Metroid Prime: Why it's the best thing since sliced bread.

If there's ONE thing, ONE thing I like better than Portal, it's Metroid Prime. Retro Studios's 2002 title is not only the best Metroid games, not only the best Gamecube game, not only the best Nintendo game, but the best damn game in the history of platformers. Weapons, gameplay, music, even story!


THE STORY

The story begins with Samus intercepting a distress signal from the Frigate Orpheon, a space pirate research ship. She soon finds all of it's crew dead, or seriously injured. Further exploration finds the Parasite Queen, a giant bug thing hanging above the core. She soon dispatches it, and it falls into the core, causing a countdown timer to start. As Samus is leaving, she comes across Meta Ridley, a reincarnation of her old foe. Meta Ridley escapes, and as Samus is pursing him, a blast of electrical energy knocks Samus's powerups offline. She chases Meta Ridley to Tallon IV, a planet which has been impacted by a meteor containing Phazon, a deadly blue substance with incredible destructive properties. She lands on Tallon IV, and sets out to discover the Pirates' true intention.

THE GAMEPLAY

The gameplay is a lot different from most First Person games, and it bears lots of similarities to Half Life, except it's not as combat oriented, and the puzzles are a lot shorter. To jump, you hit B, and to fire, you hit A. Missiles are fired with the Y (Or D-Pad up, if you're playing the Wii version), Morph Ball is X (Or C if you're on the Wii), L (Or Z) locks on, and R allows freeview (GC only). All the controls feel natural, and are very quick and responsive. A lot of reviewers don't like the lack of dual sticks, but who cares? It plays like a dream. The power ups are the basic Metroid stuff, Varia suit, Ice beam, bombs, missiles, etc. All of them control like they do in the 2D games. Only thing is, they don't stack, so you have to choose them individually.
The biggest addition is visors, with a main visor, scan visor (Which allows you to scan enemies and computers for information), a thermal visor, an X ray visor, etc.

THE MUSIC

Holy mother of crap is it awesome. Just listen to the music on the right! It's fricken amazing! It mostly consists of remixes from old games, Lower Norfair being the Magmoor Caverns theme, Brinstar being the first Tallon Overworld theme (It switches to some other track when you acquire the Spider Ball) All of the tracks are beautifully made, and sometimes I had paused the game just to listen to it! It's that well done!






THE FINAL WORD

Buy it. NOW. It's the best damn game on the Wii/Gamecube. Final score, 9000 out of 10.