Aaron Canaday, The Wiire Editor and Lead Graphics Designer
Overall Metroid Prime 3: Corruption was a really awesome game. There were a lot of really cool game play elements and it felt very intuitive. It wasn't hard to pick up and play, and the controllers felt very natural in my hands from the beginning, even though this was the first time I picked up the Wii Remote and Nunchuk together as a unit.
The controls are as follows: analog stick to move forward, back, and strafe; Z button (trigger on Nunchuk) to lock on to objects; B button (trigger on Wii Remote) to jump, A button to shoot; The D-pad switched to scan visor, and pressing down used missiles. There was also a cool grapple feature where if you locked on to a particular object and flicked the Nunchuk controller forward, Samus would shoot out her grapple beam. Pulling back on the analog stick causes her to pull the beam towards her. This is used in-game to accomplish various puzzles such as pulling a shield off an enemy, or pulling debris away from a useful path. This feature really opened my eyes as to how creative Retro could be using different motions for some cool puzzle-solving opportunities.
The aiming function, which uses the pointing device, was very sensitive. This falls in line with what we have been hearing from most games at E3 that used the pointer functionality. However regardless of this sensitivity, after a minute or two, aiming on screen becomes fairly natural and quite impressive in its seamlessness.
The only issue I found was with the turning mechanic. To turn you need to move your target cursor to the edge of the screen, and then Samus will turn. Unfortunately, turning was limited to a single speed as far as I could tell, and it felt rather slow. I had some time to switch the settings to "expert", which caused the turning speed to increase, but I found this less than effective since I ran into the edges of the screen quite often. It was fairly apparent that degrees of turning speed were much needed, and I am hoping that Retro creates some type of "global turning" method of control that turns the player faster the farther they move the cursor off the screen. Lance Barr, an industrial designer for the Wii, confirmed to me that the hardware is fully capable of using this type of control setup, and that he knew Retro was somewhat concerned about the turning mechanic shown in the E3 demo. Thanks in part to Barr's words, I am hopeful this little issue can get smoothed out before launch.
The graphics looked great; however many people in line were criticizing them, saying the game looked too much like GameCube's Metroid Prime titles. I tend to disagree on this, and perhaps this is only because I spend a big part of my time creating artistic assets that can be used for games. The difference in textures, various effects, and the sheer amount of geometry was very obvious to me. It looked better than a Metroid 1.5, and I would say that if properly displayed on a standard definition CRT display, the difference would be very apparent between the older GameCube versions and this Wii iteration.
Speaking about this issue, I feel Nintendo only has themselves to blame for some Wii titles being graphically criticized (including Red Steel). After all, they decided to display non-HD games on widescreen HD monitors. I also noticed that Metroid seemed a bit stretched as well, and most likely wasn't even running in true widescreen mode. It is no wonder to me why some people were less than impressed with the graphics. I'm assuming saving booth space became a huge issue, so the flat panel HD displays became a very attractive option.
In the end Metroid Prime 3: Corruption was a great example of what the Wii is capable of. Controls were for the most part intuitive, and the graphics were noticeably improved. It's really too bad that we were unable to see any of these Wii demos running at their native resolutions, so I guess I will just have to wait until I bring the game home half a year from now.
Rob Galbreath, The Wiire's Managing Editor
It really pains me when I have to say that first-party games feel better than third-party games. Such is the case with Red Steel versus Metroid Prime: Corruption. Though my experiences with both of the games stay true to this impression, I get this stomach-turning feeling praising the first-party games and not feeling as satisfied with the third-party ones.
Then again, Nintendo has had far more time to play with their Nintendo hardware than the third parties, and in many ways it really shows. We knew about Metroid Prime 3 way before we knew about Red Steel, over one year ago of Corruption knowledge to be exact, and it seems obvious why Nintendo would be better adjusted to working with the hardware they invented.
Placing all of these things aside, Metroid Prime: Corruption is a really fine-polished game. As much as I really didn't enjoy playing the first two Prime games, I could instantly feel that the series was designed for this controller. In some ways, I wish they would re-release the previous games to feel the kind of controls we missed. The analog, the nunchuk accelerometer, everything makes sense.
Despite how dull-looking the colors felt from the feed at the Nintendo Pre-E3 Press Conference, the game's colors really immersed the onlookers waiting in line. One gripe I had about the first Metroid Prime was that a few stages (few, not all) looked somewhat bland with repetitive ugly-yellow land colors. I normally become physically ill playing through first-person games because the colors are too similar. Such is not the case with the color scheme in Corruption, as environments and even gun effects give a nice appraoch on how to make a game aesthetically pleasing to the eyes. I definitely agree with Aaron: the colors really make this game different. Even the simple tricks of cannon charging on the gun looked really nice, and Retro Studios explained that these tricks aren't finished just yet.
Metroid Prime: Corruption not only kept me feeling good about the game, but I really enjoyed watching the same demonstration over and over again. By the time I reached the front of the line, I already knew what to do and where to go. That says a lot for someone like myself who really doesn't like the three-dimensional Metroid games as much as the old-school Metroid, nor really having the attention span to watch other people play a game. I tend to grow bored with the puzzles and long trips from one side of the planet to the other, often hoping one of my roommates will be willing to do my dirty work while I grab a can of pop.
The controls felt a lot like the Metroid Prime series, only with a bit more freedom the series needed. Instead of having to use multiple buttons to aim upward and hit the hard-to-reach targets, a simple hand motion held to the same effect.
The setup for the controls wasn't totally perfect. I really don't understand why the shooting button was on top of the Wii remote (button A) and the jump button was on the bottom (button B). Not only was it annoying to adjust to this scheme, but it felt very unnatural. Any player used to shooting games on the Nintendo 64 is more than used to the trigger on the bottom. After all, they called it the Z-trigger for a reason: it feels like a gun. It would be nice if these buttons were switched around when selecting a default, and I really hope that Nintendo stays true to customizing the controls.
What I really appreciated, from a purely social respect, is that Samus Aran is left handed (surprise surprise, as she only has one hand to use in the suit). The original Metroid subtly introduced Nintendo's first female character with enough strengths to save the universe, so Aran is not new to adding a small shock value to the game. In a predominantly right-handed world, a player can use their right-handed Wii remote and see that Aran is using her left hand to open doors. Subtle, but I could venture to say that left-handed people will rejoice to see themselves represented in the gaming community for once.
I really didn't have as big of a problem with the somewhat stretched look on Metroid Prime: Corruption as Aaron mentioned in his impression. In fact, I thought it was pretty cool. With any image of Samus Aran, it's assumed that her visor is stretched out and the appearance of anything in the visor would look the same: slightly stretched but nothing drastic. If anything, I felt that it really added to the Samus Aran immersion experience, moreso than the images I see on the Internet. During that demonstration, the helmet was on my head, and that's what first-person shooters need to accomplish: not only feeling, but being in the game.
I had a lot of fun playing this game and just as much fun watching other people figure out the puzzles. Though I might not be a real fan of the Metroid Prime franchise, I just might pick this one up.
