Reviews// Metroid Prime 3: Corruption

Audio-wise the game delivers solidly. The score, provided by the series’ long-time musical master, Kenji Yamamoto, does an excellent job of introducing many beautiful new pieces while remixing some old favorites where applicable. The sound effects are not the 5.1 HD audio assaults I have become accustomed to on other systems, but the Prologic 2 does a good job of positioning all the blasts and clangs so that they all fit the world perfectly.

The aforementioned voice acting is of course top notch and not only helps to flesh out cut-scenes but also serves to deliver all of your mission objectives in the form of the ‘Aurora Unit’. This biological computer, bearing more than a passing resemblance to Mother Brain, is one of many throughout the universe that help control all the functions of their respective civilizations.

Now, the part you’ve all been waiting for: game-play. It really is one of, if not the most, defining characteristics of this game. Apparently the Wii is ‘all about the game-play’. The hardcore gamer may, in recent months, however, have grown to think that this means that all games would basically be mini-game collections with no real worth other than entertaining grandma at the holidays.

Prime 3 is the first in the series on a new console. Where iterations of games such as Halo or Metal Gear Solid could survive almost exclusively on looking rather than playing better, Prime 3 is offered no such luxury. Yes, there is a bit more geometry and there are better particles, but something had to keep it from feeling stagnant five years after the original’s release.

An admission: much I as I enjoyed the original games on the NES and SNES, I was never able to get into the previous Prime games. The whole “Legend of Zelda - Ocarina of Time in first-person” thing just never worked in my mind. I have always spread my time over multiple formats and having played a fair bit of Halo, not to mention years of PC gaming, the idea of an FPS controlled with one stick was just insanity.

So, the fact that I have been playing Metroid Prime 3 to death (and not just because I am reviewing it) bears testament to its freshness and playability. Imagine my delight when playing it for the first time at E3 ’06. Finally being able to manoeuvre through these beautiful alien worlds was a real eye-opener and one of the things that excited me most about the Wii.

A control system that can make a serious FPS better and make Mario Party fun again is the sort of thing gamers' wet-dreams are made of. As we all know, however, the Wii launched nearly a year ago and Red Steel sucked. Then when Mario Party 8 finally came out it was something akin to torture. Until Prime 3’s release if you had asked me what games on Wii where worth playing one would have been a Game Cube Zelda rework and the other a mini-game disk from Ubisoft (though I do love those Rabbids). Hardly the sort of line-up that would warrant the incredible sales the system has been receiving over these past 10 months. It is with great pleasure then that I can inform you that MP3 controls fantastically.