Beneath The Armor, Beats The Heart. . . Of A Warrior

For today's selection of gaming happy times, we rotate back around to the Gamecube, and land squarely on Metroid Prime.

Much like Legend of Zelda series, Metroid was one of those franchises I missed the first few times through. Still, it looked pretty damn cool in the commercials, so I figured it'd be fun. And it was, which is always a nice result.

For those that haven't played it, bounty hunter Samus Aran lands on a space station, hunting Space Pirates. During her search she finds a few, but the station starts to fall apart, and she winds up following the survivors down to the planet below, called Tallon 4. Turns out the Space Pirates found a nifty substance called Phazon on the planet, and it just so happens to be one of those handy, all-purpose mutagens that you so often see in science fiction. Being eager to see how it can help them, the Space Pirates have started combining the Phazon with any of the life forms on the planet they can (it's all just wildlife, no sentient life left). Samus, having a severe dislike for Space Pirates, figures she might as well trash their plans while she blasts them to smithereens. The only hitch is that a stray energy surge on the space station somehow wiped out several of her weapons systems, and she's got to roam the planet and find them as she goes (which, incidentally, was also major part of Metroid Prime 2, which was a major part of why I didn't like that game. You'd have thought she'd have learned her lesson, and kept back-ups on her ship).

So, what's the game involve? It's a classic platformer. You run, you jump, you shoot. You shoot while running or jumping. You shoot missiles, you shoot four different kinds of energy beams (once you find them). You combine missiles and energy beams for totally awesome super -attacks. You switch into Morph Ball mode and roll around through small tunnels (During the game you can scan computer terminals, and download the information. One of the funniest entries involved the Space Pirates' description of their attempts to copy the Morph Ball technology, and how it lead to several mangled Space Pirates. Ha, ha. Losers). You swing around using your grapple line. You fight native wildlife, ranging from giant insects, to weird ice creatures with huge teeth, and ice armor on their backs, and of course, those energy-sucking little Metroids. Man, those things got old fast.

One aspect of the game, that can be good or bad depending on your perspective, is all the backtracking. Over the course of the game you will go through the same areas several times, because this time you have a new tool that can enable you to reach a door, or power-up, or something that you couldn't reach the last time you came through. It's a disorienting effect, because on the one hand, you know you're making progress because you accomplish something you hadn't previously. On the other, you're back in a location you were at two hours of gameplay ago, so it feels like running in circles, especially when you have to cross from one side of the world map to the other. But the added powers mean you can do more exploring, see different things, so I guess it really is all how you regard it.

There are quite a few bosses, and they can be pretty cool, especially the final boss, and the giant rock monster. I owe my victory over the game to Papafred's friend Ben. Back when we lived in the dorms, Ben was watching me play the final boss, and watching me die. I was frustrated and ready to call it quits for the day. He had to leave for work soon, and begged me to give it one more try, so I relented. See, my problem was the player's guide told me that when fighting the final boss, it will shift frequencies, and I should switch on my X-Ray visor, spot it, and blast it. I switched on the visor and. . . I couldn't find it. On this final attempt, I inadvertently switched to a different visor (thermal?), and there it was. Turns out it switches what frequency you can see it in each time it moves out of the visible light spectrum. The guide failed to mention that, and I'm not quick enough on the uptake to think of it on my own, so if not for Ben, hard telling how long it would have taken me to win.

But I did win, and then we all got to sit there and watch the ending, and it was good (because I didn't scan everything, so I didn't get the super-special ending that points to the sequel), and I was happy.

So I'll leave it at that, rather than go into how Metroid Prime 2: Echoes ultimately disappointed me, especially as it came at the same time I got Goldeneye: Rogue Agent (which was both a bigger and smaller disappointment. Worse game, but lower expectations than I had for M.P. 2:E).