Metroid: Other M

Recently hitting the Wii is the much anticipated return of Samus Aran in the next instalment of Metroid, Metroid: Other M.

Metroid: Other M is set a short time after the events of Super Metroid which came out in 1994 on the SNES. As Samus comes to terms of finally destroying the space pirates, Mother Brain and her nemesis, Ridley, the question is what is next for the ferocious bounty hunter. Before long as she explores the galaxy, she intercepts a distress signal, known as ‘Baby’s Cry’, from a space station called the ‘Bottle Ship’. With Samus hot on the trail of the distress signal, little does she know that she is about to stumble across a secret which has the prospect of ending the galaxy as we know it.

For those who may have played Super Metroid then you will be able to see the similarities between the two games. You will even appreciate the references they make to Super Metroid in the different cut scenes. If you haven’t played Super Metroid, then fear not because this is a new game in itself with a different story so you can still enjoy what Metroid: Other M has to offer. Played in third-person, Metroid is back to its roots of  ‘side scrolling’ action RPG/shooter. You do get the chance to play parts of the game in the first-person mode, which is what the more recent gamers have become used to in Metroid Prime, Metroid Prime 2: Echoes and Metroid Prime 3: Corruption. Once you are in first-person mode you can’t move, so you only use it when you want to investigate your surroundings or use your missiles.

When it came to the controls I must admit that I was surprised that the nunchuck wasn’t to be used. When moving and shooting, the Wii remote needs to be held sideways so you can use the D-pad to move, the ‘A’ button to go into the morph ball, ‘1’ is to shoot and ‘2’ is to jump. When you then want to change into first-person all you have to do is point the remote at the screen. The ‘A’ button then changes to shoot and the ‘B’ button needs to be held down so that you can look at different parts of the screen. I did think that being able to change so quickly between first and third-person with just a turn of the Wii remote was a nice touch.

I have always been a fan of the Metroid series and have played my fair share of the games. I always thought my faith in the series would never be shaken, that was until I played Metroid Prime: Corruption. Needless to say that I didn’t like the game as much as I had hoped but it didn’t deter me from trying Metroid: Other M.

On a whole, the game did have some serious potential, and it was a nice touch to be able to learn more about our heroine through the various cut-scenes. I did hope that they would include my favourite part of Metroid where Samus loses her weapons, but this was changed to her waiting to be authorised to use certain items. I have to say that I do prefer the original losing her weapons and having to get them back to this method but I tried not to let this deter my experience.

Unfortunately what had let the game down was the ending. I felt that it was so rushed and it left me with more questions than I had answers. But what I thought hurt the most was the final fight. I did expect something epic and soul shaking like in the previous Metroid’s but I felt like what I was left with was a huge anti-climax. I would recommend that to really have the true Metroid experience to try playing another game in this series. I understand changes were made to satisfy the criticism of some of the fans, which in turn has made the gameplay on average of 10 hours, but Metroid: Other M just did not do it for me.