The latest Metroid
Those of you with a Wii should watch this trailer on the latest Metroid Prime.
I’m reasonably impressed with what I’ve seen – particularly the ease in changing visors, which I always found cumbersome in the previous Metroid games. Also, I’m glad to hear they’ve got some convincing and engrossing cinema scenes; I think Halo raised the bar, here, and they’d have been foolish not to have an excellent story.
I’m more than a little relieved to hear a few good things about this game – I’ve been enjoying the Wii, no doubt about it, but I still feel like I’ve been waiting for it to pay off; when you have so much unused potential, it starts to turn after awhile, and taint the parts that ARE good. Please, please, please may I have some online, sirs? I promise I’ll still invite my friends over.
I’ve been playing Wind Waker for the first time, and I’ve really enjoyed it so far. I think the Zelda series needs to make another significant change to continue to survive (for -how- many games have I used the boomerang and bombs?), but this one is a pretty unique experience. It has its good and bad points, but I’m glad I took some time to give it a try, despite its cartoonish look.
The sad part about Prime 3 is that I still haven’t finished Prime 2. I don’t even know when I will, either-I’ve been playing Fire Emblem for gamecube, which is about 30 times more fun than Prime 2. I don’t know what they did between 1 and 2, but it’s just nowhere near as good.
What’s Fire Emblem like? I never had a gamecube, so I’ve only briefly been able to play Metroid Prime 1 at my friend’s house, and none of 2. I do have the various GBA games, and of course the NES and SNES games.
Oh the Fire Emblem games are all fantastic. Right now there’s two on gba and the cube one released in the states, although there is a wii one coming up in November.
If you’ve ever played Final Fantasy Tactics, Shining Force, or Ogre Battle, then you should have some idea what Fire Emblem is like-a turn based strategy RPG. You move your characters around a map, attacking enemies and getting experience and items. Unlike a few other games, if someone dies, they stay dead, so if you’re anything like me, you find yourself restarting a map a lot :P It can get frustrating, but it’s fun, and the story is quite nice as well.
As for the Metroid Primes, 1 was fantastic. Undoubtedly one of the best games of the last gen. The use of the scan visor to tell the bulk of the story is kind of reminiscient of Marathon and it’s computer terminals. Prime 2 doesn’t really have anything I can put my finger on to make it an inferior game…it just feels like it is. I haven’t talked to anyone who says it’s better than the first one, or even as good. I do know it’s longer, harder, and requires more ammo management since your extra beam types now use a finite supply of energy, and the the nature of the game-traveling between light and dark worlds-keep it from really feeling like a contiguous world. But like I said, it’s not really bad, but when there’s other games that are kick ass to play, it’s hard to get back to.
What do you expect from the new game?
The new Metroid? I expect it to be different enough from the first two to feel unique. I think that was a problem with Prime 2-it was practically just Prime 1 with some new items and a more confusing map.
Already from what I’ve seen of 3 it looks to have some decidedly different elements to it, so it should be leagues better.
I know what you mean with not finishing 2. I thought I was nearly there, but got stuck near the end. I had to start over anyway because of other issues, but I’m thinking I didn’t get enough upgrades to be able to beat the very last bits.
I just picked up Wind Waker myself. Figured I’d give it a try before Twilight Princess. It’s funny, I finally picked them up after hesitating for so long for opposite reasons. In the case of Wind Waker, it was because of all the negativity, and for Twilight, it was because I was afraid *I* wouldn’t like it.
I’ve enjoyed them both, as it turns out. I do have to say, though, that I will always hold A Link to the Past as my favorite.
Wind Waker works pretty well as long as you get the “teleport” capability as soon as humanly possible. I had fun getting the map filled in, but eventually you just don’t want to do all that sea travelling.
LttP was great, but I think my favorite still remains Link’s Awakening.
As far as Wind Walker goes, I just. can’t. get. past. the. graphics. I know it’s supposed to be a great game, but the visual style just makes me squirm. I’m still going to be picking up Phantom Hourglass, but that’s because I think I can deal with it better on a smaller screen, and I like some of the touch pad mechanics they’re introducting.
I’m loving Twilight Princess, though, although I don’t have some of the backstory with the world that you get from Ocarnia Of Time, I guess. I should play it at some point in time, I suppose. Sadly (or not so), my adventures in Hyrule are currently on hold as I explore Rapture (BioShock).
Yeah, I don’t have that particular technology.
I just think of Wind Waker as being designed for a younger audience, and it really helps make the rest of it easier. It’s not the same feel as the other games, but that’s okay to me, because … well, honestly, much as I adore the intellectual property, it gets kind of old after awhile. Kind of like how I’m glad they’ll be taking Metroid in another direction after this last Prime.
Even if it is geared towards younger audiences, it’s still too… cartoony for me. I’ve always disliked cell shading, so that’s part of it – there are VERY few instances when I find it acceptable in a game.
As far as doing something new with the franchise, sure, I can respect that, but it doesn’t mean I have to like it. ;)
You know, I just can’t get excited about it. Granted, I haven’t actually WATCHED any of the previews, but I’m the type that woudl like to play MP1 and MP2 before I hit 3, since they’re all a continuing storyline, from what I can tell. And given that I haven’t had the chance to invest in picking up everything needed to play MP1 or 2, I have a feeling it’ll be a while (if ever) before I get a hold of MP3.
I’m glad it looks good though – the Wii needs more good games (although I’m impressed with the 3 that I have).
I definitely think one has to at least watch a trailer or two to get an idea for the game, much like many wii games with unique control schemes.
As a former Halo guy (did I mention I sold my Xbox, and don’t own a 360?), I’m curious to see how the controls differ, and whether I find the controls a more- or less-immersive experience.
I’ve gotten enough information about Mp:1 and Mp:2 through brief play, friends, and some wiki reading, I think I’m pretty much set for 3. I am -not- interested in playing through all of Mp:2 in order to get ‘caught up to speed’. From what I gather, the story for that section just wasn’t worth that kind of patience.
See, I can respect the Wii’s controls for an FPS, but so far I’ve yet to actually be sold on them. RE4 does a great job with a 3rd person view, as does Twilight Princess, but Red Steel got horrible reviews. I’ve heard good things about MP3, so we’ll see how it pans out, for part of the reason I’m passing on MP3 is due to all of the games for the 360 this fall – BioShock, Halo3, Rock Band, Mass Effect, Oblivion: GOTY, Half-Life2: Orange Box, etc.
I enjoy the wii, but it’s definitely a more “causal” gaming environment for me. But then, if it was all I had, I’d probably be all over MP3 like white on rice as well.
Just out of curiosity, why’d you stop with the XBox line?
I stopped playing Halo 1 and 2 locally, and XBL died hard for me at least six months before I actually cancelled my subscription. I ended up getting about 150 bucks for the whole package (halo-themed x, my games, halo headset, two green controllers, and VGA adapter), which I used to buy the wii.
I don’t have 500 bucks to spare on a system. It’s just too far above my disposable income. I think it looks cool and I like the games people have.
Oh, also, I have a TV that, while fairly large, is 20 years old. Hi-def graphics, I’m afraid, are a total waste of time. Welllll, if I can get it to work with VGA, I could use one of my 20″ monitors, so I guess that’s not so big a deal.
Yeah, I’m not getting any hi-def graphics either – I’ve got a 27″ CRT. The graphics still look great, and since I don’t really know what I’m missing (and honestly, I’m not convinced I’m missing much), it doesn’t really matter.
I can understand the money issue though. It’s sort of a shame that the consoles are getting as expensive as they are.
And yeah, the whole “play together on XBL” has died down quite a bit, although I suspect it’ll pick back up with Halo3. But I’ve found that it’s still great for playing co-op online with friends across the country – that’s really the appeal for me now. That, and XBL Arcade games, like Catan. That’s probably the biggest thing MS is doing right, even if they still over price their games sometimes.