Metroid Prime 3: Corruption (Wii, 2007)

I received a Wii for my birthday. I was hyped up to play my favorite game on it: Super Smash Bros. Brawl. Once I beat it I noticed the problems of the Wii. One big problem with the Wii was the games. As you may know, the Wii is the best-selling video game system out of itself, the PS3, and the 360. This is largely due to its casual audience. The causal audience is fond of games like Wii Sports, Cooking Mama, etc. Video games, in my opinion, are supposed to be for the hardcore audience - the people who like Brawl, Killzone 2, Halo 3, etc. Nintendo realized that it could earn LOTS of money by producing casual games and attracting the other people that normally don't play video games. Thus, the Wii has sold a lot of casual games.

The problem with all of this is that I'm a hardcore fan. Stuck with the Wii, I couldn't find any good hardcore games. As a hardcore fan, I looked for some hardcore games. I have been with Nintendo for a long time by owning a Game Boy Advance, a Gamecube, a DS, and now a Wii, and through that experience I learned that Nintendo games are almost always excellent (most get about 9.5 or higher out of 10 in reviews.) Thus I picked all the hardcore series on the Wii, which was two: The Legend of Zelda and Metroid. Both were fun to play. However, I played Zelda lots of times before, so I got the feel of it. I never played Metroid before, which made me interested in Metroid. Also, the fact that it's a shooter made me interested. By the time I decided on Metroid, I was comparing 360/PS3 games to the few Wii hardcore games. Metroid got me excited, because I could compare it to a shooter that is probably the best shooting video game of all time: Halo 3. Both Halo and Metroid both had amazing graphics (Halo 3's graphics was better because of the 360. However, Metroid's graphics was hailed as the best on the Wii). They were both sci fi shooters too, with aliens. Thus, I decided to buy Metroid Prime 3: Corruption.

I liked how the Wii remote's pointer capacities were used in Metroid Prime 3. In the beginning, I enjoyed the gameplay and the graphics. Afterwards I started noticing the problems.

You can't save whenever you want. You must be at Samus's ship or at a save station to save. They are at least 40 minutes of gameplay away from each other, and since I had a fixed time period of one hour to play in, I often got frustrated. Another thing is the doors. It was often mentioned that the blue doors took a long time to open. They often take 1-10 seconds to load. However, I don't mind them that much. The times I despised the doors was when an enemy was shooting me as I desperately waited for the doors to open so I could escape. Also, the game is hard, especially for me, who is a beginner to Metroid. For example, in a boss battle, I was supposed to, in morph ball form, plant bombs on a boss's stomach. However, before I knew that, it was frustrating, since the game gave no hints whatsoever to planting the bombs.

But there are many more good parts. Weapons are diverse. Puzzles are diverse. You will get an amazing first person shooter on the Wii. The adventure is cool as you travel across landscapes. And it takes a long time to beat, thankfully (I hate short games). If you're a hardcore fan, get this. If you're a fan of the series, get this. Even if you're not, it's a good game - it’s filled with awesome gameplay and graphics. But be prepared to constantly look at a walkthrough as you play through this game.

And the final statement of the Prime series comes! Right at the introduction you see what's coming, an epic and totally worthy Metroid game, the music and the introduction itself are great, they bring a thrilling felling right at the start, new characters are introduced, new areas, and of course new weapons!

The graphics are sharp, not the best you can see comparing with others consoles, and maybe not even fulfilled by all the power Wii can show, but still beautifully crafted with the visuals more shiny than ever, the light and bright effects were nicely done, and comparing with the previous GameCube games, graphically speaking this may be the most noticeable improvement since the improvements were pretty much little details.

The controls are the top innovation in the game, of course possible by the Wii's controls, and it fits perfectly in the game! My far was that the controls would become imprecise and uncomfortable, but that's not the case fortunately, the controls are tight and incredibly well-responsive, and the adaptations made for turning the main mechanisms possible actually fits perfectly, since we don't have a backup control stick and a digital pad in a very comfortable position for the bean and visor change, and now the bean change is definitive and the visor change occurs when you press and hold the "-" button; missiles are shot by pressing down in the d-pad (the easiest button to reach), hyper mode in the "+" and so on.

Sound effects and music is something to be considered in a Metroid Prime, and like Metroid Prime 2, this game fail a little at this aspect, it's not really bad, but most of the later moments the music almost feels like it's not there, sound effects always great as usual, but the music is not memorable and addictive as the first Metroid Prime, more at the beginning in Bryyo you can listen to some great music, some kind of thrilling obscure chant, and it's great, not holding up until the end though, making you stand there wishing for more musics like that.

Another bad thing about the game is the lenght, it's a very short game, even comparing with the other Metroid Prime, it's easily not just the shortest of the tree, but the easiest as well; but the good thing is that it demands a second playthrough, maybe even more, to get 100%, and good thing, now you get to keep your scans after beating the game, you start in the same file and stay with logs, creatures, pirates data you have, but the items you have to get again anyway. Another good thing is phazon, remember how annoying it was? Not anymore because, like the name of the game suggests, Samus is now corrupted and phazon recovers your energy now!

We can not forget about multiplayer, and better, the lack of multiplayer, yes, even though the second game had a simple multiplayer mode, this one not even that, a shame because it could use the internet connection for some good online action, the main focus of the series is not multiplayer anyway, but we could use an online multiplayer mode, even more now that we don't need to keep closing the aim to shoot while moving, we could really use an online multiplayer, but truth be said, the single player holds up well the game.

The main mechanisms of the game are there, energy tanks, missile expansions, hi-fi ambients, lots of rooms with their respective names, mighty bosses to be defeated and all you would expect from a Metroid prime, if you played the previous games and enjoyed them you should play this!!

What a game! I just bought this game and as soon as I turned it on I was blown away. I have played all the Metroid games and this is by far the best one. The new innovations with the nunchuck and wiimote throw you into the adventure like never before. Interacting with objects and enemies has never been done like this. Rip shields off with the nunchuck and then point and blast your enemies away. Simple controls make it a game that anyone can pick up and play. Mostly point and shoot with alot of puzzle solving and exploring and a pretty good story line if you have followed the series. This is the first one to offer voice acting and it adds that little extra to an already great game. For those of you familiar with the franchise, if you pay attention everything comes together from the pervious games. The slight learning curve is made even easier as the game starts you out with a basic walk through of the controls and some in game text. This is a game that you dont want to pass up every one has been complaining that there arn't any good games out for Wii, well here it is I would put this game right up next to Zelda TP. If you are a fan of the series or just want a great game this is the game for you.

I have have been playing the Metroid series since I was a little boy. I have seen it go from simple block graphics to state of the art HD 3D graphics. This game is just another great addition to the Metroid family. Perfect for any type of player from the beginner to the advanced. I decided to by this game because I had recently purchased a Wii and I'm glad I did. I gave this a 5 star rating for endless hours of fun and challenging game play along with its detailed graphics. I only wished you could use the classic controller with it because sometimes the sensor bar does not connect well using the remote and nun-chuck. If you own a Wii this should be among your game library.

Great game. If you dont' like any other metroid game, this game isn't going to be for you. It's the same format. First new weapons, energy and missle upgrades, morph into the ball and worm your way through small passages, that sort of thing.

The controls were a little tricky to get used to at first but once I figured them out it worked like second nature. Samus looks in the direction the controller is pointed at the screen so it took some getting used to. I did learn the hard way If I sat too far from the screen, samus would go spinning. Now that I have the controls figured out I really how they are set up. Very innovative.