Skip to main content

Metroid: Other M: For Those Other Guys





I believe that Metroid Other M is the worst of Nintendo's core franchises that has been brought to the Wii. I say this, not because it's a radical departure from the past installments (it is), but because it is a bad game.


While I have enjoyed most of the past installments in the series, I would not considered myself a hardcore Metroid fan. I played Super Metroid back on the SNES, it was a very minimalist exploration game, with virtually no storyline, and a large world to wnader through, with each new upgrade letting you access more of it.


When they announced the first Metroid Prime game for the Gamecube, a lot of people were worried that it was going to become a first person shooter, lots of straight up action without the exploration and isolation aspects of the original games. This turned out to not be the truth. Sure it was a first person perspective, but instead of frenetic shooting action, it was more slow and deliberate. The exploration and sense of isolation were still present.


Now comes Other M. Our hero, Samus Aran, who has been all but mute in the previous games (she usually just doesn't have anyone to talk to) kicks off with a 10 minute long monologue. Then she ends up on a space station with a squad of space marines, and not only talks with them, but has a running monlogue about talking to them. It's the strangest thing, one of the earliest lines was someone calling her "princess" and then her talking about how there's only one person that calls her princess, and blah blah blah. Really, the problem isn't that she talks at all, it's that she talks too much, and it's so poorly written.


"But Bryce! Surely there's more to games than just the dialogue and writing?"


There certainly is, and I've certainaly played and loved more than my share of games with bizarre dialogue and awkward translations, so let's move onto the gameplay.


Other M feels like it can't make up it's mind as to whether it wants to be a first person shooter, or a side scrolling platformer. While running around you hold the Wii mote sideways, like a classic NES controller, the directional pad makes Samus run, 1 is shoot, and 2 is jump. Action in this mode feels really loose and imprecise, you have no lock on, and enemies are constantly coming at you, making you really wish you could shoot while walking backwards, but you can't. There are a couple of oddities added in here, such as the ability to gruesomely finish off criticially wounded enemies by closing in with them, and using the directional's to dodge enemy attacks just before they land, which really shows that the game's developers are the same people that made the Ninja Gaiden games.


Then, in order to fire missiles, you have to aim the wiimote at the screen, which brings up a first person aiming perspective, but effectively locks in you in one place. Add in that in order to fire the missile you have to actually lock onto the target, which means that while you're trying to hit a boss's weakspot, it's smacking you around like a pinata.


I finally decided to send this back to Gamefly after dying several times on the second boss. It's just not fun. But it does lead me into a rant that I want to get off my chest:


Why does everything on the Wii have to have motion controls?
When Nintendo first released the DS with a touch screen, a lot of developers said "I just don't see how my game can incorporate that" and Nintendo replied by saying "Then don't use it, just because the bottom screen's a touch screen, doesn't mean you have to have touch controls". And it took awhile, but a lot of the best games on the DS don't use the touch screen, or at least don't require the use of it.
I don't think that Nintendo has made that statement for the Wii about motion controls, but it should, and it should lead by example. Playing Zelda on the Wii is very tedious, I don't want to have to swing my controller everytime I need to smack something with a sword, that sort of thing works fine for mini games like Wii Sports that a marathon session would be 30 minutes, for something like Zelda or Metroid though, I plan to be sitting down for an hour or more everytime, and it's just tiring. Plus the Wii doesn't always recognize that the wiimote is moving, having your primary attack rely on something so fickle can be a serious liability when your guy is being mauled by orges.
There are plenty of ways to control videogames using the standard wiimote and nunchuck that don't require motion controls. Hell, there's even the classic controller, which is essentially a PS2/3 controller, which worked for games for seven years, use it why don't you?

Comments

  1. Pretty sure I've never played a Metroid since the first one for the NES. Can't even remember if I enjoyed it.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A Return To My Brainstorming Days Of Old

Way back when, say, ten years ago, I had a dream of making a game. At first I wanted to make it a videogame like a JRPG (Final Fantasy, Dragon Warrior, etc.). Then it was going to be a pen and paper RPG (Dungeons and Dragons). And for many years, it kept bouncing around, back and forth between the two, I thought I was so very creative and clever. Eventually I started to realize that I was never going to be able to do anything like this on my own, and that neither I, nor any of my friends, had the time or energy to put into learning the necessary technical skills for a videogame, or simply the desire for a tabletop game. Still, I really liked brainstorming ways that different elements of a setting would interact with each other, whether it be a game system, a fantasy world, a system of government, or a military force. Sometimes I'd write this stuff down, but more often than not, I just day dreamed about it. I think it was kind of like therapy. I still wanted to do something wit

Lemme Tell You About The Transformer, Astrotrain, And Why He's My Favorite

       I am, quite obviously, a massive fan of Transformers, but I grew up in kind of a weird time for being a fan. Really, I'm just a LITTLE too young. I remember seeing my brother, who was six years older than I, get all of the coolest Transformers, and then by the time that I started being able to ask for Transformers for myself, the nature of Transformers had greatly changed. I have a great anecdotal story about him clipping Soundwave (arguably one of the coolest Transformers toys ever, which turned into a microcassette player) to his shorts and climbing a tree. He then proceeded to fall 30 feet out of that tree, and land on Soundwave, which poked him right in the kidney, and he peed blood for a week.        While I still have a great deal of fondness for them, Powermaster Optimus Prime is just not as cool of a toy as the original Optimus Prime. Notably, if you landed on Powermaster Optimus Prime, he probably wouldn't puncture your kidney, but the original Optimus Prime mig

The Worst Contact Allergic Reaction I've Ever Had

I'm started to feel like a bit of a freak show. I've of course been injured by shrapnel from a pipe bomb, and I've got impressive scars to prove it (side note: One of my friends said that I need to come up with a really awesome story to go along with my scar, and I sad "Someone throwing a pipe bomb at me isn't awesome enough?") I've mentioned that I took a first aid/CPR class in my first quarter of college, taught by Ron Hussman at Edmonds Community College. He was a great instructor, with a lot of great stories being a navy medic for 24 years, I think that's what he said. I'm proud to say that the pictures of my leg injury are now part of his curriculum, but I got tired of raising my hand every time he asked if someone had done something in particular. Called 911? Check Used an epipen? Check Been in shock? Check Ridden in an ambulance? Check Had burns in your throat? Check (seriously, don't let your kids hold roman candles while they fire) Lat