Metroid Prime 3: Corruption

Format Nintendo Wii

Developer Retro Studios

Publisher Nintendo

Genre Action, Adventure

22 Comments

To seasoned Primers, a warning. Never has a game's subtitle been so apt. Just as Samus faces infectious Phazon (neon-blue, mutagenic - very nasty) trickling through places you really don't want Phazon trickling, we find the tried-and-tested Prime formula corrupting along with it.

Famed for their eerie all-alone atmosphere, past Primes prided themselves on casting Samus into hostile environments without a friend in the world. For some, the mere inclusion of talking statues in Prime 2 was too much of an encroachment on the solo gamer sanctum - bad news for them, because Corruption is shaping into a bustling epic of Star Wars proportions.

Upping the aliens
Entering the opening level - a Galactic Federation battleship - we were sure we'd fallen victim to some bizarre game-morph phenomenon. Reminiscent of countless FPS openers (Half Life and Doom 3 to name two), it presents the normalcy of a techno-environment disrupted by unforeseen circumstances (check 'Mother Goose' for spoilers). Before all hell breaks loose - the ship attack previewed at the Wii launch event - you're moseying through a social environment. In Metroid terms, this is more alien than the swamps of Tallon IV.

Marines throw you a how d'you do, and others form stars in their eyes, squeaking with enthusiasm as they meet their favourite bounty hunter. "Oh Samus, such a pleasure to meet you," they gush. Samus, on the other hand, we half expect to break into a cold sweat at the idea of human contact after so much time alone.

This quiet moment lets you soak in the beauty of the control scheme - the tightest and wisest Wii FPS setup yet. With varying levels of invisible box-dom, we select advanced - a tight invisible box with near one-to-one pointer/perspective shifting. She turns just when you would want her to turn - all that mouse-and-keyboard-equalling big talk is justified. When you see how the aiming speed lets you juggle cargo crates in the air with rapid blasts, you may as well stamp your old GameCube pads to pieces - you won't be going back.

The implications are great - pin-point shooting allows for foes that would have been merciless with analogue sticks. Retro Studios can confidently chuck 50 scuttling nasties at you instead of three, and shielded enemies no longer politely sit around with massive 'shoot me' signs flaring up - when they reveal their weaknesses, it's only for a second. Sound hectic? It's not, thanks to the controls. 'Hand interactions' are just as smooth. Heaving out the door locks, rotating and slamming them back in is brilliantly rendered by tight one-on-one control mapping. The remote may be a white oblong in your hand, but it may as well be Samus' severed arm. And they've added more. Door locks now need key-codes, typed in with a pointer-aimed Samus finger. Plonking away on keypads or poking buttons inside Samus' ship make for immersive fun, though strictly context-sensitive finger appearance means no eye-poking moves are available. For shame.

Going through a phazon
Well, the opening battleship attack and subsequent planet Norian generator maintenance - a terrific sequence that sees four bounty hunters trying to prevent a Phazon monolith from ploughing into the surface - are more of an extended opening movie than game proper. However, even these levels have parts we can't wait to return to and explore once we have the correct weapons. A trip to the Elysia-based Skytown reveals the Prime we know and love.

Bounding between Bespin-ish aerial platforms shows you that the best FPS jumping ever conceived hasn't been lost in the move to Wii, blasting any doubts over Corruption's integrity from the mental airlock. A Chozo-built network of aerial temples, Skytown presents all the clambering we'd been hankering for during the largely corridor-based opening levels.

Grapple-beam a zip line with a nunchuk flick forward and you're whipped rollercoaster-style from the platform. Below you, gorgeous pink clouds - sure to delight shepherds - ooze into vast electrical storms where bloom lighting rubs shoulders with the never faltering framerate.

Skytown's interiors reveal the swankiest Wii visuals seen yet. Ornate murals flow over the walls, and Chozo-designed contraptions - hulking steam-punk cogs mixed with Egyptian mysticism - whirl into life as you press your hand to glowing control pads. You're not alone. Armies of mechanised cleaners tootle around dusting up after their long-gone masters. Scanning some reveals hidden data banks - the reams of scan-friendly data haven't been sacrificed for the more talky approach.

Disappointingly, scanning is one of the clumsier control aspects. Holding minus brings up your visor menu, and the pointer handles selection. Having to aim - albeit only slightly up - over and over again just seems clumsier than flicking on a control stick for swapping. Couldn't they have mapped visors onto the D-pad - currently only used for a missile launch - with a quick tap of down?

Among Skytown's inhabitants you encounter new foes: tinbots - makeshift gangly robots that wouldn't look out of place in a Doctor Who episode. With neon green ring lasers - so 1950's sci-fi we expected Robby the Robot to appear as a boss - it seems that Metroid has lightened up a tad and learnt to have a bit of fun.
Deconstructing tinbots limb by limb is easy enough until steam lords enter the picture - invisible flying tinbots with the capability to rebuild fallen comrades.

Grappling with the boss
The bosses we saw (three in as many hours) are probably the least tinkered-with aspects. Revealing a weak point after a cunning mix of attacks and dodging - and, in the case of a Defence Mechanoid, grapple-beam eye-pulling - they're the patience-testers we know and love. They're more ambitious than before - Ripley tries to swallow you in morph ball form before you finally begin the awesome tunnel freefall we've seen in countless trailers (it plays as brilliantly as it looks) - proof that Retro aren't dumbing down.

Boss fights do, however, reveal a slight mishandling of the lock-on. Maybe we had a dodgy nunchuk, but the Z-button-controlled lock-on seemed to break whenever we turned too violently. Unlike GC Primes, in Corruption it locks your direction, not your weapon, towards enemies. The thinking behind this is fine - keep track while firing at multiple targets - but finding ourselves with our back to a boss due to a lock-on flump was disconcerting.

A few minor complaints remain. Much has been made of grapple-beam attacks, but in practice it's just a context-sensitive nunchuk wiggle. If the game wants you to use the grapple, you have to - a formality in a franchise that usually champions choice. Same goes for the ship control visor. Currently it summons Samus' ship to docking points as makeshift save points. There's got to be a more hands-on ship function later in the game - we'd love to see some player-controlled gun turret action - but we'll have to wait and see.

These niggles aside, it's hard to contain our excitement about this. If this is corruption, who the hell wants to be pure?

NGamer Staff