As usual I'm slightly late to the party, but a late review is better than no review, right?

User Rating: 9.5 | Metroid Prime GC
Okay, so it's quite an old game, that doesn't mean I can't review it! First a little history lesson. Metroid Prime is the first Metroid game to be made in 3D and when it was first announced to be an FPS (First Person Shooter) developed by a second party company everyone on the internet thought "Ohnoez itz ruined!" Of course, if you've played any of the Metroid Prime games you'll know it all ended up okay.

What's that? I called it an FPS? I'm sorry it was a typo. Metroid Prime is most definately NOT and FPS. It's a First Person Adventure game with shooting tacked on. As you progress in Prime this will become blatanly obvious, as you will go long periods of time without an enemy in sight and nothing to shoot but doors and various puzzle solving...things. That's not to say it doesn't have a lot of shooting, in fact Prime has a few sections where you are forced to stand your ground and fight, and Samus is prepared. Her arsenal of weaponry expands over 4 beam weapons, 2 types of missile, 2 types of bombs and 4 visors (they don't actually hurt enemies exactly, but they are necissary for certain battles). You can switch beams with the yellow C-stick and fire missiles with the X button while the D-pad serves the purpose of switching between visors. The shooting itself is probably the worst part of Metroid, at least for those of us used to the regular Dual Analog set up for FPS's, as Metroid has your gun constantly focused on the center of the screen and uses the Analog stick to move around, meaning that to aim at an enemy you need to either Free aim holding the R trigger or lock on to an enemy using the L trigger or, occasionally against flying enemies, both. And while for the most part this works fine it can hurt your hands but to be fair that's the Gamecube controller's fault not the game's. This camera choice works well when running and gunning, although things get a little hectic against multiple foes, doesn't work as well when exploring the enviroment of Tallon IV. You will be constantly holding down the R-trigger to look around for where you are meant to go and to find the solutions to puzzles, and then there's the jumping! DEAR GOD THE JUMPING! It's not too bad actually. But still it feels a little awkward jumping onto a platform and not being able to tell if you've landed on it especially later in the game when platforms get smaller.
9/10

So, Retro turned Metroid into an FPA but did they do anything else differently? Of course they did, Retro decided to take Metroid the whole way and give it an actual plot! No more of this Space Pirates have Metroids and you must kill them nonsense...well, there's less of it anyway. This time Samus picks up a distress call from a Space Pirate Frigate orbiting around the planet Tallon IV, despite hating and being hated by the Space Pirates, Samus decides to check it out, the ship crashes onto Tallon IV and Samus decides to explore and the planet and find out why the space pirates were there in the first place. And this is where it gets good, the plot isn't told through cutscenes, dialogue or even scrolling text. You need to piece the story together yourself! You come equipped with the Scan visor which allows your on board computer to translate Chozo and Space Pirate logs and also tell you some useful facts about enemies and various other things. For example if you see a computer screen you can scan it to read a log of whatever the Space Pirates are doing in that area, this can range from logs about metroid experimentation to information about the bounty placed on Samus's head by Space Pirate HQ. It's a truely unique way of telling the story and is nice change from the usual run of the mill cutscenes.
10/10

The Gamecube was the middle system last gen, with Xbox being the strongest and PS2 the weakest, but it still pulled off some graphically impressive games in its time. Prime is definately one of these games, the landscapes of Tallon IV are beautifully created from the ruins of a Chozo civilisation to the frozen plains of Phendrana Drifts. It doesn't use amazing lighting effects like the latest game but it still boasts crisp detailed enviroments and brilliant level design.
10/10

One of the only downsides of Prime is it's replay value. While you may want to play it again after your first run through to gain the 100% final ending or play through it in a harder difficulty mode there isn't much of an incentive to continue playing if you aren't interested in these things. Also, the sheer amount of backtracking in this game may put you playing it multiple times.
7/10

Overall Metroid Prime was, and still is, an important part of the Metroid series. I've yet to play Metroid Prime 2 or 3 but I they have one hell of an act to follow after this.

Gameplay: 9/10, Great adventuring gameplay, sometimes camera can get on your nerves.

Story: 10/10, Unique story telling method.

Graphics: 10/10, Beautiful for it's time, still holds up today.

Replay Value: 7/10, Hard difficulty and bonus ending give incentive, replay value removes it again.

Overall: 9.5/10, As close to perfect as a first person game can be.