Metroid Prime 2: Echoes Updated Multiplayer Hands-On

SEATTLE--Nintendo spent the first day of its Gamer's Summit focused solely on its upcoming Nintendo DS. That is, except for one game. The honor of being the sole GameCube game on display today went to Metroid Prime 2: Echoes, arguably the most highly anticipated title in the pipe for Nintendo's home console. We jumped into the multiplayer mode of this new build to see what Retro Studios had in store for us and were pleased to see some new maps and a new game mode available for investigation.

In one new map, Shooting Gallery, we found an assortment of tight corridors and open areas that made for intense deathmatching. The most interesting (and satisfying) feature of this level was a turret that we could climb inside in order to deliver massive bursts of hot plasma to our foes. These explosive shots were truly devastating, as we managed to rack up a bunch of kills from our perch before we were taken down. Sadly, being inside the turret seemed to make us more vulnerable than usual, as foes who slipped past our withering barrage were able to remove us with little trouble. On this map we found the dark cannon (which is featured prominently in the single-player game), allowing us an occasional break from the standard charge cannon-missile combo.

The other map, Crossfire Chaos, was much smaller and featured a number of square areas arranged around a central hub room. Naturally, we ran into our opponents often on such a small map, which made the availability of the death ball--a power-up that forces you into ball form and lets you kill by touching other players--all the more satisfying. We also noted that at least one wall of this area was destructible, when a player plowed into it with the death ball and shattered it.

We tried out the new gameplay type, called bounty mode, on Sidehopper Station (the multiplayer map shown at E3 this year). In bounty mode, each player bleeds coins when shot, and when killed, he or she releases a whole bunch more. The object of this mode, naturally, is to collect the most coins--the player who hits the predetermined maximum number first wins the game. This changes the gameplay a bit from standard deathmatch, since you lose almost all of your coins when killed and therefore will want to try to stay alive more than you would in the average frag fest. Killed players drop larger coins worth a far greater number of points, and we found it was possible to go from no points to just under the cap with only a couple of kills. Bounty mode ought to be a popular diversion from regular deathmatch when Echoes ships in mid-November.

It seems like Metroid Prime 2: Echoes' multiplayer offering is shaping up nicely--we imagine that Retro has far more packed into it than we've seen so far. The game is scarcely a month away at this point, so we'll bring you more on it very soon. For more updates from Nintendo's Gamer's Summit, check out all our coverage of the event.