Date: 2008-11-02 11:52:02 Created: null
For Gamecube
Ah, my very first experience of the Metroid series. Picked up 26th of May 2005, finished for the first time November 7th the same year and, of course, a worthy subject of timespending all the way through.
Once again I find myself thinking that games generally deemed really great are the ones that seem solid in everything they do and present, and wondering why that's the standard for greatness rather than something to be expected. Metroid Prime really doesn't do anything revolutionary at all, and it doesn't have a story as much as a setting, it's just really solid all the way through.
Prime, as all Metroid games if I'm not completely lost, is basically about exploration. You travel back and forth in a large chunk of world, shooting baddies and gradually gaining new abilities giving access to more of the world, fight a boss every now and then and move on. Dead simple concept, but getting all the details nailed is what makes it so good. A large and great looking world, a nice feeling of freedom to choose direction, a suitable distance to go between rewards, managing to make both exploration (and yes, that includes platform jumping) and shooting fun and challenging and usually ramping up difficulty at a good pace. It all seems so simple when you just see the polished end result, but I bet there's a lot of blood and sweat between every nuance.
Don't think there are any or many tears though, I think people liked doing this. People cared. People wanted to do a great Metroid in 3d.
Possibly even the lava levels. I still can't figure out who demands their inclusions in every single game. Has there ever been a game where the lava level was the most fun one? They can be challenging, sure, but does anyone ever have fun there that they couldn't have in, say, a beatiful forest setting where the floor didn't burn your feet off? I'm all for international treaties regulating the appearence of lava levels in favour of, say, swamps, meadows, forests, junkyards. Pretty much anything, really
Now, I saw Metroid Prime 2 at a decent price right this afternoon ...