You're doing yourself a tremendous disservice by not playing the Prime series just because they're FPS.

I'm not particularly fond of FPS's in general either, but the Prime series is excellent.

Agreed, although I'd consider the Primes (well, 1 and 2, at least) to be more of an FPA game: First Person Adventure. Yes, you do shoot from the first person perspective, but the games are more about isolation and exploration (... well, 1 and 2, at least) than they are about just shooting shit. Don't let the perspective fool you; the games are much more than just another FPS type of game. (Well, 1 and... ah, you know.)

Random prediction: The next Metroid game will be in traditional 2D style.

Well, then there's the whole thing about having to get a GCN controller and memory card (I never had the GCN, and thus, neither the peripherals).

If you were able to shoot YOURSELF in an FPS, I'd definitely be doing it by accident.

Bio Shock makes me want to learn how to play FPSes, but I'm not ready to get a 360 yet.

P.S. Just decided to VC Super Metroid this evening; holy crap, am I ever enjoying myself...haven't finished the NES Metroid yet, and I'm definitely going to go back to it eventually, but right now, Super Metroid OWNS ME.

If you have a Wii, you could always get the Trilogy collection.  16:9 and much better controls when you're able to point!

I tried to play Prime. Couldn't do it. Lost on the first boss two or three times. Then when I did beat it, just barely got out. Then pretty much couldn't do a thing in the 'real' game.

No, the game really does play like an FPS. And thus is dumb.

The Trilogy is nice in that it does include all 3 games on one disk, however there are a number of problems with it.

1)It's expensive, more so than just purchasing the other 3 games separately.
2)It's graphically inferior to the original prime games... yes, surprise!
http://www.kotaku.com.au/2009/09/metroi … originals/

Still, to each their own. I've only played the first Metroid Prime, and I thought it was very good. Very pretty game, and I loved the fact that there was a lot of back story provided when you scanned enemies or computers. It was a nice subtle storytelling, unlike the newest Metroid which apparently was ruined by making it an unnecessary melodramatic space opera!

Hmmm, maybe soon we'll see Super Mario Drama...

I can't be the only one loving the shit out of Other M.

I'm avoiding all Metroid topics since all the Sakamoto bashing is depressing. The game is fun though.

I too am having a blast with METROID OTHER M.  Granted, it's not a perfect game by any means, but it was still a very enjoyable game, and I like that Nintendo and Team Ninja actually attempted to tell a compelling story using CG-techniques.  Although some parts of this presentation are a bit rough, it's still a commendable effort, and I hope to see them repeat this approach with other titles.

Loved it.  That's not to say that it's not flawed in many ways, but I still loved it.  I don't think it's as good as Prime 1, but it's better than Prime 2 and 3.  The way Samus moves feels perfect.  She has that heavy feeling from the old 2D games, and you can tear through enemies in many creative ways.  My only complaints are the "locked door" story where exploration and revisiting areas are heavily limited by the story (I had the same gripe about Fusion), the weakening of Samus' former "strong, silent type" character in favor of making her a girl with daddy issues, and the lack of Samus' appearance changing when activating new suits.  I would heartily accept a sequel with more open gameplay and less story.  As a side note, this is easily the best game Tecmo's ever made.

edit: this is day 1's impressions. day 2 the game gets awesome.

This game is awful. This is what happens when Nintendo gives the turncoats of Tecmo forgiveness after sucking off Sony & Microsoft for years. I doubt I will beat this game, but I will review it eventually.

Day 1 Impressions:
1. The cutscenes.
-Obnoxious voice narration. Samus is going on-and-on about her life. It is extremely irritating. This game should serve as an example of why Nintendo should never ever allow voice acting in their games. Also, what is this Final Fantasy or Metal Gear Solid? It is one thing to have a cinematic presentation to set things up (atmosphere, mood, etc), it's another to turn the game into a movie.

2. The game is rather soulless.
-Walk through a bunch of corridors to shoot bugs mindlessly. Shooting enemy swarms is boring. It is really boring mashing of the a-button to clear out a room. Not being able to use missiles in 3rd person is also extremely unsatisfying. There is no motivation to shoot the standard enemies as you don't get combo points like in PN03 or any real visual enjoyment from effects. And forget about any real exploration as this game is more linear than Metroid Fusion. Rooms desperately need better designs/layouts. If you are going to go for RE style camera you might as well throw in better horror and lighting. The game does a behind-the-shoulder cam at certain points and it really kills me to think what they could have done with this game had they used that camera as the main camera.

3. The controls are wack.
-The switching to first person by pointing the wii-mote at the screen is awkward. Then you have to hold down the b-button to aim around. The game did not need to do these bad controls. Nintendo simply wanted to fool gamers into think this was an old-school Metroid game by it's nes style controls. Having the chuk support would have made aiming problem free.

The D-pad does not allow for tight controlled movement that an analog stick provides. Dodging enemies by inputting any direction on the d-pad is hit or miss. Sometimes you will end up involuntarily dodging. It is a step up from the clumsy dodging d-pad found in Wii game No More Heroes.

4. Health refill is wtf???
-I guess it could be worse. I could get regenerating health ala Halo.

This is third-rate stuff and not Metroid. Anyone could have realized this from the long intro cutscene and new addition of a tutorial. It doesn't specialize/wow in anything: not in first person shooting, not in third person shooting, not in closecombat, not in exploration, not in horror, not in cinematics, not in enemy design, not in music...

What? This make me think you've never played any Tecmo games.

I actually enjoyed Metroid Other M a lot.  It wasn't perfect; it did seem kinda short and while the cinema/acting scenes were great, there could have been an option to skip through them.  All in all, however, I thought the game was pretty good.  Not the best Metroid, but a very interesting take.  It's definitely nowhere nearly as bad as some make it out to be.

I consider Ninja Gaiden II: The Dark Sword of Chaos as the greatest game Tecmo has ever made, but that's just me.

I have not played the game, and it certainly may be awful. However, just because one game has bad voice acting or is "irritating", that means all Nintendo games should not have voice acting?! I don't understand how you come up with these "logical" deductions! Have you played any of the Professor Layton games? Those were by Nintendo, and I would say the cutscenes would be devoid of life if it were not for the wonderful voice acting.

I have to agree with avatar here. Take the original Resident Evil. I think everyone can agree that it's voice acting is bad. Granted it's so bad that it's good (kind of like Symphony of the Night) but if Capcom had just thrown in the towel in with voice acting Mega Man Legends wouldn't have come alive like it did - once you've heard a Servbot talk it's obvious. Not saying that Legends is a bulletproof example, but the voices are pretty essential in driving home the game's Sunday morning cartoon feel which I simply adore. I simply couldn't imagine the game without voice acting.

I'm in this camp.

As for the best Tecmo games ever made? Fatal Frame's where it's at.

The chattier established Nintendo characters get the worse they become. Professor Layton was developed by Level-5, avatar. Obviously Nintendo has great success with voice acting for 2nd party games like Eternal Darkness. I am just upset about shitty narration in this game. "My parents both died when I was at a young age. My squad leader was like a father figure to me" -- no one talks like this.

Not to defend the bad voice acting in the game, but isn't this an internal monologue just used to tell the player information?

Fixed that for ya.

As amazingu pointed out, Other M was developed by Team Ninja. Therefore once again, I claim that the bad voice acting/narration has nothing to do with the fact that it's a Nintendo game, but simply that the narration/story/voice acting (whatever you want to call it) was poorly implemented.

Nintendo is supposed to supervise their franchises. Imagine what would happen if this game was released as Metroid Prime in 2001. The Metroid series would have been killed right there and no one would talk about it.

We should probably have a separate thread for discussion on voice acting for Nintendo games.

You know, I want to respond this doom and gloom train of thought you seem to have, but I can't really come up with good response. This isn't to say you've won the arguement but I guess what I really want to say is - and this is not meant to upset any Prime fans - that there were some Metroid fans that didn't find Prime to be to be the answer they were looking for after the series skipped a console generation.

for me,, SPECULATING IS FUN in a game plot. replaying a game a 2nd time, only to put some pieces together that you missed the first time,, is fun.
how many freaking YEARS after the fact did we all discuss theories on Shadow & Relm's relationship, and all the other's pasts?

part of the fun of the early metroid games is that they didnt spell anything out for you. when you have complete closure on a plot, it's done, over.. sell it...

Day 2 Impressions: I take back my mean words to Tecmo.

1. The Presentation
I realized my problem isn't the voice acting, but when Samus slips into her own insipid narration. The game has shifted it's presentation to players blowing past stuff quickly, so the essence of Metroid is changed to something else. Running into the save room with the camera at a side view is pretty slick.

2. The Game's Soul ~Heart of the Samurai~
Fast paced action! Once you the controls down the combat becomes a lot of fun. Actually, it's once your charge shot improves combat becomes a lot of fun. There is something very samurai-like of being surrounded by enemies in a small room and dodging them as they thrust towards you or shoot at you.

The 'obliteration technique' added to the Metroid universe is sweet. The jumping on a regular enemy's shoulders and firing an energy blast and jumping away with your back to the explosion is blatant badassness. (I don't know what game started jumping/running up huge enemies (not RE4), but it really should be in every action game) The charging of your gun adds something to this whole process that makes it feel extra special that a regular gun or sword just can't replicate. The down attacks are sweet as well.

3. The Controls
The controls work pretty well. The problem with the beginning is that they throw in monsters that teleport and are invisible which makes it hard to switch to first person for missile action. Leave it to Tecmo to throw in hard mini-boss creatures right away when you are at your most awkward. Ha.

4. The Improvement List
-Horror segments: The camera positioning in these is great, but like others pointed out there is no reason omit the ability to run. Did Adam not authorize it? heh.
-Boss design: The brachiosaurus monster that shoots enemy balls at you from an orb on its back is dumb. Seems like something better suited for Turok. I mean it is hard to compete with a lava monster designed like Kraid, but the lava boss monster could have looked more imposing.

To me, it wasn't even the ridiculous melodramatic dialogue and the fact that they ruined the image of Samus being a strong and independent woman, it was the stupid reason they gave for locking away equipment. It was the stupid fact that you ARE NOT ALLOWED TO USE YOUR VARIA SUIT while walking straight into a volcanic area.

And it was the incredibly annoying moments where you were locked in place in first person to spot some impossible-to-find pixel to advance the story.

Actually I think if that happened, the game would not be hated nearly as much.  Other M is a very safe-but-stale transfer of the Metroid concept into 3D that likely would have been received a lot better had the awesome Prime games not come before it.  I fairly consistently felt while playing it that it was what I always sort of assumed a 3D Metroid game would have been back before Prime came out and Retro showed us something we didn't expect that actually ended up being much better (all in my opinion, of course).

Respond to the above a little later.

Got the game for $10 at GameStop.

Is this notification really needed?

Haha. I just edit that stuff out when I get to sit down longer for a decent response. I will stop doing it. I did it this time so people wouldn't think I am ignoring them.

Edit: I have come down from the lava stage high. For this game to work they'd have to make the smaller enemies explode on you like in NG2 -- simply put they'd have to be dangerous. Otherwise running through corridors to fight any of these small cluster enemies doesn't give reason to have the combat system.