Corrupting Wii

by ERIK LEIJON

Classic gamers will shudder at the realization that there are as many Metroid Prime games (three) as there are “classic” Metroid titles (Metroid for the NES, Return of Samus for the Game Boy and Super Metroid for the SNES). If anything, the Prime series and the equally modernized Ocarina-era Zelda games share more in common with each other than they do with their predecessors.

Happily, Prime is more than worthy of the name Metroid, and is essential playing for former Nintendophiles who jumped off the gam-ing wagon when Captain N retired. Metroid Prime: Corruption (Wii/Nintendo, Retro) is the final chapter in the Prime trilogy, a fitting end to the Hall of Fame-bound series and the best use of the Wii remote yet.

If you haven’t played a Metroid game since the 16-bit era, then the Prime series will be quite the culture shock. They introduce the backstory of Samus Aran, the alien-slug blasting bounty hunter with a multi-purpose space suit. The game remains all about travel-ling from planet to planet, find-ing new types of missiles and frantically escaping tight spaces after detonating alien lairs. The main difference is that the Prime series plays from a first-person perspective, although to call it a shooter would be to ignore the platform jumping and puzzle sections.

The comparison to Ocarina of Time is apt, as the planets are like big dungeons with sealed doors that require activating and multiple paths to explore. Purists need not worry—Samus can still morph into a ball.

Where Corruption obviously deviates from the GameCube ver-sion is with the controls, which were totally rebuilt for the remote (as opposed to the port-ish Zelda: Twilight Princess).

Have you seen the new Wii commercial where those two short Japanese dudes infiltrate an airport waiting area, proving the Wii has the drawing power to make ordinary folks forget their flights? The ad does a really good job showing off the control scheme. It features some balding dude loosening his tie and whipping the nunchuk like a lasso, a movement that activates the grapple hook. The remote controls Samus’s blaster and head movements. Hold-ing Z on the nunchuk allows Samus to lock on to the enemy, mak-ing it easy to move laterally while never losing sight of your foe.

It’s very intuitive, and even if every button on the remote and nunchuk gets used, within 20 minutes, every manoeuvre will become second nature. Still, it’s an unconventional control scheme, so there will be some occasional hiccups; it’s easy to lose sight of the firing reticle when the action gets extremely hectic. Also, one has to keep their wrist in a default position or risk screwing up the sensitive calibration, so jittery handed gamers must resist the urge to pronate or frequently switch positions on the couch.

Admittedly, it isn’t the greatest looking game, but it’s exciting to finally play a something that feels tailor made for the Wii and pro-vides a robust gaming experience. The boss fight scenes are classic Metroid (including the kick-ass spelunking fight scene with the pterodactyl Ridley). Retro Studios are the first development team to crack the Wii code and Corruption is the first truly must-have game for the Wii.

MAKING HISTORY

Final Fantasy Tactics fans rejoice: Jeanne d’Arc (PSP/SCE, Level 5) carries on the tradition of great turn-based strategy games. Actually, the obvious graphical and gameplay similarities would have you thinking that the title, based loosely on the Hun-dred Years’ War between France and England, was developed by Square. It features some of the best cutscenes (all anime) I’ve ever seen. Highly recommended.