For Wii owners, it has been a very long summer with few reasons to brush the dust off their consoles. It has been especially difficult for the hardcore Nintendo community, with many of them growing sick over the perception that developers are only putting out Wii games for casual gamers.
The waiting has finally paid off, as the highly-anticipated Metroid Prime 3: Corruption arrives on the Wii after a nine-month delay (Prime 3 was originally supposed to be a launch title for the Wii), and to their credit, Retro Studios has pulled off something incredible.
Prime 3 is perhaps most notable for its new controls that use the Wii remote and nunchuk, but we’ll dive more into that later. Prime 3 also adds the ability to pilot Samus’ ship into the game, which becomes handy and important in navigating between multiple planets in the game, another new feature. The inclusion of tokens and friend vouchers for completing certain in-game tasks has been added, and these tokens can be used to unlock things like artwork and music. There’s also the return of the Spring Jump and the stackable beam system. Finally, Prime 3 adds a hyper mode to the game, which drains health but gives Samus the power to blast enemies with super-powered bolts of Phazon energy.
In the final installment of the series, Samus Aran must do battle with her super-powered doppelganger Dark Samus, who manages to infuse the dangerous element Phazon into Samus and three of her fellow bounty hunters. With the help of advanced technology, Samus is able to get a boost in power, but with the drawback of putting her own health in danger. Her mission: stop Dark Samus from infecting the known universe with Phazon and put an end to this menace once and for all, by any means possible.
The core of Prime 3’s game play remains much the same. Sometimes you’ll be shooting your way through a horde of Space Pirates, while other times precision is key when trying to solve the game’s puzzles. Prime 3, though, seems to take things to the extremes, namely the boss battles.
Article comments
1 - Ryan
For future reference, please do not put 'No multiplayer' as a weakness. The reason for this being that you can complain that a game is too short or last long term appeal, but never ever mark a game down for not having multiplayer. I know its become the new thing on Gamespot and other website, but it is nonsensical.
2 - alexanderpas
you can switch the controls in options
(to all reviewers: READ THE MANUAL before reviewing!!!!)
3 - Matt Paprocki
Sure. Will do. But next year, if Madden doesn't have online multi-player, we'll be sure to score it the same. And the franchise mode? Pff. Who cares? Oh, and we'll redo the Shadowrun reviews because it doesn't have single player. Can't have it both ways.
Look, if someone is a casual FPS online fan and picks up a Wii along with Metroid, it's pretty important to note that they can't take it online. It may not be a major problem as it would be with a weaker single player only title, but it's still a con. It's important information.
4 - Ken Edwards
This game would have so much replay value if it had an online mode. I mean, they made Metroid work online on the DS, adding a ton of life to that game. Its a shame its not in this one.
Oh, and nice response Matt.