Metroid Prime 3: Corruption

THE BAD:
-Not as memorable as 1 and 2
-Lack of metroid atmosphere

SUMMARY:
The metroid games on gamecube were some of the best games on the system. With groundbreaking graphics, innovative and addicting gameplay and a successful franchise to build on making them loved by critics and players alike. Now, this year the long awaited wii metroid prime has been released. Fans were eager to see the changes to the franchise with the wii's capability's.

Metroid Prime 3: Corruption does differ from it's predecessors quite a lot in layout and story, but as far as gameplay's concerned it's fairly similar. Those familiar with the series will note that samus has never actually had conctact with other people and interacted with them, prime 3 is different. Samus is much more closely linked to the galactic federation now, taking away the lonesome feel of the past metroid games. This could be seen as a shame, as the isolated atmosphere was really quite unique in the last games, while in 3 not only do you meet other people but they assign missions to you, kind of ruining the lone bounty hunter theme. Anyway moving on.

The story line is fairly simple, you and three other bounty hunters are tasked with tackling the space pirate threat and destroying these phazon things implanted into the planet. Shortly into the game samus and the other hunters are a PED unit, which is inbuilt into their suit. This allows the hunter to enter hyper mode, giving a massive boost to damage, but firing the hyper beam uses health, so it must be used wisely. Enemies also enter hyper mode, which can be irritating as they seem to gain a massive boost in health, making even the smallest creatures a threat. Shortly after the PED units are given to the hunter's they are each assigned to a different planet, but all seem to go missing. Early on you see Dark Samus, who seems to be more powerful than ever before, managing to defeat you and the other hunters at once.

Anyway your mission assigned by the federation is to track down the missing hunters and eliminate space pirates.

The areas are almost a mixture of the previous games, nothing really new. Enemies are pretty similar to the last games, with pirates being the main threat. However with the pirates ability to enter hypermode they are a lot tougher now. Bosses are not very memorable, far less so than in the previous games, although a few are pretty good...As for weaponry and equipment, there are a few additions, but not much. A really annoying thing that retro decided to do with the arm cannon is take away the ability to switch between beams, so once a new beam is aquired the last one can never be used again. Really I dont know what they were thinking by implementing this, sure it makes i simpler, but it takes away the whole counter system that was always present in the metroid games. Also theres no more beam combos, which is a real shame as it further simplifies the game, making it less deep than the past two and limiting your options. Upgrades are the same as the last two games, energy tanks and missile expansions being dotted around, however they're much less secret now, and it just seems instead of them being optional theyre just kind of thrown in your path.

The new control system works a treat, its extremely accurate aiming with the wii mote and everything seems very fluent and easy, a great improvement on the cube controls. A really nice little feature is whenever opertating switches of any sort, for instance driving the ship, you press buttons with wii mote, or perform actions such as pulling a lever.

Graphics are a slight upgrade from the cube version, with more detailed textures and a nice blur effect, although it definitely isnt one of the graphical masterpieces of the generation, as prime 1 was.

Sound effects are excellent as ever, as is the music, however it doesn't fit in with environments as well as other prime games did, and the overall quality isn't as good either, failing to create that metroid atmosphere.

Overall the game has improved on the others in some ways, and just backtracked on others. Why retro chose to remove such fundamental features such as beam changing is ridiculous, but in no way ruins the game. Although great in it's own right, Corruption lacks the atmosphere of the previous two installments, and isn't all that memorable. But if i was to refrain from comparing it to the other two, it is easily the best game on the wii. Must buy.