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Posted on November 4th, 2004 - 3109 Reads

Rated Everyone Metroid Prime 2 Echoes GameCube Preview

-- Written by Marc-André Sarrazin



 When Nintendo first announced that Metroid was going to be developed by another company, most people thought it was the end. Nintendo had always made the games themselves, and now, a new company, Texas based Retro Studios, was going to make the newest installment for the Nintendo GameCube. At least, Shigeru Miyamoto himself supervised the project to make sure it was up to Nintendo standards, and all of Retro's other projects were cancelled so that everyone could work on Metroid Prime only.

But there was something else on every gamer's mind: why did the game become a first-person shooter, or as Nintendo calls it, a first-person adventure? Metroid games have always been third person side-scrolling games, and some pure hardcore gamers thought it would have been better if it had stayed that way. The thing was that most people working for Retro Studios had previously worked on first-person shooters and were highly knowledgeable of that type of game. Miyamoto knew that, and after seeing a few videos of the game running in third-person perspective, he decided it would be better if they switched to first-person as it was what the team was best at.

While some games might have suffered from that kind of switch, it was a very wise choice for Metroid to jump to 3D. Gamers could now play AS Samus Aran. When playing a first-person shooter, you really feel as if you were that person as you see the same thing the character is seeing. Since Metroid games have always been about exploration though, Retro had to adjust the controls and gameplay a little bit. That's why we got auto aim as this game was not focused on battles. Moving into a 3D world made the exploration part a lot more interesting and using the scanner was now a very important part of the game. If there was one game that was made for 3D, it was Metroid.

Now that everyone has played the first Metroid Prime game though, you must be wondering how Retro Studios was able to make a sequel that's even better. I'd be happy if it were as good as Metroid Prime was near perfection; it exceeded everyone's expectations. Fortunately for us, they worked really hard and were able to improve about everything about the game. Here's what we currently know about this title.

The game begins as famous bounty hunter Samus Aran receives a distress signal. A galactic federation ship has disappeared while chasing a group of space pirates. Their ship crashed on planet Aether in the Dasha system, and the galactic federation asks Samus to find out what happened to them. Unfortunately for her, when she arrives, she finds out that there is a much bigger conflict going on that mystery planet and she'll have to solve it.

This planet is quite different from others as it has 2 parallel worlds: a light world and a dark world. A race called the Luminoth live in the light world. They are an old and peaceful tribe with a unique and highly developed civilization. Unfortunately for them, those who live in the dark world are the complete opposite. The Ings are a bunch of monsters who will do anything to bring death to everything that lives. The Luminoths and Ings are enemies, and the Ings want to destroy the Luminoths by destroying the light world. The Luminoths were wise though: they've created four energy reactors to keep the Ings from coming to their world and destroying it. Problem is that the Ings have found some way around it and are trying to destroy the four reactors so unbalance everything and destroy the light world. It will be Samus' job to save the world... again!

While the light world is a very nice place, the dark world is the complete opposite. Beside the Ings, there are no living things in the dark world. Space Pirates do try to fight the Ings though, but the Ings don't give up that easily. There are huge amounts of Phazon Ore in the Dark world and the Space pirates will do anything to get their hands on it! Their not the only ones though as there is another one who needs to constantly consume Phazon to stay alive. While we don't know too much about her, Dark Samus will make your life harder as she will do anything to destroy you. She is as powerful and lethal as Samus herself, and she has no allies. She consumes high amounts of Phazon to sustain her energy, so maybe that will be the key to destroying her, who knows?

The Metroids are back again in this game and the Space pirates have again given birth to lots of Metroids so you'll be fighting them again. The story doesn't seem to involve the Metroids as much as it did in the past though, so they might not be important to the storyline of the game, but nothing can be confirmed until the game is released, so we can only speculate right now.

The light and dark worlds play a huge part in the game though as you'll be going from one world to the other quite often. We don't know yet how it's going to affect the game, like if it's going to be something similar to Zelda where you'd do something in the light world and it affected the dark one. In the demo that we've played, dark portals were created by a huge cannon engineered by the space pirates, and a light portal appeared out of nowhere after a battle, although it seems like it was made out of a light crystal. Again, pure speculation, but we'll know for sure soon enough.

Samus is now able to use light and dark beams as weapons though, and the dark beam is used to do unlock stuff in the light world and vice versa. The light beam is also very powerful against dark enemies, but that was a given. The dark world's atmosphere is deadly to human beings though, so you'll have to jump from one energy field to another at the beginning. Energy fields are made from light crystal, and some of them need to be shot with the light bean to charge them and create the energy field. It is known though that there is a Dark suit and that you'll be able to travel anywhere in the dark world once you get it. It has a very dark look to it and looks badass!

Samus also gets a few new moves and weapons this time around. She gets seeker missiles. You get to lock on to five enemies at the same time and fire 5 seeking missiles at once. In one of the videos we saw this used to unlock doors as Samus needed to shoot 5 switches at the same time. There's also the return of the screw attack which gives Samus the ability to jump from one wall to the other and get to higher areas. We also saw Samus jumping in the air in third-person view like she used to do in Super Metroid. This opens up a lot of possibilities and there probably will be a lot o=f hidden missiles and health expansions hidden that you will need to find using those new moves.

The scan visor has also changed. Everything that you can scan will appear in red on screen, and once you scanned them they will become green. It works a lot better than before and it looks really cool! The dark visor will be used to see invisible enemies in the dark world. And finally, there's also another visor that gives you the ability to see sound, or something like that. We're not really sure about this one yet has Retro hasn't revealed anything about it except for a few seconds of video. It probably has a huge part to play in this game, and we can't wait to see how it works and what it can do.

Another cool addition to the game is the multiplayer mode. People had asked for it in the first game but Retro didn't have enough to do it. This time though it seems like they worked really hard and brought us a very slick multiplayer mode. A few modes of play will be available like Death match and Bounty where you have to collect cash that players leave on the ground when they die, but there are as well a few interesting things like cannons that can launch you while you are in morph ball as well as being able to give disadvantages to your enemies by scanning them. This will inflict them conditions that will make their life more difficult. Up to four players will be able to join on the fun, and we hope that Retro will surprise us with the inclusion of LAN play though this is quite unlikely at this point.

While it may seem difficult to believe, the graphics engine is even better than the last! Well, not that much, but there seemed to be a few little additions to it. It seems like a few little details were added here and there to make it look a little bit more realistic. Samus looks better that's for sure, and the animation seems to have been upgraded. The weight shifting on Samus when she walks looks incredible and all of those little details make for a more complete experience.

This seems like a serious contender for game of the year since Resident Evil 4 has been pushed to 2005. Metroid Prime was one of the best games on the Cube yet, and since the sequel is going to be even better, not only could it become the best game of the year, but could also become the best GameCube game yet. Look for our review soon after the game's release!

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