Metroid Prime Pinball Review

Fans of our major popular franchises such as Mario, Metroid and Zelda are frightened of one thing, change. Any time that we’ve gotten wind of a seemingly bizarre new concept for a great franchise, fear is immediately widespread. It happened with Super Mario Sunshine and Wind Waker. Now we have Metroid. When Metroid Prime was first announced, hardcore fans of the franchise cried out in fear as they somehow “knew” it wasn’t meant for a 3D environment. Metroid Prime Pinball does it again, but it takes the concept of “bizarre idea” one step further. Did it succeed?

It all depends really on how open minded you are. If you aren’t afraid of taking a chance and experiencing something totally different for a change, MPP will not disappoint. MPP does an absolute superb job of truly bringing the arcade pinball scene back to life. Most pinball fanatics you see will more than likely be at the local arcade with some movie themed machine in front of them. But really, the mind blowing interactivity with the pinball tables in MPP is something any fan or non-fan can easily enjoy.

If you’ve played Metroid Prime, you know pretty much everything about this game already. But that was pretty much intended by Fuse Games, as the gameplay is hardly predictable. MPP takes all the major worlds of Metroid Prime including Tallon Overworld, Phendrana Drifts and the Phazon Mines. The game literally takes each major area and translates it beautifully into a pinball table. Now granted the DS isn’t the most powerful current generation handheld in terms of graphics, but it does a darn good job of presenting what it does. It’s more or less a virtual pinball machine like the ones you can see on computers, but far better. All the trademark Metroid items and enemies are in this game and they all look fantastic. But they don’t look like perfect replicas of how they’re presented in Metroid Prime because of the isometric view. Nothing in the game is 3D, although there are times when you’re bound to think you’re seeing things that way. Whether it’s Samus’ Gunship, the Metroids, Space Pirates, Metroid Prime bosses or the very weapon expansions, they’re all here.

The dual screens of the DS are used very well for this game. Action takes place in both and you have an effect on what happens in them yourself. There are the conventional two flippers at the very bottom, but each table also has one or more flippers in the upper screen so you can hit Samus with them as well to accomplish your goals. The stylus can be used on the touch screen to “tilt” the table if ever needed. The tables are obviously split between the two screens, but it was done very well, and you never have to worry about being blinded much. The point between the joining of the two screens on the system doesn’t allow you to see Samus, but it’s hardly anything to make you panic. MPP also sports some great physics and an awesome frame rate. You can use either L and R or left on the D Pad and A to control the flippers. This helps it really feel like you’re playing a pinball game and there was also never any kind of slowdown in the game’s action. Even when there are multiple enemies or morph balls on the screen at once, you will never see any noticeable issues.

There are also some neat special effects that can be see on the screens when you grab a new item or start a certain mode. Any time you get an artifact, a new weapon or initiate something on the board, a computerized female voice will say what you did and display an impressive isometric graphic in the upper screen showing what you did. The tables also display some nice environmental goodies.. For instance, Tallon Overworld allows you to see the shadow of Samus’ morph ball form, and it also has a neat little waterfall near the top. Phendrana is a winter themed environment, and it’s rather humorous to see all the “inverted” icicles at the top.

MPP is set up in a very simple and easy to navigate fashion. There are three main modes: Multi Mission, Single Mission and Wireless Mission. Multi Mission is where most of the action takes place and Wireless allows you and up to seven other people to play a game together to determine who’s best. Multi Mission more or less functions just like Metroid Prime did when playing that game. You start by selecting one of two tables, Tallon Overworld or Pirate Frigate. Those are the first two areas you encounter in Metroid Prime so it only made sense to have those be the only two available at first. Once you choose a stage, you are immediately taken to the table you choose. Samus in Morph Ball form is then launched up between the bottom most flippers.