Metroid: Other M

Metroid: Other M Review

Lets start by saying that although I own almost every Metroid game,with the exceptions of Metroid II and Hunters,I'm hardly the biggest Metroid fan out there,and I guess that allowed me to enjoy this game for what it is,a solid action game.While I have played and finished the excellent Prime Trilogy,and Super Metroid various times,I believe that Other M has become my favorite game in the series,simply because it is a very good game,with great graphics,a solid,albeit slightly convoluted story,fun and fast paced gameplay,and an excellent orchestrated score.

A big issue with many players seems to the be the control scheme,I barely had any problems with it at all.Sure,at the beginning changing between 1st and 3rd person will feel a little awkward,but as you play on they become a non-issue,at least to me they did.As for the whole "switching views during boss fights" concern,the big majority of boss fights rarely require you to use your missiles during the regular fight,but when they do the boss will always have a brief moment when they stagger after repeated assault with the power beam,or when they start charging some sort of beam or attack,which gives you an opening to use your missiles,which means that you're not supposed to try to use your missiles in a "willy nilly" manner.As for clearing a room full of enemies,dodging and using your charged power beam will clear the room with no problems,especially when you get the first improvement for the Power Beam,and onward.

While I understand that opinions will always runt the gamut from "terrible" to "excellent" in anything in life,but in my honest opinion,this is "excellent".Maybe over time,the "This is not Super Metroid 2,which is what I wanted" feeling will turn into "This is a great Metroid on its own right",which is what happened with the great Prime Trilogy.Now,off to finish getting all the items in the game.

Metroid: Other M Feature

• Metroid - Other M takes the best elements of 1st-person and 3rd-person gaming to create a seamless blend between game play, story-telling and dynamic cinematography, that feels like a movie you can control; you can hold the Wii Remote controller sideways while navigating and battling in 3rd-person; however, at any moment, you can switch immediately to Wii Remote pointer controls to examine and explore the environments in 1st-person perspective
• Metroid fans know more about Samus' suits and weapons than they do about what drives her; that's about to change, the story begins immediately following the events of Super Metroid, when a baby Metroid gave its life to protect Samus, with voice acting and a rich story, you will learn the engaging back-story of Samus as she weaves through an action-packed adventure aboard the Bottle Ship, a decommissioned space facility; as she hurtles into this new adventure, Samus will encounter her first men
• The development of Metroid - Other M is an exciting collaboration between Nintendo's Yoshio Sakamoto and Team Ninja; Sakamoto was the director of Super Metroid in 1994; Team Ninja is the renowned action developer of Ninja Gaiden. Metroid - Other M pairs Sakamoto's expert level design and exploratory focus of the classic Metroid series with Team Ninja's signature stylish, no-holds-barred action

Metroid: Other M Overview

Metroid Franchise’s Heroine Gets Personal. For decades, Samus Aran has been known as one of the first female protagonists in video games and one of the most enigmatic. Having traded her haunted past for the solitary life of a bounty hunter, Samus finally tells her own tale in this revealing, personal story of her failings, her flaws and ultimately her motivation. Metroid: Other M is an unprecedented collaboration that blends the slick, action-packed production of the world-renowned Team Ninja development team with the game design talents of the creators of the original Metroid. Metroid: Other M is a dramatic new direction for a legendary franchise and a bold new blend between cinematics, storytelling and the best in interactive entertainment.

more>>>

*** Product Information and Prices Stored: Sep 02, 2010 06:17:08

Other M needs just a bit more polish. - F. Fernandez III -
After playing trough a bit of the Game I can safely say that, beyond the spectacular cutscenes the game feels rushed. What do I mean by that? Other M's "innovative controls" are awkward(there is always a moment's pause between switching, that is just not elegant.). Character models are detailed but textures are Muddied and dull. Enviorments are varied and interesting, but fall short of the visual wonder that is the Metroid Prime series.

Maybe Retro Studios set the bar too high -- because Other M falls just short.



An otherwise great game spoiled by a few god awful design choices - Freddy Gies - Calgary
I bought this game with an open mind,knowing that it was going to be different from others in the series.I don't mind that,I don't mind change in a series such as this, I view it as a good thing assuming it is done well.So when I read negative things about this game, I erroneously assumed that it was just die-hard fans of the series that just couldn't accept the change, and that their bias led them to overlook a good game.I was wrong.Very wrong; The game just isn't that good.

The game starts with some very nicely rendered FMV scenes complete with voice acting (barring comparatively minor sound bites, this is the first Nintendo game to feature voice acting, meaning it has an actual script) however the voice acting is average at best in the game,bordering on horrible for certain characters.

Without spoiling too much, Samus answers a distress signal from a space station, and while there happens upon her old buddies from her squad in the galactic federation, including her former commander.These are terrible characters with no personality,as well as being so unbelievably generic as to be indistinguishable form one another, except of course the black guy and the asian guy, who are so stereotypical it's laughable.

In past Metroid games,as you explored the world(s),you would find along the way,various upgrades,namely new beams for Samus' arm-cannon,grappling hook,as well as upgrades to her suit itself.This was a staple of the games as well as the characteristic music that would play when you found those items.

That's where this game falls apart completely.This game throws away that classic colleciton aspect, in favor of a premise so outrageously stupid and contrived that it completely spoils the game and casts a veil of absurdity over the whole thing.It is This:As you arrive on the spaceship,and meet up with your old gang,it is made apparent through a cut scene that the commander has authority over Samus,who has all her abilities available to her, but she agrees to only use them as he authorizes them,and accordingly they are dispensed every so often as their immediate need arises.This is is just a horrible idea that is executed even worse.Samus is always fighting somehting in this game so why wouldn't she want to be well equipped, and why wouldn't her commander want her to be well equipped?Even more ridiculous yet is you must await authorization of the Varia suit which serves no purpose other than to protect Samus from extreme heat in the lava areas. So she wont turn on a feature to prevent her flesh from melting just because it isn't authorized.Among the game are other examples of that nature. I know it doesn't really effect the gameplay really, but as I said earlier it paints the game in such a ridiculous light that it's very hard for me to get over it.

Onto the controls:In the 3rd person perspective aspects, you hold the Wii remote sideways, which actually works very well, considering you are using a 2 pad to control Samus in 3d.Her movements are very fluid and easy to pull off which is nice.However that is only half the game, the other half is first person.At any given time when you flip the controller and point it at the screen, it shifts into a first person view from Samus' perspective.You can aim up and down and 360 degrees but you can't move around, as if her feet were cememented to the spot.This actually works well alot of the time, allowing for a unique novelty.Unfortunately there are other times where the action is just way too frenzied and there are too many enemies around for this to be practical and I found myself taking damage during the switch because there just wasn't enough time to aim and fire.Also for some ridiculous reason you can only use missles in first person.

There are some very annoying segments that bothered me alot; one of them is when you finish a cutscene, you will sometimes be locked into first person mode, and you can't move until you find a particular object and scan it, sometimes it is so particular it is almost impossible to find.

Another is that occasionally there are some 3rd person segments which do not control like the rest of the game; the camera zooms up behind Samus, and her speed is reduced to a crawl; she may not jump or shoot even.Just walk around.These segments are wholly unnecessary and why the developers included them at all is a mystery to me.

The sad thing is that those problems aside, the game is great. It's very fast paced and the action is excellent, and the graphics, while certainly not the best, can be very vivid and pleasant to look at, with some very pretty areas.The music is somewhat bland I guess but it never becomes annoying.The tragedy is that had the things I complained about been removed, as well as with perhaps scrapping the first person view altogether, this would have been a really great game, but with them, it's just an ok game.

Wii's controls ruin another big title. - Sergeant Teach - Wichita Falls, TX
First, let me start off by saying that Metroid is my favorite video game
franchise of all time. I own every one of them except for "M.P. Hunters" and
"M.P. Pinball" on the DS and I have high standards when new ones come out. I
took 3 days of military leave when the first "Metroid Prime" was released on
Gamecube. I own a Wii strictly for Metroid, Mario, and Zelda. I am also a big
fan of Team Ninja's "Dead or Alive" franchise (minus DOAX.) I had minor
issues with the difficulty of the most recent Ninja Gaiden games, which I
consider to be some of the hardest newer games out there; so hard that it was
almost comical at times. Overall they were still decent games.

I'm just going to admit right now. My main problem with "Other M" is
something that Team Ninja has nothing to do with. It's the Nintendo Wii
controls. I could go on and on about how I despise the whole idea of the Wii
controller, but that's not what this review is about. I still continue to
deal with it in games like Metroid Prime 3, Twilight Princess, and Mario
Galaxy, but this time it's just too much. To keep it short, I absolutely hate
everything about Nintendo's motion, kinetic, aim-at-the-screen concept. If
you do too, don't even bother buying this. Every time you need to go into FPS
mode by aiming the controller at the screen (which you will during every boss
fight), you're stuck. You can't move, you can't dodge anything, and you have
to figure out where exactly your cursor is on the screen. It's usually off
the screen so that's even more time you're stuck aiming and not moving. Then
you have to hold the cursor over a target circle for a second or two until
you lock-on in order to even use your missiles. If you don't lock on, it just
shoots your normal beam instead of a missile. This appears to be the biggest
challenge of the game; aiming and getting a missile off before you get hit
with the next attack. For something so gimmicky and clumsy to be the ultimate
objective in every boss fight is just unacceptable.

I'm sure you've already read this in other reviews, but it's so ridiculous it
needs to be mentioned. You possess all of your abilites throughout the entire
game, but you can't use them until some guy authorizes it. It's no longer a
physical item that you are searching for. It's really just a bunch of
invisbile checkpoints. Just a couple examples...

1. You're trapped in a room full of enemies with sealed doors. You've died
maybe 2 or 3 times in this room trying to figure out how you're supposed to
defeat these enemies because your weapon takes literally 15-20 fully charged
beams to kill them. After a while you just get swarmed because more and more
keep spawning. Then at some random point in time, you get a call on your
radio saying "Samus, your beam isn't powerful enough to kill these. You're
now authorized to use your Ice Beam."

2. You are running through room after room taking heat damage. If you've
played Metroid in the past, this usually means you're somewhere you shouldn't
be yet. I decided to just go with it because this whole game seems fairly
linear. I just dealt with it off and on for a good half hour, maybe longer.
The only reason I kept going is because the enemies were fairly easy to kill
which is a good sign you're not in an area beyond your capabilities. Finally
at some random point this guy authorizes you to use your Varia Suit. Why
would any friend or boss make you have to run full sprints through numerous
rooms taking damage before he lets you use your heat resistant suit?

The difficulty of this game seems a little over the top. It can get very
frustrating at times. If you have a temper, you may want to stay away from
this one. The difficulty is pretty inconsistent. You'll be travelling along
just fine. Then, out of nowhere you are dying in the next room 10-20 times
until you finally get through it.

Remember how when you killed enemies in past Metroid games you'd get health
orbs, missiles, powerbombs, etc. if you weren't already full? Not anymore.
There is absolutely no benefit in killing normal enemies in this game as far
as I can tell. Unless you're trapped in a locked room with a mini-boss or the
next door is triggered when you kill everything in the room, it's a complete
waste of time.

Remember the feeling of isolation you felt in every other Metroid game
before? I think other than Zero Mission, you rarely got orders or had regular
conversations with outsiders. Well forget all of that. In this game you are
constantly meeting up with other humans and accessing control panels that
trigger dialogue with whomever.

What's with the random over-the-shoulder view it gives you sometimes? When it
does this, it won't let you run or shoot and the controls are completely
different and awkward. All you can do is walk. Imagine walking through long,
Metroid-like corridors for whatever reason, for effect im guessing. It's
annoying to be limited to a walk in any situation. Especially a Metroid game
where you're inspecting every inch of a room to make sure you're not missing
any hidden items.

During all this frustration and disappointment, there's this whole story
going on that I actually what to know about. I think that is the only reason
I played this game for as long as I did before finally calling it quits. I'm
so curious about how this is all going to tie together that it's the only
reason I can see myself ever picking up the controller again. Is it worth the
torture of terrible gameplay and downright disgusting evolution of the
Metroid series? Probably not.