Metroid Prime delivers all you'd expect from a typical Metroid game and adds a whole lot more to the series.

User Rating: 10 | Metroid Prime GC

After playing Metroid Prime I had to stop and think to myself what it exactly was that made the game so awesome. Now I was never a fan of the Metroid games before I started playing Metroid Prime, I had played Metroid II: The Return Of Samus on the Game Boy and I wasn't ever fond of it. I think the only reason I even played Metroid Prime in the first place was because I heard a lot of good things said about the game. But what Metroid Prime did, and this is one of the best things about the game, was it drew me in to the games hugely detailed adventure so simply and so well. I was never once bored playing Metroid Prime as it always seemed to keep the same atmosphere throughout the entire game.

Now, as you may already know, Metroid Prime plays vastly different to any of the games in the series before it. You control Samus Aran through a first-person perspective, but surprisingly Metroid Prime isn't a First-Person Shooter; it manages to keep all the adventure, exploration and back-tracking elements of the series but it delivers them in its own brilliantly unique way. Metroid Prime was unique when first released as there was nothing like it before. If you're to ask me what genre of games Metroid Prime is I'd say it's and adventure game through and through.

I think the reason Metroid Prime is such a good game to play is down mainly to the fact that Samus controls like a dream. Now most First-Person Shooters on the market today use a dual-analogue control scheme where moving the left analogue stick moves the player back and forth and using the right strafes and aims the weapon. Well Metroid Prime doesn't control like this. Samus is controlled by using the left analogue stick on the GameCube controller alone. Now while this may sound weird it works a treat and it is actually the perfect way for moving Samus because there are a lot of jumping sequences in Metroid Prime and controlling Samus like this makes controlling Samus' jumping perfectly (and a First-Person shooter with perfect jumping sequences are few and far between). Now the only problem caused by controlling Samus with only one analogue stick is the fact that she can't look upwards without the aid of a button. If you want to make her look up you have to press and hold the 'R' trigger and then you can look around your environments. Now obviously if you had to do this in combat all the time the game would feel horrible to play, so the way Metroid Prime gets around it is by the addition of a lock-on mechanic. So if you're locked on to a target you don't have to worry about aiming or looking upwards for enemies as Samus does it automatically.

Because of the fact that Samus is only controlled by one analogue stick though did enabled Retro Studios to fully kit her out. Metroid Prime was unique to the series not just for its new found perspective but also for the new additions Retro Studios made to the series. You still get missiles and you can still roll up in your Morph Ball, but unlike in previous Metroid games when Samus gets a new bean gun, in Metroid Prime it doesn't replace her current one, she keeps all her beam guns and the player can select which ever one you want to use using the 'C' stick. Samus ends the game with four beam guns; her basic Power Beam, the Wave Beam which shoots electrified blots at the enemy which lock on after you charge it up, the Ice Beam which can freeze strong foes and the Plasma Beam which shoots super-charged heated lava at the enemies which incinerates them. And it was nice to see that each weapon still plays a role throughout the adventure instead of some of them becoming obsolete the further in to the game you get.

Another thing that Samus can do in Metroid Prime is change her visors. When you play the game your basic view is Samus' basic Combat Visor, but you can also get other visors which further enhance the gaming experience. The most important visor in the whole game is the Scan Visor. Using this Samus can scan many things throughout the game. She can scan environments for clues, she can scan switches to access things and she can also scan enemies and bosses to learn their weak points. At first the thought of scanning things was a bit weird to me, as it probably was to anyone who played the game for the first time, but as you play you see that the scanning actually enhances the game, it doesn't ever get tedious and it makes the game feel a lot different to play compared to any of the other GameCube games at the time.

But apart from the Scan Visor you also acquire two other visors as you get further in to the game. You also get the Thermal Visor, which picks up on heat points in enemies and other things (and this comes in handy if you're going through a dark passage), and you get the X-Ray Visor, which can pick up on secret switches and enemies that sometimes cloak themselves. Selecting the visors you want to use is done by using the D-Pad. And again like the Scan Visor these visors too enhance the whole gaming experience.

One of the biggest things that stands out about the Metroid franchise is the fact that Samus can turn in to a ball. It was useful in previous instalments in the series as it helped you reach certain places you couldn't get to before. Well what Retro Studios did with the Morph Ball in Metroid Prime was make it a more integral part of your adventure. The Morph Ball technique is so much more useful in Metroid Prime then it ever has been. A lot of the games puzzles that hide upgrades (like missile expansions and energy tanks) use the Morph Ball to solve the puzzles, but the games main adventure also uses the Morph Ball a lot. Now the basics for using the Morph Ball in Metroid Prime are no different to previous games, you still use it to reach out of the way places, but it just feels so much better to use in Metroid Prime then in previous games. Oh and when you're in the Morph Ball the game doesn't stay in it's first-person perspective, it moves out to a third-person perspective to give you a better view of your surroundings and the switch in perspective is done perfectly. And when you're in Morph Ball you can still lay bombs as a form of defence if needed.

But leaving all the new features aside what made me like Metroid Prime so much was the games atmosphere. There's no talking what-so-ever in Metroid Prime and many people will feel that this makes the game seem claustrophobic, but it doesn't as the games music more than makes up for it. Once you reach Tallon IV (the games setting) you're just dropped in to this huge game world and left to explore it for yourself (although eventually Samus gets sent objectives from the Galactic Federation). Now this sense of adventure works so well because the games music brings a unique sense of mood and atmosphere to the game. The music prays off of Samus' current mood. So when you're just walking the games music is all slow and still-like to try and get across the fact that Samus knows she is alone, and when you're under attack the music does pick up to show you that Samus has a punch of adrenaline from battling. While music been used like this isn't really anything new to gaming it does bring Samus and the whole of Tallon IV alive. And Metroid Prime is also graphically brilliant, and this too adds to the games atmosphere as the world is so richly detailed.

Now if there is anything I have to criticise Metroid Prime for is the fact that the game has no real story. At the beginning of the game you know that Samus is sent to a ship orbiting the planet Tallon IV to investigate some recent Space Pirate activity, but once you leave the ship and reach Tallon IV for itself the story seems to disintegrate in favour of letting you just explore the planet for yourself. Now you do discover other things like the fact that the Space Pirates are trying to mine a corrosive material called Phazon, but still you don't really learn that much about the story. But to be honest what you do know, and the slight things you learn are really all you need to know. The game is that good it doesn't really have to be story driven.

I could sit here all night and talk about why I love Metroid Prime so much. There were a lot of people putting the game down before it was even released because of the fact that Nintendo let an un-known third-party developer make it, and also because of the fact that the game plays through a first-person perspective. But everyone, even Metroid veterans should, no, have to appreciate Metroid Prime as it stays true to the time honoured Metroid formula, but brings the game to the world of three dimensions brilliantly.

Metroid Prime is by far the best game on the GameCube, but apart from this it's not only the best game on the GameCube, nor is it not just one of the best Nintendo games ever made, it's just quite simply one of the best videogames ever made full stop.

Review by: James Widdowson

Score: 10/10