Metroid Prime review:5 stars (Classic Metroid gaming in an updated 3D package) - One of the reasons I bought a Gamecube was so that I could play all the updated Nintendo classics I loved as a kid. Metroid and its sequels were legendary games back in the day, and after reading glowing reviews for this update of the series into the 3D era I knew I had to play it. Metroid Prime didn't disappoint. This is old school gaming at its best; or at least it's old school wine poured into new wineskins.

Prime is played from a first-person perspective, but it's about as far from the traditional first-person shooter as you can get. It's more of an adventure and exploration game, which is, of course, what Metroid is all about. The world is detailed and engrossing, the boss fights are epic, and the Morph Ball system brings a fresh element to 3D action gaming. I don't quite know what I was expecting out of this game, but I found that I was very surprised to find out exactly how --Metroid-- it was. Retro Studios translated the most recognizable elements of the old 2D platformer into the 3D world in a way I never knew was possible. Sure, the backtracking through the levels and shooting the same enemies over and over again (a Metroid staple) gets old after a while, and after the 25th time going through the same area to retrieve the latest suit or gun upgrade you start to feel a little worn out, but this doesn't deter from the overall game experience, which manages to be unique among other first-person games out there while sill maintaining that familiar Metroid feel.

5 stars (NO TITLE) - Metroid Prime came out in late 2002 and shocked all compitition with its amazing graphics, emensis monsters, in a FPS with mostly a hunt and retreve mode.

The game of the year for 2002 was taken place in an uncharted world named Tallon 4. Samus came to destroy half of the remaning Space Pirates from the original 2D game Metroid, she loses most of her abilities in an crash in a pirate frigate early in the game, she must collect all of her missing arsanal of weapon, suit, and visior ,over the course of the game, from the far corners of Tallon 4's climate(Tallon overworld, Phazon mines, Magoorn caverns, Chozo ruins, and Phindendra drifts), hunt the space pirates ,as well as their leader Ridly, and recover the sacred Chozo artifactes to get in the Phazon crater to see what made the Chozo bird-like people to go away and turned the animals into monsters. 5 stars (One of the best Game Cube games ever!) - Metroid Prime is an excellent game. I suppose I could just hype it beyond all reason, but that wouldn't be right. So let's be fair.

Let's start with the negatives, just to get them out of the way. This section is short.
(I'll list these in order of appearance in the game.)

1. Unusual control scheme
-As has been said in almost every other review (that I read, at least), Metroid Prime uses a much different control scheme than most other FPS's- control stick to move and turn, R-shoulder+control stick to aim. What most people fail to mention, however, is that the game was MADE towork with this setup- you won't oten find situations where any other system would be any better. The Lock-On function also helps a great deal.
(BTW, I don't personally know anyone who had signifigant trouble with the controls.)

2. Strategy-intensive fights
I've heard people complaining about the fact that you have to THINK about the fights in this game to win. I'm serious. Apparently, it's much more fun to button-mash while holding down the trigger, hoping you hit something. In Prime, you'll need to figure out your opponent's weakness(s). Sometimes it's very easy- enigmatic energy creature? Overload it with the electricity-based Wave Beam. But sometimes it's more challenging- namely with bosses. The killer is not paying attention to cutscenes- they are usually MAJOR CLUES. Sometimes the game also requires that you read between the lines a bit- a text-base clue won't neccesarily tell you exactly what you need to do. An example:
"...Giving this otherwise invisible creature an intense thermal targeting signature."
If you've beaten the game, you know that this means "USE THE THERMAL VISOR TO SEE IT." If you haven't, that might sound like a useless piece of information.

3. Frequent enemy respawns
To set the record straight, enemies do not repawn the second you leave the room. Except for several special situations, you have to put at least one room between you and some enemies you just blasted before you can expect them to be there again.

That's about it for flaws.

Now, the good stuff.
Firstoff, there's just so much to do, to see, to shoot at... it's a huge game. My first time through (with 100%) took 25:37, without the guide. My second (again with 100%) took 6:24. Most of that shaved time was NOT having to go back and get things (but I have ridiculous visual/spacial memory (and, therefore, absolutely NO short-term memory- I've already walked away from this twice), I think I actually memorized the entire map of the game the first time through), and a good hour of it was time saved during boss fights. But that doesn't mean the game doesn't have replay value- beating it on Normal mode unlocks Hard mode, which is certainly MUCH harder than Normal mode- but still doable. I made my first run through it (again, 100% completion) in 12:18. And then there's the various challenges people have put themselves against- speed runs, low-completion runs, Sequence Breaks (getting powerups/fighting bosses out of order)... the list goes on and on.
With the scan visor, you have access to easily a small novel's worth of information on the world around you- much of it neccesary for the completion of your mission (which seems to change more often than it should).
The graphics are also surprisingly good (by today's standards, at least, I don' want to be laughed at in ten years) for a game from 2001/2002. There's a huge amount of depth to everything- the metal panels in the walls, floors and ceilings have rivets- not just textures of rivets, but actually RIVETS coded into the 3D model. See-through floors seeming to lead down into infinity. This is actually exactly what the designers planned on, and they did it beautifully. That amount of physical depth, combined with the sheer volume of information available, the diverse creatures and environments, and the absolutely perfect soundtrack by the incomparable Yamamoto Kenji (who also did the music for the original Metroid), make for a completely immersive world. You can forget you're playing a game at times- you hear alarms going off, clicking claws on metal, alien voices roaring commands at one another, weapons fire... but you don't think "This is a cool game". You think "I'd better get out of here before they kill me".

I highly recommend this game to anyone who enjoys shooting or adventure games, and to all fans of any other Metroid games.

-As a side note: You know when you've been playing too long when you drop off of a ledge (in the game) and actually FEEL like you're falling. At that point, your brain is too tired to make the distinction between what's happening to YOU and what you're SEEING from a first-person perspective, and actually ADDS IN the "missing" physical sensation of falling. The brain is a very weird thing.
Metroid Prime Features:
Video Games
Gamecube (Game Cube, Game-cube)
Action
Adventure
Platform: Nintendo GameCube
ESRB Rating: Rating Pending
Genre: Action/Adventure

Metroid Prime is the Video Game version. The full version can be purchased by clicking on the "CLICK HERE TO ORDER" button below for around 19.88USD.