Game - Metroid Prime 2
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   174 of 377 readers found this review helpful.

Let’s make one thing very clear from the onset. This is not your father’s Metroid. Your father’s Metroid was a side-scrolling, blast em’, shooter. This game claims it is a first person shooter. Yet it plays like no other first person shooter I have played. If you were to take Tomb Raider II, Soul Reaver I, and Metroid, place them in a blender on the ice crush setting for about 10 minutes, Metroid Prime 2 Echoes is what would result.

This game stars (you guessed it) Samus. Samus has been the only character to fill the good guy roll since the series incarnation. For those of you who have conveniently forgotten, Samus is indeed of the female persuasion. I don’t think there was a more shocking moment in my video game career, then when I defeated the first Metroid and this fact was revealed.

When you first start spinning the disk, the first thing that grabs your attention is Samus’s HUD. (Heads up Display). The game designers in their infinite wisdom decided to add some greatly exaggerated contours to the framework of the HUD. The end result is a true feeling of having your head immersed in a helmet. Crank up the heat in your casa and it will feel like your wearing it too. The menus and controls in this game are relatively basic, which makes for easy transition into gameplay. You don’t have to spend 20 minutes setting the game up, you can just dive right in and start blasting. And when I say blasting, I mean it. Samus’s arsenal in this game borders on insane. She has attachments for her arm blaster that have to be seen to be appreciated. The most useful weapons she has, is the Light and Dark blaster attachments. But we’ll dissect those weapons a little later. For the time being, all you need to know is that Samus’ arm has more attachments then an Oreck Bagless Vacuum.

The single greatest aspect of this game is the multiplayer. Remember when Golden eye came out for the N64 and you never ended up beating it because you were playing multi-player too much? Same concept here. The multiplayer is seamless. The list of boards to choose from is vast and impressive. There are even some choice unlockable boards. And yes, for the first time ever in a Metroid game you can command vehicles. There is a level where everyone must pilot these robot-ish vehicles called side-hoppers. And yes, they do hop to the side. Let’s face it, when competing in a death match, firepower is essential. So far, I have counted over 12 weapons you can wield, as well as 7 different types of grenades. And I know this is just the tip of the iceberg.

Don’t get me wrong though. The single player mission is all that and a bag of rocks. The story is truly the best Metroid story to date. They have made a rather important gameplay change you need to be aware of. No longer does it follow a level by level format. You spring into the world, and then it doesn’t end until the game does. No more stopping every 15 mintues to be “briefed”, while the next level loads. The visuals in this game are stunning. You have to trudge through a waist deep, heavily tree’d swamp at one point, and fight inside a technological advanced fortress in others.

Now I did say we were going to discuss the light and dark weapons. You see, the designers at Nintendo felt that one dimension in Metroid was not enough. Now you must converge between two dimensions, the light world and the dark world. The two worlds mimic each other, with the dark world obviously having the worst bad guys, toughest puzzles, etc. There are a lot of puzzles that must be completed in both worlds. Example; Flip a switch in the dark world and then go back to the light world to see its effect. Your probably wondering how you pass through these worlds. Well that’s what the light and dark weapons are for. There are certain portals that you have to shoot at with the appropriate weapon to be transported.

One boss in this game is so spectacular; it is almost not worth mentioning any others. You have to battle a 100 foot tall robot. Considering that Samus stands about 7 feet tall when suited up, this is quite the daunting task. Throughout the entire battle, you will be murmuring under your breath that your about to die. This may be one of the toughest Boss’s I have faced in any game. Of course, another popular Boss that you will love to kill is Bad-Samus. This Samus looks identical to you, only blue. Yeah, real creative guys. You couldn’t come up with anything more complex then a color change?

All is all, this game is epic. It is fantastic. I am having more fun playing this then I am playing Halo 2. If you can believe that. Writing this review was rather daunting. I tried so hard not to spoil anything major. I believe that every red blooded, console wielding, American should play this title. This title is easily in the top 5 of games released for this generation of consoles. You have your Halo 1, your GTAVC, and now Metroid 2. Enjoy. Easily 5 cans out of 5 cans. Mmmm…cans….

Added:  Saturday, April 09, 2005

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