Metroid Prime 3: Corruption Hands-on Preview

I felt pretty lucky today, having only spent an hour in line waiting to get my hands on Metroid Prime 3: Corruption. I was giddy with joy and completely forgot the fact that I hadn’t gone to the washroom in about 7 hours.

The surprisingly lengthy demo opens with Samus’ ship, complete with motion filter effects, flying towards a nearby planet. Upon landing we learn from a fellow hunter that the planet is being attacked by the space pirates and it’s up to Samus to locate and reactivate a power generator used for charging up the planet’s powerful defences. Along the way you’re apparently supposed to meet up with other hunters who will aid Samus in her journey, but unfortunately this didn’t happen, and the only other time I saw another friendly face was in a cutscene much later in the demo.

But before I get ahead of myself, how does the new control scheme feel? Well, it definitely takes some getting used to. Movement is controlled by the analogue stick while the remote is used to aim Samus’ arm cannon. To turn around all you have to do is move the cursor to the far left or right of the screen and Samus will turn in that direction. The design is actually pretty intuitive and comes naturally after a few minutes of play.

The A button is used to fire your cannon, Z to lock-on to enemies – though the lock on was practically useless as most enemies were either not in range or were too quick for the targeting system – and B to jump. Double tap the B button and to double jump.

After flicking the controller down a few times, I accidentally pressed the C button and launched into the morph ball mode. Like many of you, I assumed the morph ball mode would be completely controlled by the remote portion of the controller; however that is not the case. In morph ball mode you roll around using the analogue stick and lay bombs by pressing A.

It all sounds easy enough, and after spending a half hour with the demo, I’d like to think I have a pretty darn accurate shot, but good lord the first few minutes of play are awkward. The remote is extremely sensitive to movement, which I should have known would be the case after playing Super Mario Galaxy. Subtle flicks of the wrist result in quick movements that send the aiming reticule flying all over the screen. After spending a few more minutes with the controller, I got the hang of things and everything fell right into place. The remote offers a range of precision I’ve never seen in any game, and before I knew it I was kicking some serious space pirate ass.

The only real issue I had with the controller during my experience with Prime was that it was a little difficult to jump and turn at the same time, let alone jump, turn, and shoot in mid air. It became exceedingly difficult to make some jumps as the game had trouble recognizing some of my mid-air movements.

About half way through the demo I encountered the game’s first boss battle, or rather a mid-level battle. A group of space pirates surrounded me on the platform I was on; luckily the time I spent at the beginning of the demo honing my aiming abilities came in handy as I dispatched the pirates with ease. The second portion of the battle had Samus duking it out with a small ship that hovered around the battlefield. My charged cannon shot made short work of it, allowing me to access a few new areas, including the demo’s largest morph ball maze. Since this level is fairly early in the game, the maze wasn’t all that difficult to navigate and only required a few well timed bomb jumps to make it to the top of the maze.

Now being the Metroid nerd that I am, the next cutscene really gave me goosebumps. Guess who shows up as the demo’s final boss? Ridley. Yes, one of the greatest videogame villains of all time (right next to Ganon), swoops down, knocking Samus into a freefall in a chamber below. I have no idea how Ridley has survived all these years, but who cares? It’s Ridley for cryin’ out loud. Now if only Crocmire made an appearance… Anyhow, here’s the scenario: You’ve got 20,000 feet (signified by the counter on the screen) to defeat the winged beast before you reach the bottom of the tunnel. Ridley has a number of close and ranged attacks, and while Ridley’s distance attacks can be easily dodged, his close range attack is a whole different story. When you see Ridley’s hand begin to glow, you better start shooting it, otherwise he swoops in close and takes a swipe, depleting quite a bit of energy. They key is to shoot Ridley in the mouth until he goes down, which unfortunately ends the demo.

As far as visuals are concerned, Prime 3 doesn’t look all that different from the previous two, say for some great particle effects and an overall more polished look. The levels are also quite a bit more expansive and offer a bit more room for movement. The frame rate on the other hand took a few dives when things got hectic, but quickly rose back up to 60 fps. Hopefully that’ll be tweaked before the game hits store shelves, and while the game isn’t ugly by any means, a few more visual enhancements would go down well.

My time with Metroid Prime 3 was over a bit too soon for my liking, despite the fact that the demo ran longer than 25 minutes. The control system takes a little getting used to and has a few kinks to work out, but other than that the game played out just as a Metroid game should. And the inclusion of Ridley didn’t hurt either.

Check back for more info on Corruption as soon as it becomes available.