[Review] Metroid: Other M

Before I start this review, it should go without saying that the Metroid series is one of my all-time favorites. I remember playing Metroid on the NES way back in the day, and loving every second of it. The exploration, the new, alien-like world and enemies, the sweet ass upgrades….

Pictured above: Sweet ass upgrades.

I’ve played just about every Metroid game, even rom hacks, and thoroughly enjoyed every single one of them. Super Metroid will hands down be my favorite forever. However, a new Metroid game is out! Words can’t describe how excited I am…




….to be done with this game!

Didn't see that coming...

 Yes, it’s a bad Metroid game. There’s never been a bad Metroid game. I prefer some over others definitely, but none of them would I describe as awful. I can disappointingly say that this game is awful.
Where exactly? Well, let’s break it down. This is the first attempt to flesh out Samus as a character, and it’s all downhill. The game’s introductory sequence is awesome and promising; recounting the last battle with Mother Brain in Super Metroid. It’s a nice nostalgia trip. Then you’re greeted with the game itself.
First, you control Samus by putting the Wiimote sideways. 1 and 2 shoot Samus’ beam and make Samus jump, respectively. It works, and isn’t a bad scheme when you see the way the game is presented. In a pseudo 3D style, the game still sticks to 2D elements. You might think, “HOW THE HELL does that work? The game is already bad!!” It works by being overly simple. You shoot in a direction, and Samus auto aims to her targets. Again, very simple…

RIGHT IN THE FACE

 First thing you will notice is that you can’t switch to missiles. How is this achieved? By twisting the Wiimote back around, and pointing at the screen. The game goes into a first person mode, and it’s there you can fire missiles. I can’t even begin to explain how clunky and retarded this is. Not only can you not move in this mode, but in heated and intense battles, YOU DON’T HAVE TIME FOR SHIT LIKE THIS. Not to mention, you have to use the B trigger to lock on to the enemy first, THEN use A to fire the missile. It’s slow, and it subtracts from the otherwise acceptable combat.

This mode is also used for a variety of things in the game. You use it to scan the environment, which I’m using the term “scan” lightly because, unlike the Prime series where EVERYTHING could be scanned, this game reduces it to linearity for the sole purpose of continuing. For example, an hour into the game, I’m greeted by a cutscene which I accidentally skip, and then go into scan mode. Can’t move. Can’t do anything. So what am I supposed to do?

Turns out, I’m supposed to be scanning for something in the area, which happened to be a puddle of green liquid. I call these moments “pixel hunts” because that’s exactly what they are. You’ll swing the Wiimote all over looking at shit until FINALLY you get a confirmation that you’ve found something. I call it pixel hunt too because even if you’re on the object you need to scan, you need to be precisely on a certain spot with the cursor for it to register. These moments break up the intensity and do NOT belong at all. It’s a gimmick to add more gameplay but ends up being frustrating and only to move the shitty story along.

I’m saving the story for last, so lets focus on the graphics and gameplay some more. Graphically, the game is pretty great. Samus animates fluidly, as do her enemies, and the beams look awesome. The hud portrays everything quite nicely, and the CG cutscenes are gorgeous. However, the game’s settings are very subpar compared to the Prime series, and even Super Metroid. The Bottleship, the game’s main setting, is boring and generic. A lot of corridors look the same, and even when you get to go other locales in the ship, like the pyrosphere and snowsphere, they’re still lifeless. However, there are a few awe inspiring moments, like coasting a morph-ball passage along the side of the ship and seeing the whole galaxy in the background.
The gameplay is another thing though, and it’s here where story and gameplay go together, and the results break the game completely. There’s a move called the “sensemove”, and with it you can beast through this game without dying once. It’s done by tapping a direction on the D-Pad right before Samus is hit. The problem is, you can mash the D-Pad and NEVER be hit because this move requires no timing. Sure you can be late, but you will find it so easy to execute that never will you fail to use it. Along with this, you get an instant charge on your beam from executing the sensemove. This makes combat a repetitive “dodge, shoot charged beam until enemy dies” circle that continues the whole game, and is used on bosses as well. That’s ridiculous. The Prime series had bosses that required some pattern recognition to best, and clever uses of beams and visors to overcome. Other M however, you spam the routine “sensemove, charge beam” until the boss dies. It’s not fun, and it reduces big bosses like Phantoon to child’s play.

I'm back! Oh wait...

First let me get the greeting out of the way.

My name is Corey, but online I go by R4L. Or Waffle, depending where you go. I don't know... My username has become a base of such classic nicknames such as Raffle, and Waffle. Oh yes... you can feel the awesomeness, just by the italics I used... I switch between them in the IRC so much that they're starting to grow personalities for themselves. Good thing I have protection just in case they become sentient. *cocks shotgun*

DoomGuy won't let that shit happen...

Anyway, my good friend Jama helped me out by inviting me to this blog. Thanks again man! I want to write game reviews, because I just beat one of the worst games ever, and ironically, it's from one of my favorite franchises. Paradox!

So, let this first post be a toast to great things to come. Hopefully. I don't know. This is the first time I've ever done this. Let the reviews begin!

Don't get DoomGuy started...

 I have a tumblr in process, and a Facebook page where you can see my daily activities, along with seeing me bitch about random things like girlfriends and stuff. Check them out if you dig my posts or just can't stand to look at anything other than me for 3 seconds. Actually, maybe you should stay away if that's the case. :S

Belisario's Introduction

Hi, I am Belisario93. I’ll start off by saying I don’t game in quite the same way Jama or Uncloudthesky do. I primarily play racing simulators (iRacing, rFactor) and racing games that aim towards simulation (Gran Turismo, Dirt 3). That said, I do quite enjoy platformers and some action/adventure titles. In terms of consoles I have, I own a PS2 and a PS3 (though the PS3 YLOD’d a while ago and I need to fix it), though lately I’ve primarily been gaming on my PC. There is a Wii in my household as well, but I hardly use it. I’ve also owned an SNES, Gameboy Color, Gameboy Advance, GBA SP, PSX, PSOne, and a Sega Saturn.

The Franchise Debate

Gaming is a strange creature when it comes to franchises. Gamers will say that series X needs to die, or that Series Y is past it's prime and needs to just fade away.

A few series come to mind when I think about franchises that people think need to die.

Call of Duty and Final Fantasy.

A thought occurs to me concerning call of Duty. It seems that they're (Activision) are taking an annual sports game approach to it. It's just a tuning on the multiplayer, with a token single player campaign. in the same vein, playing the career mode in Madden can be seen as training to help you grasp the game before you take on your friends. If we look at Call of Duty from this perspective, why doesn't it deserve to be made each year in the same vein of a Madden or an MLB The Show? I think since it isn't seen as a sports title, it doesn't deserve that sort of reasoning for an annual release. The last two Madden releases (Madden 11, and Madden 12) both sold millions of copies. While nowhere near the explosive sales of the last two Call of Duty games, it's still showing that annual releases make money, despite being just a small visual upgrade, updated roster, and tweaks to gameplay. If you look at the maps as the "roster" of the Call of Duty games, the update seams a little more reasonable.

Now I'll stop going in circles to mention something that irks me about the series. A Call of Duty game that's a year old will still sell new for 50-60 dollars. Compare this to a new sports title that sells for around $20 after it's been out a year. This is what irks me. I can still see Modern Warfare II selling for $20 new... It's a unique situation where you have a game that's almost the same as a sports game (Hell, they should just start calling it "Call of Duty 2013"), but it's treating each game as if it's a separate series.

Now, do I think that Call of Duty should die? No, no I don't. It has a right to exist, and Activision would be stupid to stop making them. The games are consistently among the top selling games each year, so throwing that revenue away would just be dumb. Would I like to see a little more difference between the titles, yeah, sure. But why would you change what works? That's like telling an NHL game to to change some core values around all the time. The NHL series has been praised as one of the best sports franchises around because EA Canada has the core mechanics down to near-perfection. What they do is add more, subtle, realities to the game. Stick breaking on some shots, screening the goalie, checking over the boards... Little details, but help refine the game to feel authentic. I feel that Call of Duty is reaching that same platform. I hear people saying that Black Ops multiplayer was really balanced, so they could experiment or tweak the gameplay to make things more realistic or fun.

The biggest issue for this though, is that they have different developers for their games. Between Treyarch and Infinity Ward, they have two different teams working on different versions. This means that gamers can't get a consistency with their games because the formulas make subtle shifts each year.


To get away from the Call of Duty talk now, we're going to take a look at the Final Fantasy series. This series has been around since 1988 or so. There are 16 games in the main numbered series (1-14 + x-2 and 13-2). Add with that the side series like Tactics, Mystic Quest, and some remakes, you get a lot of games released for this series. Now, some would say that many games might be too many, but there are differences that differentiate each game from each other.

Because I've already documented the differences, I'm just going to leave these here...

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

The changes may be subtle, but they are large enough to be noticeable. Switch from I to II, you go from standard fight => levelup formula to Fight => skill-up based on what you use. From II to III you lose the skill-ups, but you gain a primary class system. From III to IV, you go back to standard Fight => Level-Up, but you gain a diverse cast of individuals with their own skills and special abilities.

Simple changes, but enough to notice differences.

Now, how does this play into "this franchise needs to die"?

Simple really, if a game can keep making simple to substantial modifications to the RPG formula they helped define, they aren't stagnating. They're changing things up. Final Fantasy XI, an MMO that predates World of Warcraft, XII, attempts to bring combat without the "whoosh effect" and being transported to a special battleground. It also allows you to customize how the AI behaves. XIII brings back a class system with a huge twist, being able to change during combat. You can bemoan that the stories aren't as good, or that they focus too much on graphics, but you can't really say they aren't doing anything with the series. The benefit of the series is that the games are all independent of one another, apart from the sequels.

Is this a series that I think should die? Nope. This is another series that has a wealth of ideas they could return to. If they wanted to make a game with a classic job system, they could. If they want to keep trying new things, yeah, they have that option. A big problem though, is people becoming jaded to the point where nothing can live up to the games they played first.

But Nostalgia... that's a topic for another time.

Humor in games

As I write this, I'm still uncertain as what I'm talking about, so this may ramble.

I like video games that can handle heavy issues, but by that same token, I also like games that can make me laugh. Like, genuinely laugh with good writing and situations.

I think Eastern RPGs are better at this than the American made ones.

I get the feeling that a lot of North American based RPGs go for this overt, heavy-handedness that is fine and all, but when the game feels like it's always weighting down on you, you need a reprieve. And this is where the pacing of the game comes into play.

I'm going to reference some games below, so I'm going to try to avoid major spoilers, but I promise nothing.

You have been warned.

We're going to start off with an easy example. The Opera Scene from Final Fantasy VI. The setup, one of your main characters (Celes) is going to portray the role of the Opera's lead actress Maria. She does this, because they need to coerce the pilot of one of the only airships in the world to help them. The ruse works because Setzer, the rogue, is in love with Maria and is going to kidnap her during this performance.

Now, amidst all this, the main goal of the party is to get to a floating continent and stop the madness of the Emperor and Kefka. Hence the need for the airship. Pretty urgent stuff right?

Well even with all this chaos going on, the game manages to be funny. Back at the opera house, Celes is trying to act out the main role in the Opera. At times, the game will prompt the user for input on the lines. If you read the script beforehand, you should be able to pick out the proper lines. If you're feeling a little curious, you get some amusing dialogue that's pretty dissonant to the theme of the show. Even funnier is what happens if you purposfully botch the dialogue roughly 3 times. You get a game over. Seriously. That's hilarious to me. You have to reload your game... because you can't remember lines properly.

The in game reasoning is because you blew your cover, but whatever, that's boring.


Persona 3

The entire premise of this game is that the world is going to end in one year, and you're the only one who knows this. Throughout the school year, you partake in normal school behavior during the day, and basically demon slaying at night. This naturally leads itself to some interesting changes from the urgency of the Shadows, to the humors of a standard high school life. You're entire party could be brooding for a week due to circumstances, but them it's a trip to Kyoto as a class trip! And here is where the boys get caught in the hotsprings spying on the girls. The changes aren't too extreme, but they're natural enough to make you appreciate how the game shifts.

To give a quick counterpoint, Bethesda games like Fallout and Oblivion, (core game only) have yet to really make me chuckle or laugh at what's going on. Yes, I get it, the world is huge, but it seems to be lacking something. The random happenings that make things funny. Things like seeing a person trip up the stairs would be a nice touch. What about having events tied to specific days of the year? I know Oblivion kept track of time, it could've had a festival of some sort that wasn't story driven.

I know JRPGs get a lot of crap for being linear and pre-planned, but sometimes the writing makes the game world feel so much more alive than a huge open world game.

I'm going to cite a Western game that gets humor right though. Portal. The game is legitimately funny. The writing is great, and it has this nice contrast to the core game.

Contrast I think is one part of gaming that can be overlooked by developers sometimes. The furthest some games go into humor is a quick quip or one liner, but not scenarios where humor can naturally occur.

I know I've rambled a bit here, but writing this made me realize that I appreciate a game that can blend humor in with foreboding. It makes for a nice break in the sense of dread, and can sometimes help spur me on.

Choice in Gaming

I touched on this briefly in a comment I made on the FPS post, but I figured I could go into more detail here.

Choice is a huge part of gaming. From playing Monopoly, to Dungeons and Dragons, to your favorite video games, you want to have a direct impact on what's going on around you. In Monopoly, it's deciding whether to build, buy, or even to sit in jail for a turn. In essence, your choice is shaping every aspect of the game within the confines of the rules. In a tabletop RPG, you can go about your missions via diplomacy, stealth, guns blazin' or any other option you can think of. But it seems when it comes to video games, you always run into a section where the choice you would make, isn't a choice presented to you.

The reason for this is obvious: if a developer tried to come up with tons of potential options for every situation, the game would require many, many disks (even on Blu-ray) and a monstrous budget to cover all the art objects, animation differences, voice acting... everything.

Well, why isn't this an issue in board games? Well, for one, they have clear-cut, concrete rules. You can't steal in Monopoly, because you'd face repercussions from your friends.

Obviously, choice isn't really an issue in a tabletop RPG, because 90% of what happens is based off choice. Don't want to shoot the monster? Go ahead and pistol whip him, or try to push him off a building edge. Want to bail and leave your team to die? Seen it happen. Want to steal from allies? Totally possible if you play your cards right.

But what about a video game? Let's say I'm having a conversation with this dude and I don't like him, and I just want to end it abruptly. Well, if the game doesn't give me the option to shoot the guy in the face, I can't. And this always seems to happen... The player sees the bad guy early in the game, but can't do anything about it, even when fully armed. If you're playing a character that doesn't care what happens to themselves, why shouldn't you be able to try to take down a bad guy, even if he has guards outside the door?

I know you've all come across this sort of situation, where you WANT to do something, but you CAN'T. Sometimes, for me at least, it can break the flow of the game. Wouldn't you just LOVE to be able to ignore the shoehorned in love story, because it doesn't feel right? Or how about being able to have more choice than being either Paragon of Justice or Giant Douchebag? I'd LOVE to see a morally grey area explored. The problem with the Morality systems (inFamous, Mass Effect) is that they only reward people who follow along one path. If you think about all the shades between "Good" and "Evil", you really are leaving about a huge chunk of options. Sometimes people only act a specific way to unlock the next power or reward in that alignment. If given the option to save the bad-guy from falling off a bridge or killing him, a la Scar from Lion King, if I'm playing a reasonable character, I'd kill him. But in doing so, I'd earn Evil points, and gain nothing if I've been relatively good up to that point.

So, why should I be penalized for not following the strict moral code? i hope that in the future, when hardware increases, we'll be allowed the option where we can be in the middle of the morality scale and not be "behind" our Evil/Good counterparts in terms of strength. Sometimes it's cathartic to do something bad, especially when we feel justified doing it after having our good efforts undermined by the douche. As often in real life, decisions are not black and white, so I wish I could hold my games to that standard... But I can't. I know of the limitations, I know of the costs, but... It doesn't stop me from desiring it. A game where the main character reacts to a situation in a way where it feel natural to the persona I have carved for them.

I feel grateful though, to tabletop RPGs for allowing these morally grey areas to exist. You may not agree, enjoy, or even like hearing about them, so if that's the case, feel free to skip these next paragraphs.

I'm going to give an example of a situation where Agency was in full force. Agency is the concept that the players are in a world where their decisions have actual consequences. In a DnD game with some friends, I was playing a thief who was paranoid of people, especially those close to him. One friend was playing a boisterous Warlord (kept the party alive), and a stoic Ranger (NEEDS MORE DPS). One day, I felt a bit slighted by the Warlord, so one night, while we had camp made up, I slipped a note to the DM, and made my roll, and ended up stealing 500 gold from him. He had no idea it was missing until the next time he tried to go shopping for gear. In retaliation (he found out that I stole from him when he saw my fancy new stuff), he decided to steal stuff back from me. He ended up taking a few gems from me. Well, to be fair, I 'loaned' them to him so he could get new gear (and pay me back with interest of course), but he said that he was going to pay me back. I snuck into his room at the mansion we were guests at, took the gems, and set fire to his gear. Naturally, the whole room went up in flames, his weapons he crafted for selling melted, and he lost a lot of non-combat gear.

Now, this whole chain of events was entirely detrimental to the group, but it was fun. It was in the character's personae to act this way. Why should my paranoid Rogue trust that he'll be paid back? Why should an honorable, seasoned Warlord take that kind of guff from a guy who's only along due to circumstance? When a character takes a persona all of their own, choice becomes much more powerful, and Agency is in full effect.

That's the kind of experience I want to have one day. I know a multiplayer experience like this is long out of reach, but a single player experience where are choices aren't confined on such a binary scale. Hell, I'd settle for a triangle shaped morality meter, one that offered a third option. Like acting out of Greed, Charity, or Violence.

April 20th News Podcast

New news Podcast under the Podcast page.

Topics include

Call of Duty

EA

Madden

StarCraft II

And more!