Metroid Prime 3: Corruption Member Review for the Wii

Everyone loves Aliens. They also love pirates. And Bounty Hunters. Aliens, pirates, and bounty hunters, rolled into one. Well, now we can, with Metroid Prime 3, Corruption! The fantastic conclusion to yet another trilogy, and is one of the better Wii games to come out this year, hands down.

Let's face it, the Wii is a barren wasteland of crappy games that really bring the system down. Sometimes it's the poor graphics, sometimes it's a controls themselves that hinder the games abilities on the revolutionary white rectangle, and most of the time, its poor gameplay. Even games that have potential were lambasted by most, which may kill the chances too sequels that could improve on the formula. Fourtunately, and unfortunately, because it's always been the trend with nintendo, the first party games made by the best developing team out there save the day, once again, in good fashion.

You don the metallic chozo armor of Samus Aran, the sexy yet cold bounty hunter who meets up with other hunters in a meeting that goes awry. Space pirates vs bounty hunters, FUN! But it goes deeper, as Samus is inflicted with what is known as the corruption, caused by Leviathian Seeds. The seeds take control of her fellow hunters, and Samus, in turn, is also racing against time, as she is infected too.

Sounds like the Thing doesn't it?

Metriod has always been the anti-series of nintendo, ever since it was revived in the gamecube days. It is more adult oriented, like Zelda, but more akin to good old shoot em ups with thought inducing puzzles and clever sequences, a marriage that works for few games in all honesty. But the guys at Retro Studios are smart in their puzzles, as they utilized the controls in a simple, but vey effective, way to maniuplate Samus to achieve her goals.

Take the nunchuck, which lets you scan targets, use the grapple beams, move around, lock on targets, and of course, turn into a morph ball. The Wiimote, in return, lets you switch and fire the numerous weapons at your disposal, swtich visors, and pull up logbooks. The controls are not perfect, as there is some minor slow down when turning, but it is not too detremental, and it in fact makes things more challenging, instead of being annoying.

The game is also a leap in the sound department. Besides a good music score and the typical sci-fi effects, we have voice acting. You read me right, Voice Acting. In a Nintendo game. And whats more, it is good voice acting too. This adds a lot more into the story, which for a Metroid game, is deeper than usual, as it has a more, space opera feel to it now. It is, to be fair, slightly cliched and not as original as it should be, but regardless, the game is trying to do some new things with it, and is mostly succeeding.

And I like this change as well, because it opens up Nintendo for hopefully other games in their grandoise library to include voice work. Then again, I can't imagine Mario with a voice...or can I?

But I digress. The game also revamped the graphics as well, adding, you guessed it, more detail and a fluid framerate. The game looks good, that is sure, and is possibly the best looking game on the Wii itself, but to me, at the very least, it looks like the gamecube counterparts still.

And this is Metroids only real failing, it doesn't do anything new, with the exception of the controls the game has. Everything else is from a standard Metroid game. Morph ball puzzles, random creature pop ups, larger than life boss battles, the game is a cookie cutter of the last two, but a shiny new rapper and some addatives and tweaks into the machine. It does remind me of other games in this regard, but Metroid does take the extra step to be fun overall. Even the ridiculous friend voucher system has it's merits, as it adds some replay to the singe player game, and makes you forget that there is no multiplayer experience.

Overall, Metroid Prime 3, like Halo 3, is a great coda to a loved series. The biggest difference between them, however, is not so much popularity, but possibly the mythos that is built upon the games. The story is more fleshed out, and the gameplay is solid and easy to learn. What more can you ask from our favorite bounty hunter?

Final Score- B+