Time for some more Metroid madness! (Wait… there’s no Metroids in the game?)
Today I feel like reviewing Metroid Prime: Hunters for the DS. No, this isn’t yet another side-scrolling Metroid game, but it’s actually 3D (Gasp!).
Let’s start out with the story line since it’s pretty much non-existent. You received a telepathic message and you decide to investigate it; that’s it; no deep intriguing background to the message; just one boring message floating through space, which just HAPPENED to come to Samus. Well, Metroid games have never really been big on story lines, so I shouldn’t be surprised.
But now let’s go to what really matters in the Metroid series, game play. This game pretty much plays just like Metroid Prime 1 and 2 for the GameCube, except for the usage of the touch screen. The touch screen allows you to change weapons and roll into your morph ball and can even be the way you aim. The touch screen works surprisingly well with this game, so that makes me wonder on how MP:3 will be on the Wii. You have your missles, your morph ball, your charge beam, and your scan visor. And yes, you will get more weapons than that, but those are just to start you off. There’s hunters that appear throughout the game (As the name implies) and each of them have their own special weapons, alt-forms, and special attributes, which makes each of them completely unique from the others. All of their weapons are also completely unique ranging from rapid-firing green balls (Battle Hammer) to a sniper beam (Imperialist). There’s five worlds to explore, but the fifth one is pretty small. And all the worlds are almost the size combined as the entire Metroid Prime worlds, which was a surprise since it’s on a hand held. But the one annoying thing is the enemies. There are not that many enemies in the game and most of them that are there are just copies of other ones (Such as a Psycho Bit V1, 2, 3, and yes, 4). Also the bosses follow the same pattern, because there’s only three different bosses, and you battle two of them FOUR times and the third one twice (That’s very lazy if you ask me). Also, did I mention the Scan Visor was in here; must I say more? (If you don’t know, the Scan Visor is some thingy in your helmet that allows you to scan enemies and items to put into a database and it contributes to the complete percentage in the game.)
But enough rambling on about the game play and let’s look at it’s multi-player. Nintendo’s WiFi didn’t really impress me that much up to this point, but this game is perfect for the WiFi. It’s real simple; just log on and search for people to play. But the problem is is that you can’t create your own games, unless you’re on wireless with a buddy about ten feet away from you. Yes, you can set up games on the WiFi, but for them to join they first have to be on you friend or rival list, then you have to make a game and HOPE they decide to look into their rival/friend list for no reason. But anyways, apart from that utter annoyance the online is pretty good, and no, you don’t play as a bunch of Samus-es (If that can be plural), but you could if you absolutely wanted to. All the hunters from the story are here and so are their weapons, also including a few new power-ups such as double damage and invisibility. Also, each hunter has it’s own special attribute whether it’s the ability to turn invisible of that some weapons act differently on different hunters.
Now the graphics are GREAT on this game, apart from the few texture repetitions throughout the game which is perfectly normal. The enemygraphics aren’t the greatest looking, but they’re way better than anything else I’ve seen on the DS so far. The hunters are well detailed and each one has it’s own uniqueness about their design. The weapons also all look completely different and they all have nice detail.
The sound is decent, but it can become repetitive sometimes. The music is pretty much non-existent and through the majority of the game you’ll never hear it.
Overall, this is a great game with great game play and great graphics with just a slight lacking of multi-player features. I give Metroid Prime: Hunters a eight out of ten.
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