained, buy it. You will not be disappointed.

(After all, EGM gave it three 10/10's)

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