Metroid PrimeTrilogy

This is a snazzy little number I picked up in Asda for about £15, so I’m quite pleased with that. The Metroid Prime series is a semi-spinoff of the popular Metroid series, developed by retro studios yada yada yada. It’s the thing with Samus that’s from a first person perspective.

The main Selling point of this game is A: you’re getting three games for the price of one on one disc and B: New Play controls for the first two Metroid games, and since decent Gamecube games became like gold dust when the Wii came out, that’s something worth considering. So let’s talk about the new features.

I can’t comment as to whether the gameplay has changed much between the consoles, but it does feel very natural and VERY immersive. Not being one for FPS games, I went in with a bit of scepticism, especially having played Hunters on the DS, but the game still feels like a Metroid game. And note that I use “game” in the singular there. I only completed the original Metroid Prime. This is mainly why this review has been on the back burner for about three months now. However, I have played enough to form an opinion, and one day I might go in-depth for each game, but for now we’ll just look at the complete package. But trust me: I have a good reason for not playing the second and third instalments nearly so much.   Metroid Prime is brilliant. Echoes and Corruption less so. I will Revisit this in a bit though.

One of the major complaints of the sub-series was the loading times. The original corruption could take up to a minute to open one door, and the PAL versions of the first two had extra time added on to doors opening to prevent the game possibly crashing, as it would in the NTSC version from time to time. Now, some of you may be wondering how you can fit three games, one of which has already filled the majority of a Wii Disc, on a single Wii Disc. It’s fairly simple actually. They’ve stuck them on two Wii Discs. The only other game that’s used a Dual Layer Wii Disc is Brawl, and I think you might remember some pretty noticeable loading in that. Thankfully, Metroid Prime and Echoes have virtually no load times (except when first booting up, but those are minor). As for Corruption...well that’s largely down to a poor design choice. The first two games tended to have long, narrow corridors between complex rooms. Like Metroid and Symphony of the Night would occasionally have (both games released on early disc based systems). This Allows for a little bit of the loading to be done in advance, as the character can only travel so fast, and felt fairly natural. Corruption never had those corridors, so each room needs to be loaded in one big dump. I think you can see where I’m going with this. The load times are worse. And I’m not talking about once or twice when I went into huge arenas teeming with character and object models with complex animation. Every. Fucking. Door. I feel like I’m not so much busting down the door with my arm cannon as sending in a reservation by carrier pigeon. I’d like to point out that early on in Corruption, you have five minutes to prevent a meteor crashing into a planet. This is how I know that one ENTIRE MINUTE was spent waiting for ONE door to open.

As for Echoes, well it does show promise, but the light and dark mechanics just feel gimmicky, so that’s why I haven’t played through that. But I’d definitely recommend the Trilogy. It’s kinda hard to find though, since it was an actual limited edition. You can pick up Corruption pretty easily for about £7, but the Trilogy will cost upwards of £40 on Amazon. I know that’s kinda normal for a game, but I rarely pay more than £30 so, it’s steep to me.

So yeah. Gosh, it’s been a while since I did a proper review. Did you like the Haikus? Sorry I couldn’t be on the podcast, but if I grudge paying £30 for a game, you can only imagine how I feel about a £20 ticket to sit on a train for 5 hours round trip.

Birth by Sleeps quite good by the way. Wanted to review that for a while, but it’d be a repeat of the Grandia II review. Not that the twist wasn’t really obvious from the Final Mix trailer.

I like Fire Emblem too, but that’s beside the point.

So what’s new with you?

How are the kids?

Please speak to me Jocasta. I know we’ve had our troubles, what with my mercury addiction and your affair with Derek, but we had some good times.

Remember the good times?

If I keep doing these reviews...

...will you love me?

Haiku Reviews

The Legend of Zelda

Aimless Wanderings

Dangerous to Go Alone

Sword: True Companion

Super Mario Bros.

Jump on Strange Fungus

Say “It’s a Me, Mario!”

Repeat Forever

 

Metroid (Take heed Other M)

Use the Freezing Beam

Don’t Think with your ovaries

Never Say a word

Fire Emblem

Sword beats Axe beats Lance

Death leads to great sense of loss

Reset and Repeat

Final Fantasy

Garland stole the girl

Travel back a Thousand Years

Go Mediaeval

Castlevania

Vampire Killer Whip

Bathed in a Rondo of Blood

Eat hearts for more stuff

Mother

Don’t Speak Japanese?

Too bad. Make do with Sequel.

Except for Europe.

A Piece of the World is Missing

Pokémon

Gotta Catch ‘em All

I know it’s my Destiny...

Bugger. Missingno.

Sonic the Hedgehog

Fast. Faster. Fastest.

Golden Rings Festoon the Spikes.

Out of Extra Lives...

Kid Icarus

Fuck, this game is hard.

No wonder there hasn’t been

A proper Sequel.

It has Risen.

Why yes, we DO do reviews on this site

You might have not noticed any reviews from me in a while. This is due in part to my wild sex parties with international diplomats on the ISS, but mostly it’s because I’m not very good at completing games. This is mainly due to the fact that I get very near the end, and then suddenly I’m in the mood for a completely different genre. This makes reviewing games pretty difficult, since you are kinda meant to complete them first, or if you prefer “view”. That, and I tend to play games that are have been out for more than a year, so there’s not much point reviewing it unless I have an angle. So I haven’t been.

And indeed, I’m not going to. Today, I want to talk about genres.

I have roughly 323 games at the moment, and I’ve completed about 80 of them. To help with this, I compiled a spreadsheet to organise them, the idea being that when I fancy a change of genre, I know exactly what games fit that. While making this list, I noticed one fairly obvious thing: The genre system doesn’t work.

The video game genres have been around since at least the NES, when games were simple, and plot was the least of anyone’s worries. However, as games have evolved, the genres have not. I think the last new genre that people regularly use was first-person shooter, which I hear is all the rage these days. But even that’s not very useful. Halo is a game played from a first-person perspective, wherein one shoots at things. Clearly, the system works, no?

Consider Gears of War and Metroid Prime. Two very different games, and neither quite fits the FPS genre. In Metroid, the game is played from a first-person perspective, and you DO shoot at things, but the emphasis is far more on exploration than warfare or murder. Hell, you can get quite far without firing a shot (well, except for doors obviously). This game does not feel like Halo to me. Gears on the other hand, feels very much like Halo. You are a marine of some sort, shooting at aliens. The only major difference is the perspective and the presence of chest-high walls behind which to cower. So should Gears get its own genre, such as “Third-person cover based shooter”?

Well, no is the answer to that. That’s not so much a type of game as a description of a type. But there is one thing that all three games have in common; they’re all Sci-Fi. But simply using the prose and film genre’s doesn’t give any indication of gameplay. Sci-fi covers Metroid, Halo, Portal, Fallout, Mass Effect, every single Star Wars game, opoona, Xenosaga, and even Super Mario Galaxy. So what do we do?

Part of the problem with making new genres is that there usually aren’t enough examples outside of one series, hence why there is a genre based entirely around two series (Metroidvania, and if you need that one explained to you, you need to spend less time in the healthy sunshine).

Of course, Erasmus Lucinda Fandango did not make his name backing down from challenges. Allow me to sort it out once and for all. Behold! The Genres of tomorrow...Today!

Whimsies

Games with very “cute” characters, bright colours and an all around wholesome feel, like Littlbig Planet or Super Mario Galaxy, or Bubsy 3D.

Spooky-Go-Boos!

Games which either try to create an atmosphere of tension and dread, or just throw in a jump scare and dripping blood every now and then. Examples include Alone in the Dark, the New Nightmare (exactly WHICH I leave up to you), Resident Evil, The Chzo Mythos, or Bubsy 3D

Geimu-Chan

Games with Japanese People in them. The kind where you know that even before it’s released there will be a “healthy” supply of yaoi fan art of the protagonist and a main villain bonking. Examples Include any Final Fantasy, any Pokémon Game, Any Kingdom Hearts, Any Persona Game, Any visual novel, or Bubsy 3D.

I should point out here that I like all of those games (except the one which evokes a sense of tension and dread), and have nothing against the Japanese People, except Yaoi Fangirls. They’re on par with fans of Twilight and Glee.

The Final Legend of Super Fire Metroidvaniamon Country Man’s Adventure and Knuckles Wars

Nostalgia bait. A sequel made for the sake of making a sequel, rather than to further the plot or improve gameplay, possibly with no thought given to whether or not the game ought to be made in this new way, and usually with massive backlash. Not always a bad thing. The examples will be. Metroid: Other M, Castlevania Judgement, Final Fantasy XIV, Link: The Faces of Evil, Hotel Mario, or Bubsy 3D

Baubles and Gee-gaws

Hidden object games. Games based on films. Minigame compilations that can easily be found much better online. Any Wii-game where you have to waggle the remote in a way which does not in the least correspond to the action being performed. In short, idiot bait. Examples are Just Dance, The Simpons Game, Shutter Island, Carnival Games, or Bubsy 3D

Seriousnessness

Games where realism takes precedent over, you know, fun. Examples include Flight sims, Endless Ocean, Driving games without an item button, My Fireplace, Microsoft Excel, or My Cozy Fireplace.

Ah, Now I remember why I’m not allowed to run for government.