DP Challenge Part 9/100 - Metroid Prime III: Corruption

Game: Metroid Prime III: Corruption


Ranking: 7/100


Score: 90.16%


The final game of the 'Metroid Prime' trilogy is a harrowing tale of government-induced addiction and despair, only with aliens and explosions. With three of the four top bounty hunters in the galaxy succumbing to Phazon poisoning and killing everything in sight, can Samus get them all onto a 12 Step programme before she too is consumed by the same substance the government pumped into her suit while she was in a coma?  Let's find out before 'Eastenders' steal the plotline.

It's a metaphor about the horrors of how the government keep us in a drug-induced state while slowly corrupting the planet! Or something.

Intro

The menu controls are easy to follow and there is a neat opening scene from Dark Samus' point of view, where you see the computer messages generated by her computer slowly become corrupted and her suit literally suffers from the blue screen of death. Well, it made me laugh. As with Metroid Prime I and II, the first stage is effectively a tutorial which shows you the premise - this is a concept I wholeheartedly approve of.

We get to see more of Samus in her zero suit rather than her usual armour. On one hand, we get to see her human face a little more, but on the other, her zero suit essentially amounts to a one-piece that's so skin tight you can probably see what she's had for breakfast. I can't decide if the glimpse of her is pleasingly humanising, or whether the blatant fanservice of it all annoys me. Regardless, it really does nothing for setting up the game.

I don't have much to say with regards to improving the introduction, as the way the opening screens and cutscene set up the game are minimal and effective. Once you're handed control of the game is when you progress into the premise. However, maybe seeing Samus completing a brief report or log entry that was pertinent to the story would have been a little more interesting than having her stare at her hand while wearing a tight suit.

Samus chose to ignore the first rule of password protection.

Getting Going

The first stage eases you into the gameplay style and the Wii controls, while giving you a chance to practice all your skills. There's a nice little change of pace when you spend time in Samus' ship, too. The shift between wandering around the ship before and after the Space Pirates attack is done well, as there's a definite sense of peril skulking your way through rooms you've visited before when people are panicking and aliens are trying to shoot at you.

Sadly, that's all of the good points to the start covered. The part where you control Samus' ship is cute, but ultimately pointless. You move the cursor on screen and press ‘A’ a few times - that's it. They might as well have just had Samus get the radio transmission and land on the Federation ship in the cutscene. The other issue I had with the tutorial level is that the first part of it is mind-numbingly tedious. You have to traverse a good number of rooms with nothing to do but scan objects before you even get to meet Admiral Dane - who expositions at you and some other bounty hunters in a cut scene before the plot advances and you get to shoot stuff. You're even forced to save the game in a Save station before you can access that meeting - that's how long the section is. There a lot of emphasis in the pre-attack section on 'interacting' with objects. This just means pressing ‘A’. Again; cute, but ultimately pointless; which describes a lot of the input you make here.

I'd argue you could get away with Samus going through one room and a corridor before getting to Admiral Dane's exposition-athon and facing off with some Space Pirates. A bit of object scanning, a couple of door panels, and I think the player would be fine and dandy to move on. If there is a pressing need for the player to traverse so many rooms before anything happens, at least give them more intricate puzzles to solve, or a bit of platforming experience. There are wasted opportunities with the people all over the place whom you can converse with. Their response to being poked and having the ‘A’ button pressed is to either say they're too busy (while pressing random flashing lights) or 'Wow, are you Samus?' They could tell me interesting gossip about the other bounty hunters, or Admiral Dane, or the plot. They could even tell me a joke; just something a bit more varied.

'Camouflage? What's that?'

Fun

Once you get past the tedium of the interminable pre-plot segment, the game gets interesting and pits you against a variety of enemies and puzzles. There are also nice touches, such as the Wii Remote vibrating when the Federation ship is further damaged, which add to the adrenaline factor. The variety of actions you need to perform is varied early on, so you may find yourself shooting in one area, then swinging across ravines with your grappling hook, then navigating maze areas in morph ball mode.

Some of the elements added to increase the risk factor don't quite work. For example, there is a timed segment early on in the game, but the information on the time you have left to complete the section is given to you in minute intervals via radio. It takes what could be a scary countdown that makes you panic a little and turns it into an interval announcement for a theatre show. Plus, before this moment you have gone through numerous 'fake' timed areas, where people tell you to hurry, but you can spend hours faffing about without being penalised. This, coupled with the fact that if you press the map button just before the announcement starts then it cuts off the announcement, means it’s very easy to not even realise you’re in a timed segment.

I don't see what's wrong with a tradition countdown clock for the timed sections. It would have made sense given Samus' suit can tell you pretty much everything bar the local bus timetable, plus it makes things more worrying when you have that permanent visual reminder on screen. The fact that you received this information via radio meant that if you happened to look at a map as the message was about to play, you'd miss it completely; losing the impact and annoying the player when they inexplicably die.

Ridley - the galactic equivalent of herpes. Just when you think you've got rid of him...

Visuals

There are some great atmospheric effects when the Federation ship is attacked. For one, you go through corridors that suddenly go dark or have light strips crackle and explode as you get closer to them. Another thing that looks great is when the Space Pirates invade and breach the Federation ship with their own - the organic design is completely different to the gun-metal of the Federation vehicles. Samus herself - both her suit and her ship - are brightly coloured and stand out against the environments she is placed in. The alien worlds you visit have a fairly defined style, which make it feel as though you are visiting genuinely different places. Oh, and in big, thrilling news - the visor graphics are finally far less intrusive. I found it so much easier simply to look around my environment, while still getting the necessary HUD information I'd want.

The Federation ship innards look so uniform and similar that it's quite easy to get lost. You have a map to hand (once you've traversed the area) which helps, but before you've been able to build that map up, it's surprisingly easy to get lost.

Landmarks are your friend in games like these and, especially in the first level, a few more of these would help. In fact, in the initial level on the Federation ship, why can't we get a description of the room when we scan a door? It would make complete sense for each of these doors to be labelled with their function, such as 'Admiral's Headquarters', 'Quarantine Bay', and so on.

'There were far fewer corpses in the brochure...'

Intelligence

The enemies are varied - in the first level alone you get enemies that attack and actively evade your weapon fire, enemies that swarm at you, enemies you can only kill when they drop their shields, not to mention a boss who you have to fire back its projectiles to hurt it. In later levels there are a number of enemies that you really need to scan and read the logbook information on in order to figure out how to destroy them, because they are impervious to your standard weaponry, or you need to take out their energy fields. This enhances the simple 'strafe and duck' gameplay that you often have to employ in these types of games.

The NPCs. Just… Why? They do nothing. If you try to talk to them, they tell you to go away because they're busy - until the ship is breached, when suddenly they've got time to tell you how scary Space Pirates are, despite being in an emergency situation. Also, they don't react to anything you do outside of try to speak to them - if you shoot them, they ignore it completely (believe me, I tried). I appreciate it would make things awkward to make them vulnerable to your weapon fire (unless it was a specific 'don't hurt the innocents' type of level), but they can at least respond on some level.

I'd love it if the NPCs turned around and yelled at you when you shot them. It would greatly amuse me.

'Who are these jerks? Piss off, you're cramping my style!'

Immersion

The world is well thought out and the difference on each planet is enough to make it both clear where in the galaxy you are, and interesting to look around. The story is well put together; for example, if you scan your fellow bounty hunters and read the information you obtain, you'll see that one of them uses ice powers. Later on, the bounty hunters go missing and you have to find out why. When you go to one of the planets and find many inhabitants encased in ice, you have your suspicions about what's going on. It's a really great way of allowing the player to figure out the story - or ignore it if they don't care and just want to charge through the levels. The different ways you can interact with your environment are also good; the Wii Remote is utilised very well, allowing you to use grappling devices to traverse areas and rip apart structures, as well as to shoot enemies and twist levers.

The NPCs have such terrible dialogue that it's jarring. They literally just spout exposition at you, or say things akin to, 'It's a pleasure to meet you... I'm very busy pressing these random lights.' When they're used to force they player into a certain route, it's maddening. For example, you are given an objective, you get half way through and suddenly, another bounty hunter pops up out of nowhere to do part of it and block the path so you have to go a specific way - it's such an obvious way of controlling the player's actions that it grates. Also, some of the Wii Remote actions are super fun - the satisfaction I got from wielding the grappling device to rip off enemy shields and heavy plating was oddly immense - but there are plenty of added moves that are just pointless. Many times you will have to twist your Wii Remote to use a lever, and it just feels like a waste of time. If I could just press ‘A’ and watch a one second animation doing the same thing, it would be no different.

Let the environment, not the characters, restrict the route - it makes the restriction a tiny puzzle in itself, rather than spoon-feeding it to the player and getting in the way of the experience. The attempt to increase the variety in player actions with the Wii Remote is commendable, but when it makes no difference to the gameplay, it should really be dialled down. If a one second cutscene would be no less fun, having to keep performing the action is probably going to annoy the player.

Infinitely more fun than it should be.

Cameras

There is no difference in the cameras from Metroid Prime or Metroid prime II, so the same comments apply here. The camera is first person, so causes you very few problems; you see what's in front of you, and if you turn, so does the view. There's really not a lot that can go wrong here. One thing to add is that, as in Metroid Prime and Metroid Prime II, the view switches to third person when you're in morph ball mode. This is necessary both so you can see to navigate the morph ball, and to prevent motion sickness.

Of course, seeing what's behind you is tricky - you have to whirl around to get a view of the whole area and in that time, you can get shot. You have a radar in combat mode to give you a fighting chance, but not scan mode. When so much of the game relies on you scanning your environment, that's not so useful.

If anything, an enemy radar is more useful when you're in scan mode and can't immediately defend yourself. I think it would make more sense if it were visible regardless of the visor you are using.

This is the view you get when the phazon in your suit is activated. So, Samus is actually high right now.

Controls

Again, the controls are very similar to 'Metroid Prime' and 'Metroid Prime II', so the same comments apply. The controls are simple to pick up; you turn with the Wii remote and you move with the nunchuck control stick. One button is used to jump and the other is used to perform most actions. It's pretty easy to make the controls do what you want them to. Oh, and toggling between beam types appeared to be less awkward. The inventory and map screen is far more practical to navigate in this game, as it was set up with a series of icons rather than using excessive rotating tree diagram structures.

I had the same minor and occasional awkwardness when turning while shooting, and also I found it a little awkward reaching for the missile weapon (which was triggered by the Wii Remote direction pad) when you hold the Wii Remote pointing towards the screen as required by this game (but I do blame my little hands). I still found accessing the scan mode wearying - you have to point the Wii Remote past the main view, then press the + button. On paper that doesn't sound awkward, but in the game, it seems to take an age. At least you can get back to combat mode with a single button press.

I'd love a way to quickly toggle between visor modes, but I've struggled to come up with a button that's easily accessible that isn't already being used by another important function. However, a really minor thing I'd change in this game is probably swapping the functions of the ‘A’ and ‘B’ button. The ‘B’ button feels like a trigger, yet it was designated as the jump button. Why not have this as the button you press to shoot? I chatted to a friend about this, who suggested it was probably an overhang of Metroid Prime I and II originating on the Gamecube (where games generally used the ‘A’ button to shoot). Still, I prefer the feel of the trigger button for shooting, and I can think of at least two Gamecube games where I use ‘A’ to jump and ‘B’ for actions.

Insert joke about deep throating here.

Ideas

The game adds many new ideas to make the gameplay subtly different to the prior instalments, from giving you a little control over Samus' ship, to increasing the platforming aspects with grappling devices that require timing to traverse important areas. The boss fights were noticeably interesting early on, in that you had to do more than just run in one direction and shoot. Variations such as having to fire back projectiles that a boss fired at you made things a little more challenging. Also, the concept of having a mission-based structure which requires you to visit many planets adds an increased sense of scale and gives the game a different feel to Metroid Prime I and II.

Having gone through three of the Metroid games now, it is definitely a case of 'same game, different world'. There are some gimmicks and the story and worlds differ, but it's effectively the same experience. A good experience, mind, but the same. Sadly, where the gimmicks in Metroid Prime II improved on the gameplay, here they seem to let it down. The new ability to 'interact' with objects and people is a bit wasted, and you lose that sense of isolation that made the atmosphere of the other two games so creepy. Also the NPCs block your route, which is so much more annoying than when a fallen tree or heavy rock does so.

The game needs to control where you go to some degree, and making it impossible to progress because you need a power-up to open a door is all well and good - it adds to the puzzle element and once you get something new, you'll go back and see if it will make a difference. When an NPC blocks a route or completes a task so you can't explore an area, it's irritating - especially when I'm playing as a bounty hunter who doesn't play by the rules but gets the job done. Environmental restrictions are much better, because they require the player to think about why they can't remove the restriction - is it a permanent blockage? Can I blow it up? Do I need extra power ups? An NPC folding their arms in front of a door gives you nothing to ponder.

'They get shields? Oh, come on.'

Memory

The atmosphere of the levels, coupled with the variety of gameplay techniques and minor plot twists make this a game that sticks in your mind. The way the Wii Remote is implemented to make good use of the motion controls adds to the immersive experience, and the fact you often traverse 'safe' areas which you later have to revisit when they're falling to pieces and overrun with enemies creates a good sense of foreboding.

The NPC characters spoil things somewhat, with their exposition heavy dialogue and the way they are used to deliberately force you to progress along a certain route. Also, the amount of superfluous actions you have to perform - such as having to go through several rooms to get a pre-recorded mission briefing, despite having radio access in your visor - spoils the experience a little.

The bounty hunter characters get decent characterisation despite their sparse conversation, as it's delivered mainly through the way they speak and their behaviour towards Samus' (which, when coupled with the logbook notes you can scan, makes them both distinct from each other and quite believable); it would be nice to see that kind of attention given to the other NPCs to make them feel like real people. Decluttering the gameplay and reducing the number of unnecessary actions (such as twisting the Wii Remote to turn handles) would make the game feel a little more fluid.

Overall, Metroid Prime III adds some great new features to the Prime series and utilises the Wii Remote in an immersive way. However, the wasted use of NPCs and increasingly contrived ways of forcing you along specific routes does spoil things a tiny bit.