984th played so far

Genre: Action/First-Person Shooter
Platform: Wii
Year of Release: 2007
Developer: Retro Studios/Nintendo
Publisher: Nintendo

I’ve felt a bit ambivalent about Metroid Prime. Not because of the series itself, but because its Wii controls are quite bad and I’m glad that after having a short go at it, I switched to Gamecube controls for Metroid Prime 2 and had a lovely time in its large 3D worlds.

Metroid Prime 3 is Wii only and introduced the controls these other entries got in the port. I hope the world will stand up against it.

Our Thoughts

I can be honest, the Metroid Prime Wii controls don’t work any better because the game was made for it. Pointing at the edges of your screen to change your view, for example, really doesn’t work nicely, for example, and the sweeping motions and pointing means that my wrist couldn’t play the game for too long. It doesn’t help that the lock on doesn’t work properly a lot of the time, which is bad if you don’t get a proper way to look around either. It was all so awkward and unclear that I couldn’t stand it after a while.

What pushes that further is that the world of Metroid Prime 3 isn’t as interesting as the previous games. There are some interesting touches, but so much takes place in a powerplant at the start, rather than the desert old-mechanical world from the previous game that this series doesn’t work as well.

Final Thoughts

It feels bad to be brief as I end the Metroid franchise, but it feels like the third game in the series is a step backwards. The second game does it better, without causing RSI, and I just never really felt like I was playing something here that I really enjoyed.