Metroid Prime 3: Corruption for Nintendo Wii

I got Metroid Prime 3 about a month ago, since MP2: Echos left a bad taste in my mouth I was hesitant not to get to deep in this game fearing that I would bump into a part were I just got bored like echoes and quit. So I play a little bit every few days and well it never did happen, MP3 while not has good as the original out shines Echoes and improves upon a lot of the Metroid formula.

Story.
Samus Aran has been order to meet with a federation fleet in orbit around Norion. She is instructed along with 3 other bounty hunters the space pirates new strategy attack the Aurua network with a virus. Just in case you were wondering the mother brain was an Aurua computer, anyways Samus is ask to deliver the vaccine to rid these units of corruption. But that plan gets put on hold when Leviathan seeds head straight for Norion. Samus and the other hunters go there and save the planet from getting corrupted by Phazon. Unfortunately they run into Dark Samus and get hit by a strange beam she has. Samus wakes up 1 month later and finds out she has Phazon in her blood. This gives her new powers but it will slowly corrupt her in till she becomes like Dark Samus. In the mean time she has been given a mission to wipe out the Leviathan seeds on 2 other worlds and hunt down the 3 other hunters who have lost there minds to the corruption.

Unlike the previous 2 Metroid Prime games there is more story here and there are lot more cut scenes complete with voice acting. Samus never talks but those around here will do and if you have the help on she will constantly get advice from an Aurura computer on what to do next. Still like in the previous Metroid game a lot of the story is for you to find by scanning computer logs.

Graphics.
If there is one thing MP 3 does is show that the Wii graphics aren't has weak has everybody thinks. While by no means PS3 or 360 quality the graphics do stand out has the best looking since Twilight Princess. The textures are better, the colors are brighter, and there is a lot more motion and detail to a lot of structures in the game.

Sound.
While plenty of the old Metorid sound tracks remain a lot of new ones are put in place and they are all just has good. You can tell the game is going to be a bit of a different audio experience when you hear the new MP remix in the title screen. And the sound tracks that plays in places like Bryo are just plane memorable. The voice acting can be a bit over the top sometimes but I have heard a lot worse and it is one of the first Nintendo games to feature serious VA (sorry Mario little nonsical quotes don't count).

Gameplay
Ok the first thing you should know is Nintendo and Retro have listen to a lot of complaints about Echos and have fixed them, in some cases they went a little to far and made the game a bit on the easy side, but I'll take things like starting in the same room with the boss when I die then backtracking half an hour to have a rematch with the boss that killed me.

Next to that they also took some cues from there number 1 copycat franchise Castlevania, mainly Portrait of ruin. Rather then one large confusing mess of a world to explore and track through the game is separated into several smaller planets that are easier to explore through. They also made back tracking easier by having landing pads were Samus can call her ship with the command visor, get into the ship and she can fly to another part of the planet making back tracking a lot easier and a lot less tedious.

So they got rid of the two things that made Echoes crap now the big question how do the motions control due. Well if you keep them on beginner your better off with the cube controller, switching to advance and the controls move fast and increase the enjoyability of the game. The standard point and click to shoot like you expect from the Wii is fully used here. The nunchucks motion sensing is also used for the grabble beam during the game you will be expected to swing it back and forth to pull stuff off or to swing on the rope. The controls feel fluid and it does improve the game play. Switching visors is also easy has holding down the minus and flipping the controller in a direction is all it takes, weapons all mash up like they do in the 2d ones so other then your hyper beam there is no weapon pick ups.

The controls also go to activate switches and press buttons, they can be cool most of the time, especially being able to play around with a few of the controls in Samus ship. But there are a few times especially when you are required to push and pull were they can be a chore. There is one puzzle in the game that requires you to pull, turn, and push with a federation solider, since the game isn't exactly smooth on this move this part took me 20 minutes to complete. This is probably the only time the controls felt like they were broken.

All your favorite old power ups return like the morph ball which controls just like it did in the previous 2 games and there are plenty of morph ball puzzles and items to use. Other things that were added in the 2nd like the screw attack are here, but it's not the overall kick butt weapon that it use to be. In the 2d games hitting an enemy with a screw attack is usually fatal or does a lot of damage, here hitting an enemy while doing the screw attack seems to do more damage to you. The screw attack is pretty much a way to get over large obstacles then it is an attack, oh well it looks cools and it's easy to control and perform.

The newest feature in the game comes from Samuses corruption which allows her to use hyper weapons she picks up. Her most common weapon is of course the hyper beam, but you can pick up bombs and missile upgrades. To use this you have to have more then one energy tank of energy and press for a minute and you go in hyper mode, your beam gets a major upgrade in power and you find beating even the toughest opponents easy, it can be a quite a crutch but Nintendo added in a few catches to using it. First off a full hyper beam bar cost 1 energy tank, while up against a hoard of pirates it's usually better just to turn it on and start wailing on them, but up against common enemies it's better to use a blaster and missiles. The 2nd cost is that if you use hyper beam to long the phazon in Samus will overload, 2 things you can do when this happens, A fire has fast has you can in till all the phazon is gone and accept the lost of the energy tank, or B keep track of the red bar filling and fire only when it gets full eventually hyper mode ends on it own. The 2nd option can save you energy but you have to be clever because if the bar fills up Samus will be terminally corrupted and a short scene of her transforming into Dark Samus will play before a game over sign appears. Some pirate weapons will automatically take you to over load if you get hit, this is good because a few hits of the A button and you have free phazon, bad if your in the middle of jumping around in screw attack formation. The hyper mode is a bit of crutch but it's a good addition to the game and I like the fact that if you use it to much you can die, either from running out of energy or from corruption.

Like the previous 2 games there are extras to be unlocked by scanning anything and everything. This time though the system is handle much better. First off the game gives you tokens when you scan things or accomplish mission objectives you can use these tokens to purchase the extras. And there are some nice extras this time including turning your mii into a bobble head that sits in Samuses ship.

The 2 bad things in the game are next to the somewhat frustrating mini game that you have to play with a federation solider is the game is a bit on the short side. While I didn't go out of my way to pick up a lot of power ups, the game took me only 12 hours to complete, which is a bit shorter then the first two games. The 2nd happens to be I am a very left handed guy and while Zelda and RE4 worked well holding the Wii remote in my right hand because I didn't have to hold it up at the screen all the time, Metroid does require you to hold it steady at the screen. Long play times would really cramp my right hand, and holding the wii remote in the left hand was a bit disorienting since Samus blaster is animated on the right side of the screen, Nintendo needs to make left handed versions of there games.

Final Recommendation.
The motion controls do work and work well in Metroid Prime 3. Also all the stuff I hated about MP2 has been fixed with Samsuses ship allowing easy transportation to many areas and planets on the map. It's a bit on the easy and short side but considering how hard MP2 was and how long it dragged on I don't consider it has a necessarily bad thing. If you're a die hard Metorid fan this is definitely worth a pick up.