It’s been termed “one of the titles
everyone has been waiting for.” Well, fans of solid first-person shooter action
won’t have to wait much longer.
Metroid Prime, a Nintendo release for
the GameCube, was shown on the floor at the Nintendo portion of E3 2002 in Los
Angeles, and eager fans lined up to get a look at this well-designed game.
For the uninitiated, Metroid Prime is
the continuing story of Samus. She was first called upon to stop evil space
pirates and Mother Brain from amassing an army of Metroids on the planet Zebes.
Ultimately, through her adventures on SR388, she was able to rid the known
universe of all but a single Metroid larva. In Super Metroid, on the Super
Nintendo system, she foiled Mother Brain yet again, as the latter attempted to
steal the captive larva from scientists on Ceres.
In Metroid Prime, Samus is called to
duty to ‘investigate’ space pirate activities on unexplored Tallon IV.
Investigate? Who is kidding whom here? Samus isn’t going to investigate; she is
going to instigate serious action from a first-person perspective.
Other features of the game include a
wonderfully rendered universe for this non-stop action/adventure; new gravity
suits which enable Samus to gain new abilities and revisit earlier worlds to
uncover hidden secrets; familiar weaponry (like the Wave Beam and Freeze Beam)
as well as a few new ones; and an evolving storyline.
The world is viewed through Samus’
helmet, which also acts as a heads-up display (H.U.D.).
Metroid Prime features solid graphical
elements, from its’ crisply rendered world with a three-dimensional feel, to the
special effects as Samus breaks out the hardware and takes down the uglies. The
animation is delivered well, and the game seems to be a roller-coaster ride
where you are never certain what lurks around the next corner, but you had
better be armed and ready for it.
This game is single player only and
slated for release on November 18.
