Nintendo Almost Disappoints
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Written by Thom McGrath on Tuesday, June 2, 2009 at 1:19 PM (-05:00)
Categories: General (23)
Tags: E3 (1), Metroid (1), Nintendo (1), "Other M" (1), "Team Ninja" (1), Wii (1)
I watched Nintendo's E3 conference live today. As expected, it was more gimmicks. A lot of them. I'm happy to see New Super Mario Brothers coming to the Wii, and I imagine the RPG titles coming to the Wii and DS will make their fans happy too. But most of the conference was about appealing to tweens and non-gamers. That's fine, but gamers need something too!
At the very end, Nintendo presented some trailers for more action-packed games, such as The Conduit. The Conduit looks like something I could pick up, seems like it could be a kind of updated Perfect Dark. But I don't believe Sega is up to the caliber Rare was. We'll see about that.
It was the final trailer that changed my mind about the entire presentation. Rightly so, Nintendo did not announce the title until it became obvious to fans what it was. The surprise was epic, because the game looks like nothing we've seen in the franchise before.
It's a new Metroid called Metroid: Other M, set mostly in third person, with some seriously kick-ass moves. It looks like they've taken some cues from Smash Brothers and given Samus some real melee combat. I remember seeing a preview for Metroid Prime Corruption where the player on stage used the remote to punch a Space Pirate in the face with her gun arm. Sadly, that was removed from the final game. This new game goes much more in-depth than that in terms of combat.
What I gather from the trailer is that this is a prequel. The woman shown early in the trailer looks nothing like Samus, and her name is never said. It could be her, but I don't think it is. It later shows somebody transforming from the zero suit into the power suit. The woman's hair is longer, but face still does not look like Samus.
Near the end of the trailer, a woman in a lab coat is surprised by power suit Samus, and somebody says "I'm Samas Aran." Judging from the echo, it sounds like it comes from the suited Samus. However, the other woman looks exactly like the Samus we've seen from previous games.
So it seems there is a bit of a mystery here. Based on this, it placing my bet on prequel. Probably near the beginning of Samus' career.
There are some things that don't add up though. The trailer leads one to believe the federation developed the power suit. According to previous Metroid lore though, the power suit was designed by the Chozo. Continuity error, or more mystery to be revealed?
As for other little tidbits I've noticed, it seems you'll start with the power suit and get at least the Varia suit upgrade. I bet there will be more. There's a charge shot, missles, etc - all you'd expect from a Metroid game. The action appears to be overly frenetic, so I bet there will be some sort of fancy targeting system. It mostly likely will not make extensive use of the motion controls, except in first person view. There are a couple scenes from first person view, I'm guessing for precision targeting. Ridley makes an appearance, though no Kraid I could see. Notice I said Ridley, and not Meta Ridley - move evidence of a prequel. There also appears to be some additional meter under your health display. It's either ammo, or sprint. Based on the fact that Metroid games don't usually have beam ammo, and that this game has a lot of fancy maneuvers, I'm placing my money on sprint level.
Anyway, I'm looking forward to this. I think this trailer just destroyed my productivity for the day.
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Fargo wrote:
Indeed, wasn't she raised by the Chozo or some such? That's also why her suit can use the Chozo upgrade orb thingies, yeah?
Christ, the hours I squandered playing Metroid and Super Metroid.
Personally, prequels make me cringe, at least story-wise. Something is always mangled, usually multiple somethings, and everything is made "cooler" just for the sake of it being new. Thankfully, with a lot of games, you can just skip the story once it's done gone retarded.
One of these days, once my life is off the "crash and burn" setting, I shall have to get myself a Wii.
One note on your blog- you might see if you can keep the comment box from appearing when you aren't signed in. Thankfully I've been around the block enough to copy anything I've written before hitting submit.
[ June 2 2009 | E-Mail ]
Thom McGrath wrote:
Yeah, I bet I could get this form to disappear if you're not logged in.
I've become a Metroid fan since the Prime series. During the early days of gaming, I was a Sega boy, so I never experienced the early Metroids. I've tried to play Fusion and Zero Mission, but the GBA is not comfortable enough to play, IMO. My hands would get fatigued too quickly, so I never fully played through them. But I love the series through and through.
As for getting yourself a Wii, it's something I would recommend, but it's not a gamer's console as much as I wish it were. Developers are trying too many gimmicky games. Aside from a handful of great titles, most Wii games are minigame packs or aimed at tweens. Some games, such as the first Sonic game on the Wii, try too hard to use the motion controls and end up destroying the game in the process. (That game, btw, is unplayable thanks to their control scheme.)
The Wii has a only small handful of excellent games, and can play GameCube games as well, so you have that library to fall back on too. It is, however, excellent in group situations. Say you have a bunch of friends over, any of the minigame games will suit the party nicely being casual and not requiring much skill. But I think I can count the number of serious Wii-native games on my fingers. Otherwise, play PC games.
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