So, by now I'm fairly sure anyone who had any remote interest in this game has either read the tons of massively negative reviews or played the game yourself...and will understand when I say Nintendo needs to seriously have their fucking heads checked. I forgot to cancel the game from my Gamefly queue so I ended up playing it despite the numerous warnings not to.

Metroid - Other M takes place directly after the events of Super Metroid, in that Samus has just destroyed Mother Brain and her Space Pirates with the help of the Infant Metroid. The game opens with a fairly well down cinematic which covers these events. After making a short trip to Galactic Federation HQ to debrief them on what happened on (and to) Planet Zebes and have her armor polished, she leaves only to receive a distress signal from a space-wandering Research Vessel. Upon arriving, she discovered that Galactic Federation forces led by her former CO are already present...and it goes from there.

Controls - I'll get this out of the way now. The game is a 2d/3d hybrid and movement is restricted to a single Wiimote. No add-ons or other controllers will work. So you have to use the D-Pad to move on a 3 dimensional plane. This was a terrible design decision and from a platforming point of view makes a few parts of the game fairly difficult but not terrible to eventually overcome. The worst part about the control scheme is 1st Person Mode. Similar to the Prime games, you can switch to first person mode. Different however, is that in this mode you have to point the Wiimote towards the TV and hold the trigger to look around. You are unable to move while in first person mode, and it is the only mode you can use Missles/Super Missles/Grapple Beam in.

Gameplay/Mechanics - I'm not spoiler tagging this because it is worth mentioning. Samus starts fully powered, since she's coming off her recent trip to Zebes. However, she locks down all of her suit abilities until she is TOLD she can turn them on by her former CO. There are several times in the game where you see something and go "Hmmm, this would be perfect for the Grapple Beam" and have to go "Oh, he hasn't told me I can use it yet...wonder when that'll be". I know this isn't all that much different then actually finding the weapons/abilities and backtracking to the spot later, but this is all done in an attempt to craft a story point behind (just about) every time you actually finally turn an ability on. The game also has an auto aim for regular fire, but on anything larger than a fly it is pretty worthless. Also, you no long kill enemies to get energy or missile refills...you have to hold the Wiimote pointed straight up while pressing down the A button to "Concentrate". This is annoying and has a tendency of getting you killed if needed to be done mid-boss fight.

Part of the travesty that is this game is thus...100% completion is impossible without first beating the game. Many areas which hide items for backtracking purposes can not be accessed until after the credits roll and Samus "Returns to get something from the ship". Also related, the backtracking is minimal at best.

Story - The game shit the bed here. The voice acting brings new meaning to the word bad. Instead of using Jennifer Hale (whose been the voice of Samus during the Prime games) they hire some performing arts student whose every line sounds like she's reading it Ben Stein style right off the page. She drones on endlessly about shit you likely figured out on your own ages ago. I'll spoiler tag it for those who REALLY want to experience it themselves.



Graphics - I will give Nintendo this one. For a Wii game, the graphics and the cinematics are actually pretty good. The only place they are hindered is by the story of the game itself leaving large numbers of the environment unlit until much much later in the game. This does the scenery a grave injustice. The enemies for the most part are standard Metroid fare with a few new hybrids thrown in. The choice to make this game a 2d/3d hybrid is vastly confusing to me, as both New Super Mario Bros and Donkey Kong Country Returns remain 2D. This game would have been WORLDS better had it been 2D.

Overall - I know I'm not the first person to say it, but this game is 6 hours of suck and has set the Metroid franchise back at least 5 years. Shadow Complex was able to do exactly what Nintendo SHOULD HAVE done by taking an existing engine on a next gen console and making a Metroidvania game worth playing. If you are an absolute diehard fan or don't believe reviews, go ahead and play it. I've always said it's better to bash something you have an informed opinion about. Worse yet, Nintendo is going to respond to the negative reviews and tell us that Westerners don't understand innovation and we aren't open to trying new things...as they slap the Mario label on more products than Busweiser does.

On a side note: If you do play this game, be aware of this gamebreaking bug. It is completely avoidable but if it happens there is no way to get around it...it is detailed in this video....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7QcsueniM8w

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You could've just summarized this with "It's another game for the Wii". Most sane people would have automatically acknowledged at that point that it was bad.

You're right, I could have. But I figured being that Metroid is one of the few franchises I and others here tend to like from Nintendo, I'd share my opinion and see if others either agree or disagree.

I plan on doing a personal review for Castlevania - Lords of Shadow as well.

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I've really disliked all of the 3D Metroid games, I really wish they would just use the resources they have to make an incredible side-scroller like they did nearly 20 years ago with Super Metroid.

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I actually liked the first metroid prime, other than the fact that the gamecube controller really sucked for people with big hands, and the wavebird was only slightly better. Any extended period playing Metroid Prime made my hands curl up into "gamer claws"

That and the fact that I lost interest when I got to Ridley.

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World of Warcraft: Kallaystra, Gweila, Steakumn, Tarathia [ Feathermoon/Horde ]