So is this only in hard mode? I've beaten the game and so have a few other people I know and we never had a lock up. However, I never went back to play hard mode.

No.. it's not hard mode. Did you read the first post? "The game and system were bought last night." (Well, 2 nights ago now).. And so far it's only happened to me in that one spot, the elevator to Chozo Ruins, but I haven't gotten to play much.

From Keith, the master of crashing:

"It's after the first guy that swallows the ball and you blow him up.. and then you get some platforms to rise and go into the door that is now available to you (West Furnace Access) and it's a long twisting loading hallway and if you stay paralel to the wall and strafe you can get it to freeze. I have only had it happen the first time through though.. after that it just kind of sputters occasionaly."

It only freezes the first time you've ever been in that hallway. After that, if you repeat the steps it just stutters.

I meant to ask about something else, but didn't quote it. My mistake. I'll consider myself lucky for having no lockups on this game. I've had enough on NBA 2K3 to suit me fine.

It does sound hit-n-miss. Though nobody has had it so much that it's caused them to take the game back or other methods of anger. The magic number seems to be 3-4 so perhaps I've hit my quota early.

http://news.excite.com/tech/article/id/291908|technology|12-31-2002::10:46|reuters.html

'Metroid Prime' Takes Wide Game of Year Honors

Dec 31, 10:42 am ET

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - It's a dark game, featuring lots of action, lots of suspense -- and a woman in one ferocious-looking spacesuit.
As 2002 winds down, editors of video game publications across the country are compiling their "best of" lists, and two of the top game sites on the Internet agreed last week that Nintendo Co. Ltd.'s (7974.OS) long-awaited "Metroid Prime," for the company's own GameCube console, is Game of the Year.

Both GameSpot, a division of CNET Networks Inc. (CNET.O), and GameSpy named "Metroid," a first-person action game, as their pick for top title.

"Metroid" was released in November and was the No. 2 title for the month in the United States, based on units sold, according to market research service NPDFunworld.

Buzz grew around the game, which features the female adventurer Samus Aran, after a strong showing at E3, the industry's annual trade show, in Los Angeles in May. It is the latest in a franchise that stretches back to the original Metroid game on Nintendo's 1980s NES console.

"What nobody was prepared for was (a) game so amazing that it redefined what a first-person console game could be," GameSpy said in its awards roundup.

Though a number of leading video game publishers have warned in recent weeks of weaker-than-expected results for the holiday quarter, owing to shifting retail and consumer patterns, 2002 is still expected to be a record sales year for the U.S. game industry.


Chris

umm..
To me it sounds a lot like two things.
I think it may be a little of both hardware and software.
I'll have to check the specs of what proc and video chipset the gcs use and if different models may have some different hardware.

I'm betting it's a line of code dealing with graphics output to screen.
Check your gcs for heat, after playing a game with a ton of graphics feel around your gc and find where the most amount of heat is coming from.
Try placing the gc on a flat surface and not your carpet.
Take a fan or two and have them blowing on the area(s) where it get's the hotest and drop the temp in your home about 5 degrees.
Let the gc cool for about 40 mins and start playing again.
Please post your results here if you find anything with what I have suggested.
If I'm not here (shameless plug) you can find me at www.hardforums.com it's a hardware forum :-p

For any hardware gurus or fantics out there I found some specs info on the gc.

Some nice pics of the hardware inside the system:
http://www.geocities.com/rabidsmily/.../Gamecube.html

Nice layout and easy to read specs:
http://hankfiles.pcvsconsole.com/answer.php?file=164

http://www.pcvsconsole.com/features/...s/gamecube.php

Too bad the SD Memory card adaptor never was released. That would have solved all memory card concerns.

Desided to get the offical specs from nintendo.
http://www.nintendo.com/systems/gcn/specifications.jsp

Gotta say, sounds like a hardware (heat) problem to me. I've played the game thru Phazon Mines, and had no problem at all. I usually play for only an hour at a time, and have my cube on a wood floor, room temp at 65 degrees F. The Cube I have was bought the day it was released. I bought Metroid the day it was released also (mentioned in case these are issues).

It's not heat. The first time it happened to me was within 5 minutes of turning on the cube and starting a game. I went down an elevator, then immediately went up the same one...froze.

I've had it crash on me once. It was in the first couple hours I was playing, which was over a month ago, so I don't remember where it happened at.

Haven't had any problems in the 10 or so hours I've played since then.

I don't think it's heat related either.

My copy crashed a couple times, always on the elevator up to the Chozo Ruins. It shows the animations of Samus riding up on the elevator, then just as the screen swaps to show the elevator landing platform the game crashes.

After a reboot and retry, everything was fine.

I suspect that it's a loading problem, since the seamless loading is probably reading the Chozo Ruins data from disc at that point.

There's probably an intermittent timing glitch where the elevator can reach the top before the level data has been loaded. Instead of a pause, like a couple other points in the game, it just crashes.

I've been platying it since launch & haven't had 1 lock up

The game's only froze on me once. It was on one of the elevators in the introductory level of the game (unfortunately, I've forgotten just which one it was. But I believe was one of the last ones you'd normally take in the level). My friend was playing at the time, so I'm not sure if something he did was a catalyst for the lock up or not.

Barring that, everything's been fine...

I've had two crashes in the same area of the Chozo Ruins near the Furnace. In different rooms I might add too. Once in ball form once just walking around. My friend has had lockups on the elevator to the chozo ruins from the area near the ship while I've not experienced that at all. The only other lockups I've ever had with the cube was with Rogue Leader on Hoth. It would freeze every time. I exchanged it for a new copy and it's not given me any trouble with the new copy.

no crashes, i've put in about 5 hours. i made it past the spots where people had been complaining that it crashes. i even tried to make it freeze by wiggling the control stick around while i was on the elvevator. no luck.

maybe this is a problem with certain discs, similar to the Ghost Recon problem on Xbox Live. ( i had a friend who always had his game freeze on him in the same spot. so he rented it from BB, and tried to duplicate it. it worked perfectly. so he returned his copy to BB and kept the BB copy). maybe this is similar to that.

I had it crash on me for the second time last night. It was in the elevator leading out of the Phazon Mines. I got to the top and then it locked up.

So that's 2 lock ups in 15-20 hours. Luckily I hadn't accomplished anything since saving, and wasn't very far from the save point.

It's still annoying, I'd rather have waited another month or two for them to get these bugs out. None the less, it's still a great game.

3rd crash today. I was just in the middle of Phendrana Drifts shooting at something and it locked up.

I haven't had mine crash since, but I haven't played it much either (been.. busy?).. I am thinking of calling Nintendo's support line and inquring about this. I checked the Gamefaq board last night and it's apparently a pretty popular issue.

Hmmm ... I've never had mine crash once and I've played all the way through it (besides hard). It's weird how inconsistent this error is.

It is very weird. Some people have never had it happen. Some multiple times. And some only a couple. But the Chozo Ruins elevator seems to be the most popular problem.

Really strange.

I've been playing since about a week after launch & haven't had any crashes. Mind you, I haven't tried the "hard" version yet, so I might run into some issues there, but I'm good so far.

I've played it for countless hours and even beat it. No freeze ups or crashes here.