Metroid Prime review and impressions.
 

Picked Metroid Prime up tonight from EB and played about three hours. I'm pass the ship in orbit and already down on the planet.

I can't believe how good this game is. I'm creeping through levels trying to scan everything I can and look for secrets. The music and atmosphere of the game is excellent. The graphics are just breathtaking. I don't see how any GameCube game will ever top this. It looks better than most Xbox games I've played and even gives Halo a run for its money.

The best thing I've enjoyed so far are the classic Nintendo style boss battles. Looking for the enemies weakness and using it to win. Metroid, Zelda and even Mario are great in this area.

Oh, well back to playing. I figured it would be good to start a thread since most everyone should have this by tomorrow. In case we have questions or just want to share thoughts about the game.

Sweet. I think I'll go pick it up tomorrow. :)

ditto, except I'll need a gamecube to go with it.

Well I'm done for tonight. I've mostly explored Tallon and I haven't advanced too far with the story. When you go to the planet you no longer have your charge shot, morph ball, or missles. I've already found a bunch of places that I will have to revisit later when I get new weapons.

At first the scanning can be a pain, but after awhile it becomes second nature to quickly scan an area and enemies then switch to combat mode and fight. You will be holding the L and R buttons alot when playing. The Z button is simply for the map, so you won't have to use it much.

My only complaint is more with my bad gaming skills. I have never been very good at First Person games. In one battle on Metroid Prime I was trying to move and shoot down flying enemies and walked right off into poison water and died. I still have to work on getting comfortable moving around and keeping my bearings while fighting. The longer you play the game though the more comfortable it becomes. I think I will get it down.

There is a little booklet that comes with the game that explains how to play the original Metroid. It seems you only have to beat Metroid Fusion first and not Metroid Prime to play it. You link it up to Prime and it unlocks Metroid in the main menu of Metroid Prime. It saves to the memory card as well so no more writing down a password. Beating Prime and linking it to Fusion unlocks a second secret which I assume is the switching of costumes between games.

picked this up this afternoon, amazing game, only thing that sucks is that I accidently loaned out my memory card, so everytime I die I have to start over

Correct. Defeat Fusion, link the GBA to the GC and you can play Metroid on the TV screen. Beat Prime, link the GBA to the GC and you can play Prime with the Fusion suit(s). Of course Fusion is the loser here as there is nothing to unlock in that game. However, Fusion is a great game in its own right.

How often can you save the game?

Well, you can go back to your ship and save it and there are save points in the different maps. This is very much a 3D version of the old 2D Metroids. You can go back to the save points to save again of course. The cool thing about these save points is they replenish energy, but not missiles (have to go to a different type of place for those).

IGN talked about one section where the save point was not well placed in-between difficult areas. I have not reached that part yet...heh.

This is one of the reasons I bought a GC. I'm not looking forward to Paper Zelda but this game looks awesome. It will be hard to tear me away from the Online greatness that the Xbox has unleashed though. Plus, when I pick this up today (could have gotten yesterday evening) I will also be picking up Splinter Cell and maybe NHL2K3 (Xbox LIVE enabled ;) ) I have too many games to play and Ghost Recon is the top of the list right now. I'll report back with my impressions of all of the games I get.

I sure hope there is a code or something to also unlock the original metroid for those of us that don't want to spend the money on a GBA and Fusion.

Why would there be? That is the point...they want your money. Oh yeah and don't forget that you need to buy the link cable also.

I very much doubt it. Nintendo is trying to sell it's GBA/GC connectivity. This is a perfect way to do so. Fusion is a great game, but I could understand if someone did not own a GBA that they wouldn't want to get it.

And, haven't you been banned several times?

Huh?

Sorry, must be confusing you with someone else who has used multiple variations of Mike and the letter A in their name.

Got my copy. :D

Rest of my day = frozen pizza, Metroid Prime

I just got mine a bit ago. That was a really exciting opening level. I'm not sure I've ever played a game this stunning and imersive.

...must.... resist... leaving work.... preorder waiting.... EB.... arghhhhh

It's okay, I give you permission to leave early.

You obviously arn't working if you are posting on here are you? :)

I picked this up this evening and played for about two hours.

I'm down on the planet and got my missle launcher and morph ball back.

I'm loving it so far. It definitely feels like a metroid game. They could not have done a better job of taking the game to 3D and retaining the feel of the series. It definitely doesn't feel like an FPS. Mainly due to the lock on auto aim, and the emphasis is definitely on exploration. I ran into several doors I couldn't open and places where I need the morph ball, and then had a blast working my way back trying to find them again to see what was through them after getting the power ups.

I can't wait to play this some more, unfortunately I've got a stats exam Thursday evening, so I probably won't be able to play anymore until that night. At least X-mas break is coming up in a month. :D

I had to work a double shift so I didn't really get to play today. I got the missle launcher, extra tank, and the map. The stupid armor beattle killed me though. Hopefully I will have more time tomorrow to play it.

Man I have to wait until SAT to pick my copy of Prime and Fusion. :(...But its sooooooooooooooooooooo worth the wait :).

Metroid Prime rocks! :D I found a little mini bug in the game, actually. I'm not sure if anyone would consider this a spoiler, but I'll put it in tags just in case.

This will only work eariler in the game (not sure how far in you have to go before it won't work anymore...haven't gotten there yet) but you have to have the

You know that speech that Peter gives to the Bobs in Office Space? ...about how he maybe does 15 minutes of "real" work all day?

Yeah... I can identify. :D

Ok, I have a question since I'm not one for reading manuals unless I really have to. How do you straff in Metroid? Please tell me that you can and I'm just missing something. I played through the first mission and got annoyed that I couldn't straff to dodge enemy fire. I tried both sticks and some button combinations to see if it would let me straff but couldn't get it to do it. What am I missing?
Other than this and the fact that you have to scan stuff a little too often IMO I think this game totally rocks. The graphics are truly stunning and they have indeed managed to merge a FPS and platform/adventure elements together. Right now I'm just praying that you can straff because this is a pretty big deal for me in the gameplay dept.

In the time it took you to post this you could have read half of the manual...... :D