| Metroid Prime 3: Corruption review |
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Clearly, there’s an abundance of comparisons to make between each iteration of the Prime series. But one of the most unexpected similarities in the trilogy is found in the incredulity that each instalment generates. Metroid Prime 3: Corruption – proposedly the final instalment – is no different in this regard.
Corruption has promised to build on the original Metroid Prime in a way that Echoes neither did nor could. That promise is found in the Wii’s controller, which itself conjured fantasies of unprecedented FPS control ever since Nintendo’s 2005 TGS unveiling. However, the Wiimote itself has hitherto received a measure of criticism to its praise, and Corruption, like all Prime games, has always looked fragile under the weight of such a heavy promise.
Such doubts can end now though: one cannot begin to understand how impressive Corruption feels under the helm of a stick and nunchuk. All three sensitivities are calibrated flawlessly, allowing Samus to aim, move, turn and strafe independently, instinctively and effortlessly.
Circling a gargantuan boss whilst picking at its weak points has never been performed so fluidly, shooting distant doors with flawless precision whilst double-jumping across a string of platforms has never been such a breezy affair. And frankly, has never been possible with a pad. Even the biggest concern with Corruption’s new control system – the convention of turning by pointing the away from centre screen – is as responsive, immediate and trustworthy as its thumbstick ancestry.
The system also takes you a step closer 'into' a videogame. Charge a shot and your respective hand will vibrate. Access a computer terminal, or elevator control panel, or even the cockpit of Samus’ trusty ship and your finger is magically transported through the Wiimote into our heroine’s heavily armoured glove (and although it may appear jarring that your right hand controls Samus’ left, players will rarely notice during play).
No longer is the first-person protagonist hovering over points of interest; you are actually typing code, you are actually turning switches, you are actually shutting down systems, powering generators, opening doors and pulling out energy cells. You ARE Samus Aran, more so than ever before. In particular, the reticule kickback from firing a frenzy of plasma – resulting from hitting the Wiimote’s A button so fervently that your wrist judders – is a breakthrough in organic feedback. Unintentional perhaps, unprogrammed certainly, but nevertheless remarkably natural.
Splicing gesture-based deviations into Corruption for the sake of novelty is a temptation that Retro, for the most part, has managed to suppress. The opportunities to use the Wiimote’s 3D positional sensing properties in solving mini-puzzles, pumping switches and even soldering circuit boards (which is done by tracing a jagged line with the pointer) retains a sense of purpose. Corruption is not part of the current Wii software trend of recklessly replacing buttons with waggles.
However, Corruption’s most notable new addition – the grapple pull – stands far above any other gesture-based element. Here you will cast your beam with a snap of the nunchuk and – with a subsequent tug – pull off panels, doors and debris. The motion has a tremendous weight to it; ripping shields off Space Pirates certainly requires a rip, one engaging enough to get teeth gritting.
And those Space Pirates, who have threatened to steal the show since Metroid began, have more than made up for their inexcusably low-profile outing in Echoes. Complete, once again, with detailed lore and near-cult theme music, you’ll study and battle through their ranks more often than in any other Prime game. Which, considering the interminable bores that were Echoes’ Ing, is a godsend.
The subtle deviations of the Space Pirate are a blatant plagiarism of Halo’s different flavours of Elite, but nonetheless a welcome addition. From humbly outgunned Pirate Militia units to the aggressive, well-armoured, teleport-equipped, melee-proficient, near-invincible Commanders, there’s a noticeable difference in each rank that goes beyond aesthetic touches.
Frequent pressure-cooker set-pieces, in which Space Pirates will always feature, will press you to make quick strategic decisions; either take out the dominant Pirate first and spread through the group, or expose the Shield Pirates to get some breathing space to attack the alpha more effectively. It’s not enormously sophisticated, nor is it brainless, but it does mean that your approach in fighting an assorted gang of Space Pirates is just as important as your competence in aiming shots at them, adding a welcome element of strategy.
The combat dynamic also makes a notable improvement. The ability to lock-on, and thus circle-strafe, has fused with Corruption’s free-aiming system. Players can now ‘focus’ on an enemy’s general direction whilst retaining the freedom to pick where to shoot, allowing complexity without over-complicating. It’s certainly a far cry from the snug, convenient dispatching of enemies found in its predecessors, and allows Retro to inject a much needed sense of challenge into Corruption. From deflecting enemy projectiles with a well-timed shot (sparking memories of Resident evil 4’s spinning hand-axes) to picking apart an approaching wall of turrets piece-by-piece, Corruption tests your aiming ability more rigorously than expected.
The Wii’s controller has given Retro the platform to make these gigantic progressions in challenge, precision and immersion, but navigating Samus herself is beyond advancement; it is a flawless realisation of a radical player-interface. It should be regarded as an event, the very first time mouse and keyboard fans can truly watch those who play on the couch with envy, the first time Wii doubters can truly question the merit of thumbsticks.
But beyond this, Retro has made a plethora of misjudgements with Corruption. So numerous, and at times so severe, that the triumph at the game’s heart is hidden behind an unexpected abundance of misjudgements and wrong turns.
The final chapter in any trilogy is one that cannot escape the epic nature of finality. However, Metroid Prime always stood out for avoiding the Summer blockbuster traps to which so many games succumb. Its understated, voiceless beauty, its infectious and fascinating ecosystem and its powerful sense of solitude not only demonstrated what the series does best, but also demonstrated what film and literature should envy.
Maddeningly, Corruption is too preoccupied with tiresome galaxy wars, miserably insipid one-sentence NPCs, hideous, poorly voiced, crudely animated, badly drawn, docile characters to notice where its inherent strength lies.
Considering the elegance of Metroid Prime’s universe – the unobtrusive, even timid nature in which you unearth samplings of its food-chain, investigate the relics of its architecture and translate the tomes of its collapse – the suffocating plot-driven nature of Corruption feels like a betrayal.
The opening level, borrowing heavily from Halo’s federation ship, is chiefly guilty of these crimes of uninspired cliché, with Fleet Admiral Dane (Halo’s Captain Jacob Keyes) introducing you to three new bounty hunters in a petrified forest of a cut scene. The new hunters themselves would be hilarious if they weren’t so tragically repulsive. They contribute to what will be remembered as a startling low point for the entire series, Prime or otherwise. If it wasn’t for the impact of Corruption’s graceful control scheme, coupled with an utterly sensational battle with Meta Ridley while in freefall through a tunnel shaft – à la Gandalf the Grey and Balrog in The Two Towers – the opening would have been an irrevocable mess.
Fortunately, Corruption grows from this significant accident. The series’ purity seeps back into the latter third of the campaign. The addictive pleasure of scanning its maps, looking for unopened doors and retrieving upgrades makes a vital return. It’s enough to improve Corruption’s reputation, though not enough to redeem it.
Neither can Corruption’s galaxy of levels totally pull it away from freefall. While Samus’ sleek (yet unobtrusive) visor remains as ideal as it ever, the worlds which it displays rarely scratch the series’ benchmark. The moody ‘fire level’ Bryyo features enough visual motifs to keep each corridor distinct, but the playscape is often lacking in aesthetic impact.
Such impact returns as you progress to Skytown; a charming, self-preserving steampunk city gently hovering above cloud level. Its quirky inhabitants and impressive scale give it a lasting memory. As does the Pirate Homeworld, a humid facility of fierce chromes and corrosive rain, and while it isn’t ugly, it doesn’t meet the fantasy of its own name; the Pirate Homeworld isn’t packed with as much alien architecture and brutal technology as you’d want it to, and is oddly thin on Pirates.
Another oddity is the scarcity of morphball track; something that even Echoes managed to get right. The tracks that do appear are, once again, joyful distractions, taking you up to the far corners of each world, under and inside and twisting behind Corruption’s system of tunnels. There’s a clear lack of thinking behind the tracks, however. Gone are the three-course puzzles linking all your morphball abilities, as is much of the variety that they brought, and many of the secret paths that encouraged backtracking through these distinct worlds.
Each world does manage to stand up on its own, but all are dwarfed by the game’s predecessors. Metroid Prime’s luscious Tallon Overworld and captivating Phendrana Drifts effortlessly subordinates what Corruption offers, and Bryyo’s ‘hidden’ mini-world of generous, calmly falling snow is almost a defeatist nod to that unshakable highpoint.
Corruption is also bizarrely stringent with its visual effects. The total absence of bodies of water, waterfalls and clean rain restricts Samus’ visor of a chance to shine. Blooms of light that once gave a snapshot Samus’ reflection are eschewed for a consistent mirroring in scanning mode, single-handedly draining all the intimacy of capturing a worried glance of yourself as a rocket is fired at your feet.
Of those visors, the scanner will remain your secondary tool. Rather fortunately too, as Retro has not applied any real imagination in the alternatives. The new ship visor is restricted to a handful of locations (though its interior compass is a delightful touch), and the rather predictable x-ray scanner isn’t utilised to the extent it was in the original. Selecting scanners however – done by holding down the minus button and moving the Wiimote in one of the three directions – is instinctive and tidy.
Considering how smooth it is to select scanners by holding down the minus button, mirroring weapon selection to the plus button in an identical fashion was surely a no-brainer. Not only would it map the Gamecube’s C-stick into a single button, but it would also keep in line with Prime’s control philosophy of twinning selection tools, adding a snug cohesion and purpose to the input design.
But, mindlessly, not only is the plus button reserved for another function, Retro has made a conscious decision to remove any choice of arsenal in Corruption. Instead, your plasma cannon will succumb incremental upgrades to the point where you have an all-in-one cannon. Super Metroid managed the system suitably well, but the progress the franchise has made thereafter is effectively lost. In a game that triumphs in its battle system, enemy variety, improved strategy and challenge, removing the freedom to experiment with different weapons is a rather reckless decision to make.
Instead, the plus button is used to activate a phazon injection. Essentially, it’s the ‘focus time’ play mechanic that Max Payne made famous. The risk of boring the player with such familiarity is saved by a necessary tweak to the system: each cannon shot is superpowered by draining your own health in the process. Coupled with the risk of corruption if the phazon is over relied on (removing a whole energy bar, or even killing you) at least Retro has attempted to add some dilemma into such a generic game addition.
But essentially, Corruption would be a better game without it. Enemy health has clearly been based around this feature, not only in a Pirate’s unconventional durability, but also in that every single domesticated enemy can also inject phazon in an identical manner. With the dangling carrot of clearing a room in treble-time (coupled with the distinct possibility that you’d loose more health if doing things the traditional way), the new addition is the only blotch on a thrilling battle system.
Thrilling, of course, because the game is built on the solid foundations of its sensational controls. It’s a familiar story for Corruption: The controls are heavenly but the game isn’t. It’s rather odd to be recommending a game that frequently disappoints, but Wii owners may very well want to sample Corruption to, at the very least, see the massive potential the Wii control system has. But to buy this for a Metroid experience will only lead to heartbreak; Retro has lost its touch, and the scrutiny around their next title is now inevitable. |
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System: Nintendo Wii
Genre: First Person Shooter
Developer: Retro Studios
Publisher: Nintendo
Players: 1
Version: United States
Reviewed: Nov 2007
Writer: Rob Crossley
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Pros:
- Embarrasses thumbstick FPS control, challenges the mouse and keyboard
- Challenging battle dynamic, often thrilling set-pieces
- Cohesive and purposeful gesture-based additions
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Cons:
- Deplorable narrative style and content
- Replaces weapon select with a sterile 'focus' mode
- Comprehensively inferior to Metroid Prime
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Metroid Prime 3: Corruption Video: 15.0MB
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