#NewsBruiser v2.3 time: 2005/02/17 16:28:26 timezone: PST8PDT modifiedTime: 1108686578.25 title: DECIDE WEAPONS categoryNames: enableComments: N comment: 1124206864.08|161.53.156.3|hnyfbsioc@georgebox.org Content-Type: multipart/mixed; boundary="===============1714666704==" MIME-Version: 1.0 Subject: 8bfb8587 To: hnyfbsioc@georgebox.org bcc: bergkoch8@aol.com From: hnyfbsioc@georgebox.org This is a multi-part message in MIME format. --===============1714666704== Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit gyqrxmcg --===============1714666704==-- |hnyfbsioc@georgebox.org|hnyfbsioc@georgebox.org||hnyfbsioc@georgebox.org|2 comment: 1124206894.46|161.53.156.3|yjuungks@georgebox.org|yjuungks@georgebox.org Content-Type: multipart/mixed; boundary="===============1755470266==" MIME-Version: 1.0 Subject: 15651b9a To: yjuungks@georgebox.org bcc: bergkoch8@aol.com From: yjuungks@georgebox.org This is a multi-part message in MIME format. --===============1755470266== Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit ubgczlhc --===============1755470266==-- |yjuungks@georgebox.org||yjuungks@georgebox.org|2 comment: 1125795067.09|217.218.155.73|ormdpc@georgebox.org|ormdpc@georgebox.org|ormdpc@georgebox.org||ormdpc@georgebox.org|2 comment: 1125795069.28|217.218.155.73|wsjyhkavo@georgebox.org|wsjyhkavo@georgebox.org|wsjyhkavo@georgebox.org||wsjyhkavo@georgebox.org|2 comment: 1125795071.54|217.218.155.73|rfatuct@georgebox.org|rfatuct@georgebox.org|rfatuct@georgebox.org Content-Type: multipart/mixed; boundary="===============1458934783==" MIME-Version: 1.0 Subject: 200d73bb To: rfatuct@georgebox.org bcc: bergkoch8@aol.com From: rfatuct@georgebox.org This is a multi-part message in MIME format. --===============1458934783== Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit gfmot --===============1458934783==-- ||rfatuct@georgebox.org|2 comment: 1125795073.93|217.218.155.73|fcllwn@georgebox.org Content-Type: multipart/mixed; boundary="===============1145341641==" MIME-Version: 1.0 Subject: af82fbb6 To: fcllwn@georgebox.org bcc: bergkoch8@aol.com From: fcllwn@georgebox.org This is a multi-part message in MIME format. --===============1145341641== Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit aisf --===============1145341641==-- |fcllwn@georgebox.org|fcllwn@georgebox.org||fcllwn@georgebox.org|2 comment: 1125795076.13|217.218.155.73|yidztq@georgebox.org|yidztq@georgebox.org|yidztq@georgebox.org||yidztq@georgebox.org|2 comment: 1125795078.29|217.218.155.73|cmvpgcrpd@georgebox.org|cmvpgcrpd@georgebox.org Content-Type: multipart/mixed; boundary="===============0219247626==" MIME-Version: 1.0 Subject: d5f8812a To: cmvpgcrpd@georgebox.org bcc: bergkoch8@aol.com From: cmvpgcrpd@georgebox.org This is a multi-part message in MIME format. --===============0219247626== Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit aiv --===============0219247626==-- |cmvpgcrpd@georgebox.org||cmvpgcrpd@georgebox.org|2 comment: 1125795080.55|217.218.155.73|ezrsfxet@georgebox.org|ezrsfxet@georgebox.org|ezrsfxet@georgebox.org||ezrsfxet@georgebox.org
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incomingTrackback: 1148441632.45|207.235.125.200|home equity debt consolidation|http://home-equity-debt-consolidation.yours-debt-consolidation.com/|home equity debt consolidation|catheters memorize.slumbered.thermodynamics:student loan consolidation http://www.yours-debt-consolidation.com/ |2 incomingTrackback: 1148442454.74|193.219.14.237|debt solutions|http://debt-solutions.yours-debt-consolidation.com/|debt solutions|ghastly invalidated lacking aloud Euler.debt consolidation http://debt-consolidation.debt-consolidation-agent.com/ |2 Metroid Prime 2 is one of those games where people ask me what I thought about it and I find it extremely easy to pack it all into a blurb: it is a very good game that is hardly a Metroid game at all. I like going on and on, though, so I'm going to elaborate a bit.

You've got your two basic factors that make a Metroid game Metroidy: one is the atmosphere, that feeling of exploring empty ruins while at the same time confronting something very active and threatening. The other is the gameplay, an experience that grows deeper as you gain abilities and learn to explore the environment that has existed around you for the whole game in new ways at every turn.

The thing that impressed me the most about Metroid Prime is how well it translated the atmosphere into 3D. Creatures, environments, data logs, and machinery that you nurse back to health part by part made the game come alive in ways that were both traditional and genuinely new. The scan visor was a mechanic of felicitous perfection, communicating the player's role in the experience and allowing that extra interaction with the environment that made it feel alive.

While all of the same elements are present in Metroid Prime 2, the game fails to use any of them well. The atmosphere that is so delicately and endearingly fleshed out this time around is that of a race of moth-man Chozo fanboys and a dark parallel universe version of their world. Parts of it, like the giant Luminoth Sanctuary with its Tron stylings and giant machinery, really work. Other parts, like uh... everywhere else, just feel generic and useless. That you are dispatched to these areas by some asshole who keeps doors locked like the fucking computer in Metroid Fusion does not help keep the Metroid feeling alive.

And this light/dark nonsense... it was really cool in A Link to the Past, and absolutely brilliant in Soul Reaver, but it was exactly the same in both of those games and it is exactly the same here. However well implemented it is, some annoying aspects of these systems are beginning to come to the forefront of the experience. For example, they're usually just ways to make an adjacent room really obnoxious to get to. Even the introduction of a limited teleport feature late in the game does little to reduce how absolutely infuriating it is to travel in this game, and the much-derided late-game fetch quest's misguidedness is intensified by this problem.

So we have a game with an uninteresting environment and a game mechanic that makes exploration difficult in a series that's all about exploration. It sounds like it's pretty much fucked, but it really does have a lot going for it. While the light beam/dark beam system is a little annoying and completely unimaginative (not only are the beams stupid on principle, they're actually just the plasma beam and the ice beam all over again), it does give the game a little of that old Ikaruga feeling in places. That said, in Ikaruga switching colors was fast and responsive, but in Metroid Prime 2 switching beams is just as slow and obnoxious as it was in Metroid Prime.

The thing that's done really, really, REALLY well here is the boss fights. They're sometimes frustratingly difficult (like the Boost Guardian, where the trick to winning is simple learning to survive on four or five energy tanks in a SUPREMELY hostile encounter), but some of them are works of great genius, using the game's existing mechanics to engineer puzzles that feel natural and don't abstract too much from the game's atmosphere. The Spider Guardian and Quadraxis are perfect examples of this, and they should actually go down in history as some of the best boss battles ever in video games. There's an interview at 1up where game director Mark Pacini mentions how much time and effort went into these battles, and how much input they got from the Nintendo home office about them. The effort shows, as I honestly haven't seen anything as great as Quadraxis since the grapple-beam kill of Draygon in Super Metroid.

One other thing worth mentioning is a regular enemy called the Rezbit. Like Quadraxis, going into too much detail would spoil the moment, so I'll just say that you'll know it when you see it and oh my Christ is it fucking cool. It's one of those moments where Retro uses both Metroid elements and the first-person perspective to their fullest, like when you see Samus's face reflected in her visor.

So how does it stand with Metroid? How does the game do at achieving those two qualities I mentioned earlier? Well, the atmosphere is inconsistent, but when it's on it's on. Music is used well and there are some brilliant moments, but the drab color schemes and trite level design often hold it back from really hitting a level of detail that I consider a hallmark of the series, so it's okay but not great on that point. The gameplay is drowned in contrivance and arbitrary restriction, surfacing only once in a while to let the player have his or her own experience with it. This is what hurts the game the most, although it should be said that it remains pretty fun the whole time.

I really like the game, and there are details that I really enjoy lauding. But I don't want the next Metroid game to be like this. Actually, I'd rather a lot of things be different in another Metroid game. Certain elements aren't as necessary as people might think (Samus, Metroids, the power suit, space pirates, etc.), and the same gameplay experience can be offered in different contexts within the same universe and timeline. And as long as they get someone to make a really interesting world and atmosphere, and if they really learn what it is that made Super Metroid one of the best games in existence to this day, I can't wait to see what they come up with. Metroid Prime 2 isn't there at all, but you can tell the whole time that the people who made it are the ones for the job.