My thoughts on Metroid Prime (long)
Marc Brown
on the various aspects of the game. It was an experience, and one
which justifies this sort of contemplation, of putting thoughts to
word. I hope that this text proves helpful to any who read it.
Mainly what I aim to cover in this text are the properties of Metroid
Prime which I found excellent, as well as those which I wish, for the
sake of perfection, could have been done differently. Perfection is
worth discussing when a product is already so good that most gripes
are mere nitpicks.
Mario Sunshine disappointed with its camera battling and inexplicable
30fps. The game seemed to me to be barely more than a higher-res
Mario 64. Resident Evil didn't do much for me; static images are
echoes of insufficient rendering capacity, and it was just as
difficult to get around that shortcoming as it is to ignore the
subpar graphics when playing an old classic on an emulator - the
difference being the lack of nostalgiac association.
First and foremost, I can state with much resolution that Metroid
Prime is the best game of this year. What I was anticipating, I will
admit, was a standard 1st-person game with "Metroid" affixed to the
title. I did not expect to be able to consider the game a legitimate
addition to the series. I honestly figured that Metroid Fusion was
Nintendo's preemptive answer to outraged consumers.
The framerate throughout the game, with really only the very ending
as an exception, was impeccable. I am a strong proponent of smooth
framerates, especially if a flat 60fps is achievable, even to the
sacrifice of other aspects of the visual presentation. This is
mainly because framerate - and framerate consistency - is the one
visual aspect which most directly influences the gameplay. This
assumes of course that considerations specific to the game are well
in order, such as camera positioning and/or control in games which
feature or rely on such. That's another area where Metroid Prime has
set the new benchmark: In morph ball mode, the camera glides
precisely where it needs to go, smoothly and seamlessly. Relative to
all previous comers, at least. The decision to give the player zero
control over the camera in morph ball mode really only works because
the camera is already as good as it needs to be without such control.
The respectable framerate comes at a price, though. Texture detail.
Very few textures in the game, including those comprising Samus
herself, manage to avoid a Playstation2-esque appearance on close
scrutiny. It's not as bad as, say, a typical Nintendo 64 game, but I
did find myself purposefully distancing myself from walls so as not
to inadvertently recognize the blurred blockiness of low-detail
textures.
One thing Metroid Prime has in spades is pizazz. Every menu pops up
with a flourish. Load times are disguised as doors with occasionally
sluggish reactions. The various consequences of atmospheric
phenomena on the opaqueness of the visor are very nice touches.
The sound effects are quite good. I hesitate to call them perfected.
This is one instance where the GameCube desperately needs digital 5.1
surround. Many sound effects could have used a lot of bass. I
scarcely recall there being any at all, in spite of the fact that I
have a crossover at 60Hz going to a subwoofer the size of a coffee
table. Sounds of weapons fire or giant bosses walking about weren't
weak but they definitely lacked the punch I would have liked. The
surround sound was, I feel, underutilized (yes, I remembered to
switch it over in the options). And again, stereo surround would
have been a welcome boon; I found myself saying that each time a
Chozo spirit nailed me from somewhere other than directly in my field
of view. No real fault of Metroid Prime, except in that we will
never see a version of the game with digital audio. There's just not
much one can expect from what is, by definition, a kludge solution to
an old limitation - I refer to Dolby Pro-Logic II.
Video. Metroid Prime supports 480p. This is good, as I only have
access to a digital display device, and deinterlacing a regular NTSC
(480i) signal would add video lag which would affect my enjoyment of
the game (which means all Playstation 2 games, incidentally). The
question I was looking forward to answering was: Does Metroid Prime
use the full resolution or does it leave black bars? Games developed
for NTSC display almost always have unused portions of the total
potential resolution. These are left black, which is fine on a
regular TV, but on a digital display device one definitely sees big
black bars, or a black border surrounding the whole image. For most
such displays, it is highly inadvisable to display borders like that
for prolonged periods, as they can leave a permanent imprint.
The answer, it turnes out, is: Yes and no. One has the option of
expanding Metroid Prime's image horizontally. Vertical is ignored.
After expanding the image as far as it will go, the resulting
resolution is approximately 632 by 448 (vs. 640x480), leaving
insignificant black bars on the sides and large ones on the top and
bottom. Metroid Prime does not support 16:9 at all, so on such
displays, circles are ovals and Samus is fat.
Now I want to tackle the music. Music is my hobby and my particular
area of critique. For me, music can be - should be - about 33% of
the total experience. The quality of the music, after all, is what
dictates whether or not to spend another twelve bucks on a
soundtrack, right? It is no trivial aspect. When I started Metroid
Prime for the first time, I had no specific expectations. None of
the reviews I had read had made any mention of the audio aspect of
the game, as is typical.
The first thing I heard was an electronic static, sort of like what
you get if you violently strangle a packing peanut (or play back a
text file as audio). I didn't know what to make of it. I thought
perhaps my receiver was decoding the audio badly, resulting in the
electronic garbage. It wasn't until I had beaten the game, and
tracked down MP3 encodings of the title music for the specific
purpose of ascertaining the truth, that I finally put the nagging
question to rest. Yes, indeed, that static was by design. It plays
during the title music, and then again during the title options
music. One can also hear a loud, discordant note during the Chozo
spirits' attack music. These are creative decisions, ones which I
believe are the opposite of good for the music they affect.
Moving right along. The title music was a sufficiently modern yet
characteristically bland rendition of the good old Metroid original.
The title options music, on the other hand... Apart from the
aforementioned static, I liked this tune quite a bit. I rate it
8/10, high enough to justify an MP3 hunt. I was really looking
forward to hearing what else the composer had in store for me.
Unfortunately, I spent the whole game waiting for another tune as
good as the title options music, and never heard it. The music
played underwater in the Pirate vessel gets a 7/10 from me, and the
second of the two Phendrana tunes gets 6/10. Much of the rest of
the music is, let's be honest, primarily atmospheric rather than
musical. I'm not the sort who believes you have to be able to hum a
tune before you can call it music, but I do have at least some scope
of what I choose to call music, and a good chunk of Metroid Prime's
audio really was just that: audio. When it actually was music, it
was typically bland fare. Metroid, the series, never has really
been known for its outstanding music overall. Each game has had one
or two standout tunes, and the rest can only be called "good" after
having listened to it so much that one has developed the all-
important nostalgiac relationship referenced above. Remixes of the
old music were cute to hear, but bland for all that. Sadly, I found
the modernization of the main (NES) Metroid bgm to be, in parts,
unfaithful to the point of distraction, although in this one case I
will acknowledge that such judgment is largely personal preference.
I feel that the music is Metroid Prime's greatest failing, minor
though some may consider it to be.
The controls. I feel that the programmers did a reasonable job,
considering that their hearts were set on a specific configuration,
but they missed an opportunity they should have grasped. Two analog
sticks combined, one for movement and one for head aiming, turns out
to be a spendidly servicable repacement for the mouse-&-keyboard
standard. I specifically refer to a configuration where the movement
stick is responsible for strafing as well as forward/back. The
people responsible for the controls skipped this option almost as
though they were seeking to avoid being accused of mimicking the
controls of first-person games which predate Metroid Prime. The
layout they came up with works well enough, but not in the sense that
one can just jump right in and be controlling like a pro in about 60
seconds. I can't say I'd ever envisioned needing to hold down a L or
R button just to accomplish strafing, before I encountered Metroid
Prime's layout. I died to a couple of bosses specifically because
the controls persisted in baffling my unaccustomed mind, and not
because I should have gone left where I turned right. And speaking
of turning, the maximum turn speed of Samus is excruciatingly slow.
If a baddie was behind me and I knew it, the only thing I could do
is start moving and jumping randomly, hoping he would miss.
Picture a two-stick configuration for the various scenarios in
Metroid Prime. Moving about, peeking around corners, and aiming -
all simultaneously - become a cinch. Firing can be delegated to the
now unused R button, and maintained redundantly on the A button.
Jumping stays on the B button, necessitating the disengagement of the
look stick to access, true, but one doesn't look and jump at the same
time in Metroid Prime with the current layout (or let us just say that
the instances where doing so is remotely efficacious are not worthy of
intellectual engagement, plus it still would be possible to look and
jump simultaneously with this hypothetical layout). The target-lock
system remains in place, enabling one to make effective use of the
jump and fire buttons while moving about, as normal. The only
drawback is the loss of either the visor or weapon selector. One
would need to be turned into a one-button cycle. I would propose the
visor, because, frankly, I almost always found myself cycling through
them anyway, in no small part because pushing left didn't always get
me the scan visor, just as an example.
The opportunity the coders missed was in covering all the bases. They
had their plan for the control layout, but it can't have escaped their
expectation that their favorite layout wouldn't be everyone's
favorite, nor, necessarily, the best possible layout. Give the
consumer what they want before you try forcing upon them what you
want. Some control configurability would have been nice. Some! We
get the ability to invert the Y axis and switch the visor and weapons
controls. That's it. A terrible, terrible oversight.
As already mentioned, these drawbacks do not prevent Metroid Prime
from being, in my esteem and surely in that of most who have played it,
the game of the year. It deserves it. I haven't played a game that I
really wanted to play again later since, well, Castlevania:SOTN on the
Playstation. And I might feel up to playing Metroid Prime again very
soon indeed.
Footnote: Why did Nintendo subcontract a flagship title like Metroid?
How could they have known it would turn out so well, especially
considering that the developers were not Japanese and were therefore,
more or less defacto, guaranteed to disappoint? Will Zelda truly be a
better game? It already loses points from me for being so unutterably
cartooney. Personal taste again.
kicksy
am a little more open to what I call music (as evicdenced by the fact that I
listen to everything that I can get my grubby little hands on).
The thing with the controls is that if you did have the 2nd control stick
for turning and looking thenyou would not get to be able to change weapons
so easily. This would be a big draw back to the game as there are times when
changing your weapon quickly is of the upmost importance.
Also, you mentioned about the turning speed. Samus is wearing a big fuck off
suit attached to her body. She gets some power assistence, but not a lot.
And, to be honest, I prefer the "slow turning speed". It suits the game.
There is no need to get stuck beyond or to have an enemy get stuck behind
you. If it does happen, you can run away and then turn.
Any way, this was a fair review and I am not trying to knock it down in the
slightest. Just a few points that I did not agree with.
<snip>
--
From the mind of Andrew Kicks
Everything in this world is bias. Even the world leans to one side.
Blake Patterson
>
> First and foremost, I can state with much resolution that Metroid
> Prime is the best game of this year. What I was anticipating, I will
> admit, was a standard 1st-person game with "Metroid" affixed to the
> title. I did not expect to be able to consider the game a legitimate
> addition to the series. I honestly figured that Metroid Fusion was
> Nintendo's preemptive answer to outraged consumers.
>
I will be opening a Platinum GC on Christmas morning, and waiting for it
will be Super Mario Sunshine, Super Monkey Ball, and Metroid Prime. I am
getting Metroid Prime as a tech demo for the console only, really, as
you simply cannot ideally run a FPS on a console given the lack of critical
keyboard+mouse controls.
I expect full dissapointment to the degree of unplayability, IMHO. But it
will be pretty to play with a little.
blakespot
Frank Grimes
[...]
>second of the two Phendrana tunes gets 6/10. Much of the rest of
>the music is, let's be honest, primarily atmospheric rather than
>musical. I'm not the sort who believes you have to be able to hum a
>tune before you can call it music, but I do have at least some scope
>of what I choose to call music, and a good chunk of Metroid Prime's
>audio really was just that: audio.
[...]
Nice review, overall, but I have to disagree with the above. I
haven't finished the game yet, but so far I haven't heard a tune yet
that I didn't think was fantastic. The music is very much like
ambient electronica, which I am a big fan of. The Chozo Ruins tune
sounds very much like it belongs on FSOL's "Lifeforms", one of my
favorite albums.
Of course, ambient electronica is very much an acquired taste, and not
very mainstream, so I expect that my opinion is in the minority...
Marc Brown
>
> The thing with the controls is that if you did have the 2nd control stick
> for turning and looking thenyou would not get to be able to change weapons
> so easily. This would be a big draw back to the game as there are times when
> changing your weapon quickly is of the upmost importance.
I did touch upon that compromise. One would have a choice, really, of losing
either the instant weapons or instant visor switching. The fact that the two
pads' functions are interchangeable from within the options bears this out.
And to reiterate, I'd agree that between the two, losing instant visor
switching would be preferable. Indeed, I did not always find that switching
visors was as simplified as the programmers may have indended, and instead
tended to cycle through them all regardless.
Another person replied, without embellishment (but certainly not without a
stereotypical degree of immaturity), that this control layout was outright
incorrect. Such an opinion ignores the whole point behind my thoughts on
the matter: There can be no denying that the _option_ to choose one or
another configuration would have been perfect, and would have solved the
whole issue in advance. I certainly have noticed that I'm hardly the only
person who has had things to say about the controls.
> There is no need to get stuck beyond or to have an enemy get stuck behind
> you. If it does happen, you can run away and then turn.
This seems a bit broad of an assessment. In a perfect world, everyone is
such an expert player that not only will they master Metroid Prime's
controls within seconds, but they will never encounter scenarios where
enemies have managed to materialize outside their field of view. I can't
say this applies to me, though. :)
"Mike Snyder" <wy...@prowler-pro.com> wrote in message news:<7xKM9.125351$JE.2...@news1.central.cox.net>...
>
> If you are expecting Metroid Prime to be an FPS then yes, you will be
> disappointed. It's a platform game in 3D. The lack of "head movement"
> enforces that (it's not an oversight).
I never specifically said that their configuration was an oversight. Clearly
it was a deliberate effort.. one indended to force the game to be played
their way. Metroid Prime has sufficient appeal to get away with that sort of
force-feeding. It helps that the gameplay itself is practically flawless.
The oversight was configurability. But I'm reading hints that the release of
the game was rushed so perhaps they didn't have time to toss in that kind of
icing, even if some people believe it needed it.
George Mealer
news:slrnb06jb...@solinari.local:
> I am getting Metroid Prime as a tech demo for the console only,
> really, as you simply cannot ideally run a FPS on a console given the
> lack of critical keyboard+mouse controls.
>
> I expect full dissapointment to the degree of unplayability, IMHO.
> But it will be pretty to play with a little.
This point's been reiterated to death, but I guess I'll repeat it. It's
not a first-person shooter in the traditional sense of the word. I wish
the controls were configurable to Halo-style, too, but the default (well,
only) controls don't get in the way of the gameplay in any real sense.
Geo
--
George Mealer
geo*AT*snarksoft*DOT*com
"'Generally,' Tom hazarded."
Lenny Perkins
gamemanic
> On 20 Dec 2002 07:32:00 -0800, ret...@hotmail.com (Marc Brown) wrote:
>
> [...]
> >second of the two Phendrana tunes gets 6/10. Much of the rest of
> >the music is, let's be honest, primarily atmospheric rather than
> >musical. I'm not the sort who believes you have to be able to hum a
> >tune before you can call it music, but I do have at least some scope
> >of what I choose to call music, and a good chunk of Metroid Prime's
> >audio really was just that: audio.
> [...]
>
> Nice review, overall, but I have to disagree with the above. I
> haven't finished the game yet, but so far I haven't heard a tune yet
> that I didn't think was fantastic. The music is very much like
> ambient electronica, which I am a big fan of. The Chozo Ruins tune
> sounds very much like it belongs on FSOL's "Lifeforms", one of my
> favorite albums.
>
more platform than FPS. Please, no FPS, but more platform... Overall
Metroid Prime is super!!!!
Billy Bissette
news:Xns92EAEA37E8EA...@208.201.224.154:
> Blake Patterson <bl...@solinari.local> wrote in
> news:slrnb06jb...@solinari.local:
>
>> I am getting Metroid Prime as a tech demo for the console only,
>> really, as you simply cannot ideally run a FPS on a console given the
>> lack of critical keyboard+mouse controls.
>>
>> I expect full dissapointment to the degree of unplayability, IMHO.
>> But it will be pretty to play with a little.
>
> This point's been reiterated to death, but I guess I'll repeat it.
> It's not a first-person shooter in the traditional sense of the word.
> I wish the controls were configurable to Halo-style, too, but the
> default (well, only) controls don't get in the way of the gameplay in
> any real sense.
The gameplay is in ways defined around the controls, anyway. Using
traditional "FPS" controls would have probably lead to issues with some
of the things you are supposed to do.
And no, it isn't a traditional FPS. The name First Person Adventure
has been used to describe it rather aptly. It has shooting, but shooting
isn't the focus. Though the main naming problem is that FPS is used to
describe only a small subset of what a "first person shooter" should
encompass, about like RPG when describing a console game means something
fairly different than what the word combination "role playing game"
actually means.
What it comes down to is that Metroid Prime is not what people refer to
when they say FPS, and it wasn't supposed to be that kind of game. The
gameplay puts its focus on different aspects of a first person game that
has shooting elements, and the controls work within that scheme.
Presumably, the controls and the game played off of each other during the
design process, so that the game is truely designed for the scheme that
is used. Going with a standard FPS dual-stick scheme wouldn't play off
of the actual game design. Things like fighting while jumping would be
tougher for example. Without a shoulder button used for jumping, you
might even have issues turning during jumps and doublejumps, as the
traditional FPS controls would have turning on the C-stick with strafing
on the left stick. You'd have issues with either changing visors or
weapons, and there are sections designed that rely on easy changing of
both of those items. And you need shooting buttons as shoulder as well
or you've just lost all the benefits of switching to FPS style.
So that means you probably want jumping as a shoulder button. You
absolutely need shooting your gun as a shoulder button. You need missiles
as a shoulder button. You'd probably want grapple beam to remain a
shoulder button, which would need some sort of toggle to the grappling
beam, probably by changing the gun fuction.
You wouldn't need the aim button, but you'd have to lose the lock-on
button as well. Lock-on needs to remain a shoulder button to be
effective, and you've already run out of shoulder buttons. The only
way to have lock-on would be to compromise something else. This also
means you'd have to find some other means of using the scan visor.
Probably by using the fire button.
The face buttons would be mostly or entirely unused with such a scheme
though, so you could use them for weapon switching. Left analog for
forward, backward, and strafing. Right for looking up and down as well
as turning. Shoulders and Z for jumping, gun, missile, and grapple (via
toggle). D-Pad for switching either visor, gun, or both via a toggle.
But that leaves only the face buttons, which couldn't actually handle
the other switching... Because there is still the morph ball, and even
if you make side dashing a feature of analog strafing, you still need
a boost ball button. Plus you need something to toggle a grapple beam,
and now a toggle between beam and visor selection.
All in all, a rather cobbled together control scheme. About the best
you can get without compromising someone's actual ability to play the
game, yet ultimately inferior to the actual controls used for the game.
A bit of a mess that doesn't actually improve things, and really hurts
some other things. Because the game is designed around the control
scheme that they used, and the "standard FPS" controls just wouldn't
work that well with the kind of game they made.