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Metroid Prime 2: Echoes Launches
The sequel to Metroid Prime, Metroid Prime 2: Echoes has been released to consumers. Details on the sequel can be found via a Gamespy hands on look or a Gamespot review. A snip from the review: "If you've played Metroid Prime, you've essentially played Metroid Prime 2. Retro hasn't mucked with the original, winning formula, so veterans of the first game will feel quite at home resuming their position behind Samus' computer-enhanced visor."
If you've played Metroid Prime, you've essentially played Metroid Prime 2
Sounds like the game industry is making great progress. Very impressive. Innovative sequels. Consistent gameplay experience. Mountains of cash followed by the inevitable layoff of the entire team. Outstanding. A real achievement.
Business isn't willing to pay for products, innovation and careers, so we get brands, mortgage commercials and layoffs.
even unreal back to 1998 looks better than metroid prime on gamecube to me...
"If you've played Metroid Prime, you've essentially played Metroid Prime 2."
Wow, so it wasn't enough that they ruined one of my favourite game series by turning it into a crappy FPS, but they did nothing to rectify their transgressions in the sequel?
This is a real shame since all the Nintendo of Japan studio games can do 3D games w/o it being a crap FPS (e.g. mario 64, Zelda wind waker, etc.), or at least let you shift perspective outside of the character's visor - and let you do more than roll around as a ball while doing it. Meanwhile taking one of their better franchises and putting it into the hands of a non-.jp studio appears to have ruined it, aside from GBA metroid reprises Nintendo lost a lot of true fans here, IMHO.
I have to wonder how many of the people who defend Nintendo for making sequels with incremental updates also attack EA for doing the same thing.
Rob
I strafe all the time. Pay attention to your day-to-day movements, and you'll find that you even do it in real life. However, strafing wasn't my biggest complaint. It was jumping. If you're going to put me in a first-person perspective and then throw jumping puzzles at me, let me look down!
Lame justification. Master Chief is in a similar giant metal suit, yet you have full range of movement in Halo. Halo is to Quake as Metroid Prime is to Duke Nukem 3D, with respect to looking up and down.
People justify Prime's control scheme by pointing out it's not a shooter. That doesn't mean you should make it more difficult for me to move, especially if you're going to make me jump. They say that you "get used to it" if you spend some time with the game. What a lame excuse for a broken control scheme, especially when you have to "get used to it" all over again if you stop playing the game for a week or two. I'm simply calling a spade a spade. Prime's control scheme sucks, and if Prime 2 didn't change that, Prime 2's control scheme sucks.
Yes, I figured out how to look down. I was in rant mode, which doesn't work as well when I say, "Let me look down without having to pull the R button for free-look mode so I can tilt my head, and then hold the L button to lock the camera view so I can release the R button and finally be able to move around so I can make that jump." Doesn't that seem a little silly to you? Let's compare:
- A normal first-person perspective game (if you want to get away from shooters, consider something like Morrowind) - I tilt the right thumbstick in the direction of "down" (which might be up on the stick if you play inverted). Then I run forward with the left thumbstick and jump. When I land, I can continue to look around with the right thumbstick, returning my view to level or looking up or down as I choose.
- Metroid Prime - I pull the R button, and then tilt the left stick in the direction of "down". I let go of the R button and
... Oops. Spring-look. Okay, I pull the R button, tilt the left stick in the direction of down, and pull the L button to lock my view. Shoot, I'm not quite lined up with the jump, so I need to turn my body. I turn left ... oh, wait, I just strafed left (and fell off the platform) because I was still holding L. Start over, adjust my angle of attack first and then go through the R button mayhem. Now I can move, so I run forward with the left thumbstick and jump. Once I land, I don't want to continue looking at my feet so I let go of the L button. Of course, if I want to look around (ie, up or down), I have to pull the R button again. String a couple jumps together in a row and you've got a recipe for tedium.
Which would you prefer?If your control scheme is so bad that you can assume that someone missed such simple functionality as looking down, something's broken. If you have to explain how to look down with more words than, "Use the stick to look down," something's broken.