My Metroid: Other M Impressions
It’s a bit hard to believe, but the time I spent waiting in line to play Metroid: Other M at E3 2010 was probably the longest I had to wait to play anything at the show. That’s a bit surprising, considering that a playable version of the game has already been shown off earlier this year. The line wasn’t even that long, it just took a while to get your turn with the game. A lot of this information probably isn’t even new to most people, but it was my first time playing the game, which I’m sure there are plenty of you who have yet to do so. Will this game live up to being one of the Wii’s ‘hardcore’ hits?
Once it was my turn, I was ready to find out if this game can live up to the gameplay of previous Metroid titles, as well as find out a bit more about the deeper storyline that we’ve been promised for months. Right at the start, Samus lands in a mysterious space station. You learn how to ‘scan’ objects using the first person mode: point at the screen with the remote, highlight the object you want to investigate, then lock on to it. Upon finding a Galactic Federation ship nearby, she quickly meets up with a team of the Galactic Federation army at the end of a hallway. While greeted by a former teammate, Anthony Higgs, the lead officer of the team, Adam Malkovich, doesn’t seem to be too thrilled. Samus recalls an incident from her past between her and Malkovich which resulted in her leaving the Federation and becoming a Bounty Hunter. Whatever that incident is, Malkovich doesn’t seem to want to let it go. He won’t even tell Samus why he is investigating the station, calling her a mere ‘outsider’.
When the Federation army fails to break open a lock leading inside the space station, Samus simply breaks it open with a missile (you learn how to fire missiles here). Malkovich obviously feels outstaged, while Higgs simply laughs over the fact. The Federation army moves on through the station, and you finally get into the real gameplay.
The camera stays fixed, so that everything appears like a 2D sidescrolling platformer, but you can move into the foreground and background. Any time you point the remote at the screen, you can look around in first person, as well as lock-on and shoot enemies or objects. The intro stage isn’t much to write about, as you encounter various classic Metroid series enemies. If an enemy latches onto you and damages you, Samus will shake the enemy off and kill it. For having such limited buttons, Samus seems to have as much control as in the Prime games: the morph ball and charge beam are simple to use. While you have bombs and missiles, Samus does not use them at this point, because she has not been authorized by Malkovich to use them. Also, you can’t walk while in first person mode.
After a bit of platforming, you encounter a save point, which works like the save points from other Metroid games. The next room once again brings you to the Federation army, who are investigating a dead scientist’s body, strangely covered in some green slime. A purple bug like creature jumps out, which quickly gets mowed down by gunfire. That’s all it takes to bring attention to all of the other purple bug things hiding in the walls, which rush to the center of the room and transform into the boss of the demo. Even after seeing this boss several times, and knowing what to do to defeat it, I will admit I got a bit stuck here. The first time you lock-on to the eye of the boss, you are supposed to dodge it’s attack with a first person dodge. I didn’t know what the game was asking me to do (the only indication was the screen turning a greenish color), so the boss actually killed me. Once I got a second shot at the boss, I figured it out. After one successful dodge, you then have to shoot the eye of the boss. After that, Malkovich orders the troops to freeze part of the creature’s body, and also authorizes Samus to use missiles. At this point, you shoot the eye of the boss with a missile (lock on to it in first person, and tap the A button), giving the Federation troops time to freeze part of the boss. Then, you just fire a missile at the frozen part to destroy that part of the boss. Do this three times, and the boss becomes defenseless. One last missile to the remaining ‘bug’ and that’s the end of the intro area.
While I saw other people playing the next area, as well as fighting the next boss, I wasn’t able to play anything past the first boss. Enough people had to wait their turn to play the game as it was. Still, I’m very interested to see where the story goes, and I wish this game hadn’t been delayed until August. Then again, it might be worth the extra time to fix some very minor annoyances, and to try making some other areas in the game look more dynamic from each other. The environments I’ve seen at E3 have the same general appearance, though the second area is covered in plant life, and there have been images of a fire/lava area as well. The storyline seems to play a larger factor than the actual appearance of the environment, as the story from the introduction alone is deeper than I expected. The good news is that even with what could possibly be the deepest storyline in the Metroid series, it still has the Metroid feel… just this time, we get to experience it by looking more into the mind and perspective of Samus herself. Could this game change the way we look at the entire series? Will we think differently of Samus after we complete the game, for better or for worse?
Once this finally hits the store shelves, I’m looking forward to the experience that Nintendo and Team Ninja have put together.
