Metroid Prime

The Good
Fun, fun, fun. Metroid Prime oozes fun, the graphics are gorgeous and the environments sprawling and full of little alcoves and nooks to explore. Enemies are nicely rendered however I do have a couple of qualms with them. The puzzles are ingenious and involve you rolling around in morph ball mode or finding and shooting runes to activated doors. Boss battles are pretty epic and normally involve 2 or 3 different forms.

The Bad
The game is short I finished it in 6 or so hours the first time I played it through. This is a shame aswell because the game feels so epic and then all of a sudden it's just over. Additionally enemies are pretty dumb, the insect based ones will float around or crawl around and run into you to attack you. Shooting enemies will hide behind things to a degree or stand out in the open and shoot at you, one thing I did like was the fact that some will fall when shot and turn around and continue shooting from their prone position but otherwise they are quite stupid. It's also hard to die as nearly all enemies will drop health replinishing items or missiles which are pretty devastating provided you have the room to store them.

The Bottom Line
Metroid Prime is a great FPS. I don't think it really revolutionizes the genre but it feels fresh and most of all it feels like a game you want to keep playing. Unfortunately the game is so short you can't keep playing it and you walk away feeling unfulfilled. A nice aesthetic, great gameplay and a fistful of great ideas more than compensates for this though.

The Good
There is nothing to dislike about this game, it is such a perfect piece of gaming history. Once you have played this stunning adventure every other first person game is instantly exposed as a boring piece of faecel matter. Those critical of it point to it's flawed control system which is utter nonsense. At first it is alien to the usual 1'st person controls but over time it becomes as unique as the game itself. The simple lock on mechanism invites you to explore new tactics in defeating enemies and the game is the first to ever properly allow you to jump. The way that Samus' abilities are re-introduced to you and their timing make the whole journey so fresh and interesting. There is a lot of backtracking and trying to work out the best way to go using the map system was a little frustrating but the acquisition of a new skill such as the double jump make it quicker and more enjoyable. You notice the 'Nintendo' difference when rolling Samus into a ball for the first time and enjoying not just the ability but the wonderful physics involved with just this tiny part of the game. Also the different views of the visor, which have been seen to some degree in other games but haven't affected the game as much as here. You need certain visors to access different parts of this game. I will never forget the feeling of being totally lost and isolated only to recieve a visor upgrade which allows you to see beyond the enclosed walls around you to your escape. Wondrous. This is the only game to ever keep me awake at night with the enemies and journey racing through my mind.

The Bad
Maybe the ease of use of the map, the 3d method is necessary but needed to be easier to control.

The Bottom Line
The God of games.

The Good
Everything about this game is so good it makes you forget about anything you could think of wrong with it. The sound, graphics, game play, and controls are all excellently done.

The Bad
That I can't play it 24/7 without having to go to the bathroom or go eat or sleep...

The Bottom Line
This is the game you look for to come out once every consoles generation, and you know there won't be another one like it for that particular game platform unless they make a sequel for it. This game is so good that you can't put it down until then end, and when you do finally finish it, you find yourself going back through it to see if you can find anything you may have missed or any secrets that may be contained in it.

The game play is immersive and entertaining, and the way the story is presented to you is wonderfully done in a "search for the clues" type manner so that you never get bored doing only one thing all the time.

The graphics are seamless, the sound is perfect, the controls are right one que. Everything about this game begs for it to be a part of you gamecube library, so don't miss it and get it as soon as you can!!!