Metroid Prime demo impressions from TRU in Tokyo!
Posted on Tuesday, July 30, 2002 by Justin
METROID PRIME IMPRESSIONS
PLAY TIME: NOT ENOUGH

Rounding out the trio of blockbuster game demos currently doing the rounds at TRU stores across Japan, is the Retro Studios/NCL joint venture, METROID PRIME.

Let me just say one thing: I’ve had lower expectations for Metroid Prime, than any other title in Gamecube’s line-up this year. I’ve been expecting this game to be a disaster zone. A totally failed mish-mash of styles.

I only got to spend about 30 minutes with the game. But – boys and girls – Metroid Prime is the real deal. Having now played Zelda and StarFox Adventures, and nearly finished Mario Sunshine, I can say with no ambiguity that Metroid Prime is a strong contender for best game I played this year, right behind Mario Sunshine.

Let’s talk about why:

Detail. Detail. Detail. This game is beautiful. Laser beams light up the sky. Weapon blasts heat up wall sections into red-hot glowing steel. Sparks fly off grinding elevator shafts, lighting up the blinking face of the girl behind the mask – but just for a second. I played Metroid Prime in starry eyed wonder, and crazily enough, Rutger Hauer was sitting in the back of my head saying things like “I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate.” And so on. Like so many great Nintendo games before it, you feel part of events in a world which is larger than the game itself. It is stunning.

Metroid Prime is not a hi-res game -- and the graphics are better for it. This is an issue that bothers me about some Xbox and PC games – too high a resolution, with not enough creativity to use it. Consequently a lot of these high res games just feel strangely empty, without life or warmth. Design hasn’t caught up with technology in being able to fill all that extra space effectively. Metroid doesn’t have the icy lines or endless vistas of Halo, but for my money, it kicks five rounds of crap out of it artistically. It’s more attractive, more focused, more detailed, better DESIGNED.

Nintendo’s touch is all over this game. The controls are instantly intuitive. Now think about that. When was the last time you could say that about a first person console shooter? I’m not sure about the lack of strafe yet. I didn’t like it to start. But as I played, I realised that it gave me the same kind of restrictive fear, as the fixed camera in Biohazard. In this game, what you can’t see, CAN harm you. And it adds to the atmosphere. Control fault or not? You decide.

I think some people will have the wrong expectations for Metroid, which is a pity. Metroid Prime will have you stopping every 20 seconds to switch on your scanner, and check the room out. The game is very much exploration, with a bit of action. Not the other way around. This isn’t a first person shooter at all. It’s a first person adventurer. Most of your time is spent navigating underground caverns, finding strange items, analysing control panels on the wall to open cues, and so on. The mystery deepens as you venture further into the core. Warning sings are given. And when boss monsters do finally appear, they have more impact as a result.

The key things that I love about Metroid are present and correct. Number one: the atmosphere. A creepy, hot, abandoned maze of steel, with something terrible wrapped around the core. Minimalist, scary, war drums echoing through the stages like a giant heart beat. Metroid Prime is an experience much like the originals, except this time we get a better view.

What else – exploration. Metroid Prime is almost pure exploration. Some of the rooms you go through are amazing fuel for the imagination – giant tanks with mysterious creatures gestating inside, massive, mysterious broken down machinery, blood stained, visibly cracked glass domes with nothing but stars beyond. Design is necessarily superb for a game where the objective is to observe, move quietly, and kill efficiently.

I didn’t play enough to pose anything close to a final judgement, or indeed a judgement of any kind. But I like what I see. I’m comfortable with the controls, I love the graphics, and I’m excited to see which direction the game will take me. Metroid Prime already looks to rank amongst the best of Nintendo’s collaborations, along with the original StarFox. Who would have thought it?

Preview is from IGN.com

Metroid Prime: Story and Gameplay

Metroid Prime, developed by Nintendo second-party Retro Studios, is a true sequel to the franchise. The title picks up sometime after Super Metroid ended. A short-lived period of peace warms the galaxy, but it isn't long before more reports of Space Pirates activities surface. The Galactic Federation again calls upon seasoned bounty hunter Samus to investigate reports of unusual happenings on a distant planet known as Tallon IV. The game begins as the heroine nears the planet and notices a seemingly deserted space station floating aimlessly in its orbit. She decides to investigate. Eventually the station explodes and the action then moves to the different locales of the planet below.
The game begins as Samus lands on the space station above Tallon IV. A beautiful cut-scene (direct-feed video versions can be found right here ), introduces the main character and her ship, everything running in real-time with a level of detail usually found in pre-rendered animations. Shortly after Samus boards the station, control becomes available to the player and the camera switches over to its primary mode.

And thus, the big change: Metroid Prime is what Nintendo calls a "first-person adventure," which means that it takes place for the most part in first-person mode, or through the eyes of main character Samus. It's not a Doom or Quake clone, though; rather Retro Studios has worked overtime to ensure that the favored gameplay mechanics of the series, that of exploration and weapon upgrading, are preserved totally in this new game. To this end, levels have been built to support the traditional play style of the series, confined and claustrophobic with hidden tunnels and objects in some areas, and wide-open and puzzling in others, with faraway ledges and platforms that beg to be explored, but not without first figuring out how to get there. Just as in the original games, players will come to areas that they can't yet pass, and will have to go back to previously explored parts to retrieve the necessary upgrade or tool to do so. Shooting plays a part in the game, of course, but it honestly is almost secondary to the rest.

Metroid Prime's first-person view is much different than the genre normal. The developer has really attempted to make players feel as if they have become Samus and so they see through her visor, literally. Not only are all of her displays visible, including health, energy and ammo gauges, but when she goes through a warm area, gamers will notice condensation on her visor; when she scans a data panel, the information will scroll on her visor and enemy blueprints will also appear on her face mask; when the character is about to die, cracks will appear on her visor, and more. In some instances, players will even be able to see the heroine's face reflected in her mask. This style, and attention to detail, has never been executed so triumphantly before and as a result a new level of in-game immersion is presented.

The game's first-person mode is amazing, that's for sure. But there's still even better news -- a third-person element is still present. Gamers can, at the press of a button, morph into Samus's ball form and roll around any environment via a third-person camera. The view pans back to reveal Samus's change, and then the camera seamlessly follows the character about through small or big environments -- even through tunnels, usually without a hitch at all. In some cases, Samus will have to use the third-person ball form to manipulate small tunnels, or to gain access to secret areas. But there's more still -- particular environments cannot be successfully navigated unless players use the physics of Samus's ball form. Rolling through one of the first level's many tunnels, for example, will allow players to quickly escape poisonous bugs that could severely hurt the heroine were she on foot.

Samus has both combat and scan visor views. In some cases, gamers will be able to see the heroine's face reflection in her visor.

In other areas, Samus must ride a canyon half-pipe in ball form, gaining speed and inertia until she can rocket herself out of the pipe and up onto a nearby ledge. Other spots still sport magnetic tracking that Samus can curl up onto in ball form and ride -- kind of like a roller coaster; and these tracks sometimes go straight up! Want more? We've seen several examples of doors that remain locked until the bounty hunter morphs into a ball and rolls into a crevice in the ground, which activates a key and opens the doors. See some of the ball functions in motion here. It's clear that Retro Studios has big plans for the ball form and third-person views in Metroid Prime, another reason the game is vastly different than the average first-person title and so alike past Metroid offerings.

Samus uses her grappling beam (left) and an FMV cut-scene (right).

Also of note is the switch from third to first-person view. A remarkably smooth and polished transition first focuses on Samus as she rolls out of ball form and stands up, at which point the camera zooms in behind the character, in through her helmet and directly into first-person view. The switch never misses a beat -- the framerate remains locked regardless of environment or situations -- and it looks absolutely outstanding.

Because Metroid Prime isn't a first-person shooter, its control scheme differs from the batch of shooters on the market. Players move Samus with the analog stick, R button is used for aiming, L for lock-on targeting, B for jumping, Y to shoot missiles, X to morph into ball form, camera stick to toggle different weapons (they actually morph into place on her arm) and D-Pad to toggle different visor views. These are the basics, but there are intricacies to each that help define the play experience. For example, players can hold down the A button to charge their weapon, which then delivers a more powerful blast onto foes and objects. The same can be done for missiles -- shooting off five at a time that might work to blow through some doorways or take out bosses. Pressing the A button while in ball form drops a bomb -- these blow through specific underground areas, and can also propel Samus's ball a couple of feet or more into the air. Given that some tiny tunnels are located several feet up in a wall, players will often times have to use bombs in ball mode to gain access to them.

The control differences between Metroid Prime and, say, the average first-person shooter, become more apparent through the use of Samus's visor modes. Using the D-Pad, players can toggle two known visor styles -- combat and scan. When Samus is in Combat mode, she can lock onto enemies by pressing the L button, and then blast away while strafing around them (or even dodging by pressing the B button). Pressing L in certain areas will also trigger the character's grapple beam, which can be used to swing across chasms and other dangerous areas. It's possible to swing from beam spot to spot by merely pressing the L button -- a kind of Spider-Man meets space, for players. Using the analog stick, gamers can even look at Samus's grapple beam as she swings about, which of course is impressive.
Scan mode is noticeably different. Pressing the L button in this mode locks onto specific items and panels, or targets, and then -- well, scans them. Doors will remain locked, elevators immovable, access to new rooms unattainable unless players scan and override data panels and other devices.

Players must learn to form a balance between the two visors, searching out areas in combat mode, taking out enemies and other dangerous obstacles, and then transitioning to scan mode and activating panels and doorways. This initially takes some getting used to, as it's a matter of quickly tapping the D-Pad back and forth and it's easy to forget about the scan mode and try to blast open a doorway instead. But once the play mechanic is learned it sort of clicks, begins to make sense and before long it becomes second nature. Retro Studios has triggered many of the scan sequences to in-game cut-scenes, so when Samus triggers a specific data panel, the camera will sweep backward to show off her considerably detailed model as she awaits a doorway to unlock or an elevator to become activated. It's very satisfying.

As you can see below, everything said and done the control scheme is relatively simple. A couple of subtleties worth mentioning, though: First, in our experience it doesn't appear as though items such as the grappling beam are selectable. Rather, they seem to be automatically activated depending upon the situation. So when Samus is near a grappling point and players simply hit the L button, the beam will be chosen and shot out without any input from the player. Also, jumping is executed in first-person mode and there is a double-jump option. Sources have indicated that Retro Studios has no plans to implement a third-person jump mode at this time for platform-centric areas.

Graphics and Technology

Metroid Prime is one of the prettiest videogames we've ever seen. The art team at Retro Studios has been waiting the chance to strut its stuff and Prime certainly accomplishes that mission, and it does so through an amazingly streamlined 3D engine. When Samus flies in and lands atop the space station above Tallon IV, it looks like a pre-rendered cut-scene -- some of our readers still swear this is the case. Yet it's all running in real-time on GameCube hardware.

The game's engine effortlessly spits out huge, animated environments such as space stations, icy peaks, raining, cloudy mountain areas, claustrophobic indoor craft spots and more. The real-time Samus model, unbelievably detailed and high-polygon, animates gorgeously complete with spins, tumbles and subtle touches such as the character checking her arm guard and seemingly activating keys on it. Players will notice reflections on the model, which is seamlessly skinned, too, along with transparencies on Samus's mask and animated eyes within.

Environments come to life with strong texture work combined with actual geometric additions. So some of the pipes in the corridors of the first level are actually polygons, not just textures, and Retro has layered specific tunnel pieces so that players can see levels beneath broken pieces in the flooring, and more -- all very atmospheric. An advanced particle system whistles out real-time smoke and sparks that fly out in tunnels, spectacular displays of rain showers that fall from the sky and onto Samus, snow, slime and toxic green blood, and more. Lighting effects are all over the place -- Samus's gun illuminates hallways, entire rooms, affects enemies and her arm piece, and more -- all mouthwateringly clean.

It's with an unparalleled art style that Retro has presented Samus's visor view, which animates, show reflections, cracks, condensation, as well as ammo and energy gauges, scanned data, blue prints and more. It really conveys the sense that players have become Samus -- a rather notable feat. And topping everything off? Prime runs at a locked-solid 60 frames per second. No drops to 30, no slowdown whatsoever -- this game blazes in a way something like Halo could only dream of doing.

A soundtrack allegedly provided by Super Metroid composer Kenji Yamamoto delivers a sense of mood and atmosphere that will bring back memories. Prime runs in progressive scan mode and Dolby Pro Logic II for capable setups, too. Awesome.

Outlook

Game of E3 2002. Most anticipated game of the year 2002. Metroid Prime is the perfect rebirth of Nintendo's classic franchise for the next-generation gamer. A flawless blend of first- and third-person views combines with a play style that truly mimics that of the old school games. Add in eye-popping graphics and it's easy to see why this is the must have game of the year.

November 18 can't come soon enough.