Review: Metroid Prime 3

Metroid Prime 3: Corruption (Nintendo, 2007) is an FPS following the interminable sci-fi adventures of the bounty hunter Samus Aran.

Wow. I actually finished a Metroid game. I don't much care for Metroid games. The idea is cool. The music and production design are always right up there. But the core gameplay is collecting stuff and going back over the same territory way too many times, trying to find that one place to bomb I overlooked while putting up with enemies who are just annoyances added to increase play time. I barely got anywhere in the original Metroid. I did better in Super Metroid, but I don't think I made it half way. I got most of the way through Metroid Prime 1 and just got sick of it. So what made Metroid Prime 3 better?

Motion controls. The Wii controls helped the game immensely. Once advanced controls were turned on and auto lock was turned off, console FPS combat was fun again. If Microsoft is serious about motion controls, they should try to do more than just a remote. If they do, developers won't look twice at it. But if they give people like Bungie and Infinity Ward the opportunity to put full fledged motion controls into their games, it'll change the way people play them.

The motion controls helped more than just combat. Pulling plating off walls with the grapple, detaching energy cannisters with a twist and a pull, working consoles with a touch of Samus' hand, and using the pointer to switch visor modes were some of the many little touches that all added to the texture of the experience. Some of them were clunkier than others, but the effort was appreciated. Of course, almost no amount of "texturing" would make the game fun if it was just running through the same areas repeatedly.

While some backtracking is essential the the Metroid series, MP3 minimized it and made it less painful by allowing me to get all the collectibles in most places I'd previously visited marked on the map. It made it so I could actually look at the map and plan a route to pick up everything I needed. That simple element made the collecting straightforward enough that I finished the game with 100%. For someone who never even finished a Metroid game before, that's really saying something.

Plot and story have been emphasized at least since Metroid Prime and MP3 is no exception. There's a plot that runs through multiple Metroid games about Samus being infected with some weird bio energy. Sometimes you can see her face reflected in her faceplate and see the disease progressing. That was powerful. The infection gives her some special abilities, which were generally good for gameplay as well. That said, Samus is an empty vessel, like so many game protagonists, so it's hard to care too much. And the other characters in the game (many of whom I was really looking forward to seeing more of) effectively disappear after the first act.

Final Score
4 of 5


GameFaqs usage:
**SPOILERS** (highlight to read)
1) couldn't see a small morph ball passage
2) forgot about the command mode of the visor (which is understandable considering you get introduced to it, then have no need of it for over two hours)
3) can only bomb a certain boss' foot with morph ball bombs
4) first time the objective system pointed me in the wrong direction
5) another easy to miss morph ball passage
6) bogus invisible wall keeping me from an energy cell
7) just didn't notice the grab ledge in the acid rain walkway area
8) to remind myself to go back to the observatory to find the last few items
9) didn't realize I could use the command visor to have my ship pick up a generator
**SPOILERS**