Metroid: Other M

I'm sixteen years old, I was born into a generation of technology and video games. As a kid you couldn't avoid Mario or Donkey Kong, even in poor places like Juarez, Chihuahua (where I was raised). I played an NES, a Super Nintendo and a Nintendo 64, but the only games I ever heard of were Mario, Zelda, Donkey Kong, and Pokemon. Only recently did I first play a Metroid game, the first game I played was Metroid Prime for the Nintendo Gamecube. After playing this game I was immediate fan, I was also happy because I had finally found out who this Samus Aran was from Super Smash Brothers. I loved this game, so the obvious thing to do is to get the rest of the Prime series and the classics on WiiWare, and I did.

I did love all these, Metroid starting out as a side-scrolling game, and later unto a first-person perspective. As I played these games I slowly pieced the story together, then I thought of something: Who is Samus Aran? It's only been about a year since I asked this question but it bugged me all the same, Samus has always been an icon for many females because of her non-sexist portrayal and I agree, but who is she really, we never got a story on her, on the woman behind the mask. I was, like many other gamers, shocked to find out that Samus was indeed a woman, the character of Samus was just so cold, and robotic like that it seemed to be a male. One thing i did not like a bout Samus though was that she seemed like a robot and not the human being she is, Other M changes that.

The game Metroid: Other M continues after Super Metroid, it starts right at the final fight with Mother Brain in which the baby Metroid from Metroid II: Return of Samus sacrifices it's life for Samus. Now, even though the game takes place after Super Metroid we still see a lot of her past and current feelings, and I got to say I actually like this human Samus. She has feelings, she's torn apart by her experiences, and come on, who wouldn't? Don't get me wrong though, just because she has feelings and is a tad depressed, doesn't mean she's not the kick-ass, bad ass heroine we have grown to love. She is still as awesome and as strong as ever.

Now on to the game itself. I'm going to talk about four things: the controls, the story, the gameplay, and the presentation, first let's talk about the controls. Metroid: Other M wanted players to have a great time playing a challenging game without challenging controls. In this game you hold the Wiimote sideways and only use the d-pad, 1 and 2 buttons, A button, B button, and the + button, in my opinion it's not too much. I'm proud to say that the controls are very responsive and some are pretty easy to use. Shooting, using the Morph Ball, and many of Samus' other gadgets are just one button press away, as are the awesome melee combat moves.

Secondly I'm going to talk about the story. Metroid: Other M is the most story-driven Metroid game out there, and there is nothing wrong with that. The story is great, it shows what is going on behind the scenes of the world's favorite heroine. They added a ton of feeling into the game, and there is actual character development. Even though Samus is alone most of the time you do get to meet a couple different characters, although I can't say you'll grow to like them much, but you do grow a lot closer to Samus.

Now, let's talk about the gameplay, shall we? The gameplay is great, there's no doubt about it, but it's not without it's faults. Metroid: Other M goes back to it's side-scrolling roots and it feels great. The world is not just side-scroller, it's also in full 3-D and it's not all that bad. There are many good things on the gameplay but my first complaint in it is the auto-lock. For some reason the auto-lock feature made me feel like it took away from some of the difficulty that could have been in this game, don't get wrong, it's helpful but I still miss the old free-aim of the old Metroid. Secondly another complaint I have on the gameplay is the third-person view mode. This mode is great in the Metroid Prime series, but it didn't work perfectly in this game, for one you have to be in this mode to shoot missiles, that's it, no other way. Another thing about this is that you cannot move, you are standing still while in this mode which makes it a bit hard to use in a heated battle, this made me wish the should have added the nunchuck to this game. I congratulate Team Tecmo's Ninja for doing this though, it definitely adds new depth to the game environment. My last and most infuriating complaint is the one on the recharge, what the hell! You no longer have to get missiles or health balls from fallen enemies anymore, when you're out of missiles or low on health you just point the Wiimote up and press the A button. By doing this you regain all your missiles and your health goes back up to 99, this is probably my least favorite addition to this game but, you know, other than these three things the game was very fun to play.

Lastly I'm going to talk about how the game was presented. This is yet another game that proves that the Wii can have very beautiful graphics. The cutscenes in this game were rendered with great graphics, and very spot on details. Another thing that was kind of weird was that this game has voice acting. I wasn't very enthusiastic about this, but I have to admit the voices were done very well, bravo Ninja. The environments were beautiful and very full of life, or no life at all, which was done very well. I have to say this is probably the most enjoying Metroid game I have ever played and I loved it. I highly recommend this game, and even more to Metroid fans, I'm pretty sure your going to have a blast.

Final Score: 8.5/10