Metroid Prime Review

Metroid Prime

Console: Nintendo Gamecube

Genre: Adventure, First Person Shooter

Multiplayer: 1 Player

Wi-Fi: No

I have recently been playing Metroid Prime again and I thought, what would be a good review for the Gamecube? Metroid Prime has always been one of my classics. Playing this game while it was first released, I have to admit were the best graphics on the Gamecube that I have ever played. First steps onto the planet Tallon IV, all you can see when you exit your space ship, a few cliffs covered in green, trees, plants and a nice little waterfall, while it is pouring with rain. You would think the planet is quite peaceful, until you advance a little further through the planet. You will encounter loads of the planets inhabitant creatures, some which will leave you alone but most will attack you on sight. Either way you have to fight for your life as you try to explore the planet.

The reason why you are here? You play the role of the female bounty hunter known as Samus Aran. You have received a distress signal from one of the space pirate’s frigate, which you take advantage to investigate. As you have entered, most of the space pirates are either critically injured or dead, as you explore and scan everything around you, you will discover some of their experimentations which have escaped and begun killing them all, these are parasites. As you go through, you will encounter a few until you reach the center which is where the parasite queen is located, after killing her, the parasite queen will fall into the ships reactor core which will set off the destruction of the ship. As you are fleeing to abandon the ship, you come across the general of the Space Pirates, Ridley, which is a dragon-like extra-terrestrial. You killed Ridley in previous Metroid games but the space pirates have managed to revive him with metal parts which he is known as Meta Ridley. After escaping, you are hit with an electrical surge, losing all your power ups. As you get back to your ship you see Meta Ridley fly to Tallon IV which you give chase.

As you advance through the game, your arsenal of weapons. Your primary weapon is an arm cannon, which you acquire different beams to fire, along with missiles. Your beams are unlimited on ammo but your missiles are not. You can also turn into a morph ball which can help you get through shorter sections, you can plant bombs and boost through ramps, also stick onto spider tracks too. Grappling gun is also another weapon which you can use to swing from one area to another as long as there is somewhere to latch onto. Finally you have different visors which can help you keep track of enemies better, solve puzzles that can only be seen with a certain visor and scan information.

The boss fights in this game are truly amazing, some bosses are huge. While fighting a boss, if you get stuck you can scan it to find its backstory and weaknesses. Some of the bosses can be a real challenge too, which is what is needed within games. The details are brilliant too, I know the graphics aren’t as good as todays graphics, but they are pretty darn close.

There are loads of different styles of locations you can explore, you first start off in a tropical rain forest like area, which you then continue on to explore into the ruins, which you begin to find out more about what has happened to this planet, which you continue on to an underground magma cavern, you navigate your way through to find a frozen land. Each of these are designed beautifully and almost every room is filled with puzzles or enemies.

Speaking of the ruins, when you enter and start scanning different lore, you discover about a race called the Chozo, which were the planets main intelligence and superior race, but they describe themselves as equal to all other life on the planet. You begin to find out about a great poison that has struck the planet and began killing off the planets species, either that or corrupting them into evil creatures that will attack on site. There are no signs of the Chozo race but what has been mentioned in the lore is to be warned of Chozo ghosts that has been corrupted from the great poison.

Playing through Metroid Prime is just amazing, I cannot imagine a better way to improve the series, when I found out that Nintendo were going to make Metroid from 2D to 3D I was a bit unsure of what to make of it, but after playing through Metroid Prime, I do believe that they have definitely improved the series by far. As far as classic 3D first person shooters go, this is the game that will always spring to my mind first, a true classic.

Overall I do believe Metroid Prime to be the best of the series, the best of all shooters, the most creative shooter game of its era. If you are looking for a brilliant cheap game that will last you ages, looks beautiful, plays amazing and extremely fun, this is the game you will want, a true classic.

Overall Score: 96%