I will preface this entire review with the fact that I giant fan of the Metroid series. I've played them all and, for the most part, enjoyed everything in the series (exceptions being Metroid II, since I hated playing anything on the original Game Boy, and haven't since returned to beat it, and Hunters, which I found pretty lame). Other than that, Metroid is easily one of my top three all time favorite series of games.
Metroid: Other M... has issues. A lot of them, in fact. When I heard Team Ninja (makers of the newer Ninja Gaiden series) I thought they might actually do the Metroid series justice. I hated every second of the Ninja Gaiden games for Xbox, and 360, but only because I don't like that style of game. They were, however, very well made games for what they were, so I know that most likely whatever Team Ninja did with Metroid would work well, and with Nintendo's watchful eye and guidance, we'd get a pretty dang awesome game.
What we got was a JRPG featuring Samus and a bunch of token Japanese storyline. Throughout the last 24 years or so Samus has been probably the strongest female character I've ever 'met' in any media. She's a silent, strong warrior. Or, a bad ass. She's got a mysterious past and never 'spoke'. It's not that she's mute or that she's a non-talking bad-ass, it's just that they never had anything for her to say, but now she does talk and, well, I don't like it. At all. She just chatters on, and on, and on, and on... If it's not her poorly acted audible voice it's her poorly acted inner monologue that we hear in Other M. Almost everything you hear out of her mouth is overly dramatized and it gets old quick.
It's not that the cut scenes are all that bad, it's just that they're not all that good and the information they provide pushes you away from Samus as a character more than it draws you into who she is. Perhaps I need to replay Zero Mission and Fusion, but as far as I remember Samus Aran has not been a childish, self-doubting, emotional, sissy. The game play suggests that you're playing a bad ass and every cut scene seems to completely rip away your illusions that Samus is or ever has been a heroine.
You'll spend about half of the game cleaning up your living room, going to the bathroom, looking up recipes on the internet, making coffee, going to the bathroom again, doing the dishes, walking the dog, cleaning out the cat box and bird cages..., and the other half glad you're not trying to find something to do during the cut scenes. It's the only way to keep your illusions that Samus is a grown up without abandonment issues.
It's not that I'm against Samus talking or having a back story, what I'm against is how boring and vanilla it becomes when you play the game. There are a few points where you'll see flashbacks at the MOST INAPPROPRIATE TIMES. When engaging in a fight it's not cool for the heroine to be petrified by an enemy whose ass she as kicked a few times already, and will go on to kick in the future. For those of you who have played more than a handful of Metroid games, this is not a spoiler, you expect Ridley to show up and make some noise. And he(her/it?) dang well better show up!
Now that I've prepared you for the story that never should have been, here's the important information. Game play.
One of the bigger hurtles in every Metroid sequel is trying to figure out how best to depower Samus at the beginning of the game in order to give her something to find. It's a play mechanic that basically 'cheats' and gives the game the advantage. Without it, Metroid wouldn't be fun. Metroid is about starting off a bit weak and through lots of work and fun, becoming a nigh invincible warrior. So any play mechanic that depowers Samus is usually okay with me, even if it's a bit far-reaching. Other M, however, takes it a bit too far. You're stuck on a ship with a bunch of 'normal' humans and decide to submit to the orders of the man in charge, one of which is to severely depower yourself so that you don't hurt anyone. The only problem I have with this is, when they're not near, Samus should be able to do whatever the hell she wants. Further fixable by just not letting the player fire if aimed at a friendly. So, the mechanic is way too thin, and even makes it harder to get into the game. "You mean I'm not allowed to double-jump until that guy thinks it's okay? WTF?! I can SEE the missile RIGHT THERE!!"
You start off with your charge beam. That's it. Throughout the game the commander dude will reluctantly allow you the use of other weaponry from time to time, however being granted these powers is often frustratingly complex. Often times you have to explore endless boxes of space, run into the same brick wall 100's of times, and retrace your steps for what feels like the millionth time before you trigger some event where Commander Asshat finally calls you up and says, "You know what? I think you might need the wave beam right now." This guy must have trained in American Middle Management because he only doles out the goods when you finally realize your macabre reliance upon his judgment and graces. In short, he's that D-bag you work for who you probably wouldn't waste yelling "watch out" to if you saw him walking in front of a truck, and even if you did his head is stuck so far up his ass that his pride would prevent him from accepting your help*.
The whole game takes place inside of the "Bottle Ship"... designed by the worst engineers ever to be grace the universe. Plenty of cut scenes depict its exterior, however if the map is any indication of its true structure and/or shape, you're playing Metroid in the biggest mess of a Lego structure you designed as a four year old child with a severe vision impairment and no sense of structural integrity. This ship contains the standard Metroid areas, the cold, the lava, the jungle, and the standard inside of a building areas, so you'll feel right at home, but each area is really just a big box of . It's probably the most bland of all the 3D Metroids (save Hunters).
Team Ninja tried to give you a sense that you're not in a spaceship by designing a lot of rooms that are complete holographic projections, often with broken or missing pieces and terminals that shut off the systems. Despite their efforts, you never ditch the claustrophobic feeling of being confined within the six walls of a ship. The game feels small. Very small. Your movements are directed (and limited) by Commander Asshat, so you never feel like you're exploring, just going where you're told, killing what you see, and gritting your teeth in preparation for the next cut scene.
As the game progresses, and as you get more powers, eventually it starts to feel like Metroid. Every once in a while you'll retrace your steps and see something you may not have been looking for before and think, "Hey, I can go in there now!". However, if you pass something and try to remember the spot for later, don't bother. If you aren't told to go somewhere, and that location isn't on the way, forget about it. All the doors are locked and you're on rails until you get somewhere. It's very frustrating. Often you'll be forced into FPS mode in order to scan the area for things and have almost no clue why or what you're looking for. It happens a lot in the beginning and doesn't ever go away. The real problem is that most of the things you're required to scan are a single pixel on the screen so you can search for a good five minutes before you find whatever cue the story demands.
As directed as the game is, when you get into combat, it really is a lot of fun. Team Ninja did a pretty good job of making combat fun, and I applaud them for that. Anything that can't be gotten rid of in a couple shots can potentially be lethal without a few upgrades. Even then, they've always got something slightly more powerful up their sleeves. It's also pretty enjoyable when the close quarters combat kicks in. Samus has some pretty interesting moves. They're supposed to be easy to pull off, but I find them to be rather random.
Another hangup will be the 3rd person, fixed camera mode transition to FPS. Getting the controls down for this is very tricky and poorly implemented (hold the remote sideways for normal mode, point at screen for FPS). Basically you're running around and something needs a missile to the face/colon in order to kill so you have to stop DEAD in your tracks, aim and fire. You're given a small grace period of about 2 seconds where time slows down so you've got time to aim, but after that you're most likely mince meat. If you're good with Wiimote aiming you'll do fine. If you're not good, it's time to find more energy tanks!
I find this control idea to be mostly problematic not because shifting the controller is a pain, but because you can't shoot a missile or super missile without going into the 1st Person mode and finding something 'missile worthy' at which to aim, and even then you have to lock on in order to spit out the firepower. Also, the fire button shifts once you're pointing at the screen from '1' to 'A', however you can get away with holding the charge while in 3rd person mode and firing with '1' anyway, so this isn't as much of a problem.
Half of the Metroid formula is exploration. One of the best parts of the Prime series is how well they balanced exploration with firefights and story. I spent the entirety of each of them on the edge of my seat, filled with tension over what I was doing. With Other M, as I stated before I was obligated to run around and do things and wasn't allowed to experience the world... well the ship.
Metroid: Other M was on the whole a relatively well oiled game with a couple control hiccups and a bad story. My main problem is the story. It's so jarring and bland that it detracts from game play even when you mentally separate Other M from the rest of the series. I'm not upset that I bought it at full price... no, I sort of am upset about that. This game would probably be a flop without Samus or some other franchise to help it be recognized. The combat is fun, but on the whole it's about as vanilla as the usual shovelware.
ACTUAL, POSSIBLE SPOILER
*It really is a shame that you don't get to kill him.
No comments:
Post a Comment