I'm rather torn over Metroid: Other M. It's not really a bad game. But I have far to many problems with it to consider it great. Now, I get that they were trying something a little different this time round, and I don't think thats a bad thing. But somehow the whole thing doesn't quite come come together as a satisfying experience in the way that, say, Metroid Prime did. So since it's bugging me I'm going to attempt to ennumerate the various problems I have with the game. And be warned, the following screed will contain spoilers. So if you're worried about the plot you're playing the wrong fucking game.
I suppose the place to start would be simply with my expectations. It's these I think that really interfered with my enjoyment early on. You see, I was expecting a Metroid game. Now, what that means to different people is, naturally enough, different. For me the most enjoyable aspect of previous Metroid games was the expolration aspect. Navigating a hostile environment, backtracking as you find new abilities which allow you to access new areas, that whole bit. Whilst there is a bit of this in Other M it's sadly rather minor. The "plot" has a habit of continually forcing you forward, locking doors behind you and generally not letting you just wander around doing your own thing. Instead there's a greater emphasis on the action and shooting thousands of bad guys part. This isn't a bad thing per se, but gets rather frustrating when you're wanting to go off and look for energy tanks or whatever.
The controls work fairly well, about as good as one might expect. The auto targeting is not always great, but works well enough. Although your tendancy to let of charged shots at menacing sections of air rather than the deadly space pirates who are RIGHT THERE YOU STUPID WOMAN!! THERE!!! SHOOT THAT!!!!!!!! does get a little annoying. Switching to stationary first person mode for the missiles isn't too bad either, although since "stand there and get shot" isn't the greatest strategy in the world you don't tend find yourself doing it unless you really need to.
Then theres the whole recharging thing. One of the interesting things we read about was the fact that you can recharge your health and missiles at any time by pointing the wiimote up and a holding a button. This is not technically a lie. You can fill up your missiles like this at any point. Your health however is another matter entirely. Sure, you can recharge it, but only when your health dips below a certain level. And it doesn't recharge your full health either. You can (eventually) find power ups to improve these, but the feature really isn't as useful as it perhaps sounds on paper. Thanks to the plethora of save points you hardly need to use it when fighting normal enemies as you're never really that far away from a recharge. And when you're fighting a boss and actually needs to you'll quickly find the time taken to get any health back is almost always slightly less than it takes for whatever is killing you to run across the room and finish the job. Similarly with the missiles you just don't use enough to actually need to recharge them much, except perhaps in the case of a boss where you don't have the time.
Since the missiles are rather unsuited to the frenetic pace of the combat I did find myself using the charged shot a lot more than I usually would. I know you're really supposed to, but I've always been a rapid fire kind of guy. This works just fine upto when you get the diffusion beam which generate some rather lovely wide area effects that effect multiple badguys and similtaneously stop you from seeing what the hell is actually going on. This is not desperately helpful it has to be said. Then theres the dramatic finishing moves you can do by running toward a stunned enemy whilst charging. The camera zooms in dramatically as you grapple the foe, discharging your beam at point blank range. IN THEORY. Sometimes it works and it's great. Sometimes you'll be trying to charge up and get too close and do a finishing move on something you didn't mean too. Sometimes you'll do one (normally by accident) on some big nasty and by the time the camera has zoomed in and you realize whats happening the foe has kicked you off. I don't think it's a bad feature, but it could be fine tuned a little. Of course then there's some bosses that seem to REQUIRE a particular finishing move, which may look very dramatic but what was wrong with simply filling the bastard with electric death until he stops moving?
What I've talked about so far are really only niggles. Stuff that's just not quite to my taste, or that I may overlook if overshadowed by other, more enjoyable elements. But now I've got to talk about the big stuff. The stuff that REALLY gets me. The worst elements of the game bar none. It's time to talk about plot and characterisation.
It feels odd to be discussing the characterisation of a silent protagonist, but that I think is where the major problem lies. Since previously Samus has been basically a non entity the player has been free to projuect whatever they like onto her in the games. Everyone has their own version in their heads, and the character will be fairlt idealized since we never have to put up with her doing anything clearly retarted in a cut scene. All she does is run, jump, shoot aliens and maybe wear a swimsuit if you find enough secrets. Until now. Because one of the big deals with this game is how it will fill in her character and story. They told us we'd learn new things about the character.
I bet noone was thinking they'd learn she was a moronic weakling with an unexploded biological clock.
Really, some of the stuff they have her do is frankly baffling. The most glaring example I can think of is when Ridley inevitably makes his appearance. That he's supposedly dead at this pint is largely irrelevant. I mean, he's been killed in basically EVERY OTHER METROID GAME EVER. You'd think Samus would be used to this by now. Just look for the glowing red bit and apply a liberal coat of missile, right?
No. She instead has a freakout and lets her mate get puched in the lava. To say this undermines the character on a massive scale is like saying that mining involves a bit of digging. This is, after all, a woman who has actually destroyed more planets than both Death Stars combined (I.E. more than 1). Just no, okay?
Then there's the way that she keeps saying baby. There is a perculiar emphasis in the vocal performance that has just a hint of dangerous fixation. I might overlook this if not for the scene where an infant Metroid appears and rather than blasting it she regards it as if it were a baby bunny or something. Luckily we're spared the scene of her kidnapping the damn thing to raise as her own since she takes a single shot to the back and promptly collapses like a sack of shit.
Again, JUST NO. Do you have any conception of just how much energy calibrated to the precise frequency of death I have absorbed up to this point? If you could save up all the plasma that's been fired in my general direction you could start up a small sun. If you kept all the missiles launched at face you could have a cold war all by youself. And I certainly had more than one bleeding energy tank. I don't know what gun it is that can do that to Samus in a single shot, but I want one. That thing would have blasted Ridley into a pteradactyl shaped stain faster than you can swear at this cutscene for being a load fucking bollocks.
Now, I'm sure you're familiar with the basic outline of the plot. samus recieves distress signal, goes to rescue, meets up with space marines and has a history. I'll get into more detail in a bit. But there's one particular aspect that, fundamentally, RUINS the game. At the beginning of the story Samus allegedly has all her powerups. Everything you unlocked in Super Metroid she has in some form or another. But then, on a dangerous mission into unknown territoy swarming with powerful and hostile enemies; enemies that have already killed every single person in the area, the space marine officer who you meet simply tells you not to use any of your powerful, deadly and life saving abilities. And then you don't. You COULD. I mean, you've got them right there. Better weapons, better armour, the whole deal. You just.... don't.
Now, traditionally of course a large chunk of any Metroid game is spent unlocking your power ups. But in every other game you DON'T ALREADY HAVE ALL OF THEM ON YOU. Maybe you didn't start with them at all. Maybe you did but then they all got brocken, or stolen or something. Thats all fine. You're working towards restoring all your powers and makes narrative sense. But here we're explicitly told that we already have everything we need. We're not having our ass burnt off in the lava level because we haven't found the Varia suit yet. We simply can't be bothered to turn it on. There is, put simply, NO CALL FOR THIS BULLSHIT. Take the powers away by all means. Drop her in a reactor, pretend she left them at home. Something. AMYTHING. Anything that makes the slightest bit of sense. Hell, we start up after the end of Super Metroid, right? Just say the suit got trashed when you were escaping from the exploding planet.
If you bring a gun to knife fight you use the gun. You don't use a spoon. Especially just because your grandmother doesn't really like knives very much.
So here we get to once again undermine the character of Samus (seriously, what kind of idiot would tolerate this shit?), spit in the face of common sense and similtaneously build up an intense hatred of what is supposed to be an important character. He's supposed to be a significant figure from Samus past, but you just want him to fuck off and die so you can finally use power bombs. This of course does not aid in the "plot".
Oh god, the "plot". Right, well I've got to address this sooner or later. So, basically it's resident evil in space. The military are conducting some OBVIOUSLY BAD IDEA experiments in bioweapons research. Which as we all know always ends well and nothing ever goes wrong. Anyway, since everything has inevitably gone wrong the space marines have been called in and Samus has crashed the party. Everythings going great until the marines start turning up dead and we finf out that there's a traitor who's there to get the t-virus or whatever and eliminate any witnesses. So at this point it becomes guess which one is Wesker. Anyway, investigations continue and we find out that not only were they breeding Grizbies, they were breeding SPACE PIRATES.
You see what a great idea that is?
It's okay though, because in order to control the space pirates they've built an A.I. A COPY OF MOTHER BRAIN.
NOTHING COULD GO WRONG.
In addition to this they scrapped all the shit off Samus' suit at the end of Super Metroid and CLONED RIDLEY. Though, to be fair they didn't know that at first as initially he came out looking like a goddamn furby or something. So we'll let them off a little...
OH WAIT THEY WERE CLONING METROIDS AS WELL. And not just Metroids. They were improving them. Creating a new breed that was resistant to cold. The fact that at no point does anyone refer to these as Super Metroids is a crime equalled by the fact that at no point do we even SEE one.
After all the build up and slogging our way through to the ominously named Sector 0 we instead get shot in the back (as previously mentioned) by that bastard who wouldn't let us use the goddamn power bombs. Then for some reason it turns out he's not Wesker as he goes into Sector 0, ejects it and makes it self destruct whilst you're spazzing about on the floor. The rationale behind this course of action being that since we haven't finished killing Ridley yet someones got to, and he really can't be bothered. The elation we feel at his death is somewhat marred by not actually getting access to our remaining power ups. That and the creeping feeling that they didn't have time to finish the game so a level got cut and the "plot" moved around to fit.
So, we're railroaded in whatever direction only to find that Ridleys allready dead, thus once again undermining all that build up. Also worth noting at this stage there's very few candidates for wesker left. Basically one. Although we haven't seen all the bodies, so someone may yet come back from the grave. Anyway it seems that Ridley got ganked by a Queen Metroid! Shock! Horror! Oh wait it's not actually a Super Queen Metroid, just a regular one. After a bit of fighting you destroy the Queen with a power bomb after looking it up online because at no point do you actually get to use power bombs until you're 5 seconds away from death in the Queens gastrointestinal pouch and nobody actually bothers to mention that you can now. That's something we like to call bullshit.
Anyway, now we find out that the survivor that we met earlier but I haven't mentioned yet isn't actually who she said she was. She's actually the Mother Brain A.I. They gave her human form so she could bond with the infant Metroids and better control them. You know, because she won't obviously go crazy and kill everyone. So, of course she went crazy and killed everyone. Anyway, you find this other survivor who's actually who she says who exposits all this before crazybot 5000 comes to fucking kill us.But then the army also turn up from fucking nowhere and theres a brief fight and then they guy who fell in the lava comes back from the grave despite being black but he's friendly so it's okay and then roll the credits.
And that whole plot about one of the marines being dodgy? IT IS NEVER MENTIONED AGAIN. You could almost put it down to lies told by little miss kilbot were it not for the cutscene showing one marine booting the dead deceased corpse of another into the lava. At the time this was pretty cool. It added a bit of mystery. One of the possible suspects is actually dead, but we don't know which. Now that's ignored completely, and the one who's left unnaccounted for? Nobody gives a shit. he's never mentioned either.
After the credits you get to go back to the ship before the army blow it up and can FINALLY get some proper exploring in, fight a giant random space monster and then trigger a timed escape in true Metroid fashion. However even this is not without it's hideous glaring problems. See, apparently it turns out that rather than going back to, let's say, look for that one guy who's missing and everyone has forgotten about, Samus has actually gone back for a souvenier of that dead bastard who wouldn't let me use any of my goddamn power ups. So we eventually get to the room where he safely locked himself away whilst everyone else was off dying for the cause, and for some reason deactivates her power suit before picking up his discarded helmet Natuarally at this point the timer kicks in. Now, when you've got to evacuate an exploding space craft and posses a suit of powered armour that protects you against damage, vaccum, and gravitational anomolies whilst similataneously providing you with speed boosts, enhanced jumping and the firepower to destroy anything in your way would you not think it a good idea to FUCKING USE IT? Or am I being to obvious. Now, there's plently of time on the clock. You can reach your ship with a minute or two to spare, even if you fuck up a bit. But that's not the point. The point is that Samus is acting like a complete retard AGAIN. For NO good reason whatsoever.
And the real burn? After you've gone through all that, even with 100% pickups, you don't get a swimsuit picture. You don't get FUCKING ANYTHING. No hidden ending, no bonus scene, no answer to the subplot that you spent 80% of the game investigating and then everyone forgot. I guess theres the concept art gallery, but still....
Overall, whilst it's fun in places this was a dissapointing experience. There's stuff they got right to be sure. Just being able to continue from when you die rather than a save point 10 minutes away is a great step in the right direction. But considering how much they were harping on about the story being important in this couldn't thety have at least TRIED having one? If the plot of other M was incarnated as a person I would punch him in the face. The poor construction, random tangents and brutally unfinished threads really seem to suggest that something's missing here. Either there were some major cuts and things had to be put back together pretty quickly, or I guess they got bored halfway through or something. The whole buisness with the way they rationed powerups was just dumb and the characterisation of the series main character was, after all the build up, fantastically lame. Sure it can be fun enough to play if you can ignore the plot. But you can't.
Oh, and a word about cutscenes. There are a few things a cutscene in a game should be. Ideally it should be short and to the point. Crucially it should be both skippable (in the event you've already scene it) and pausable (in the event that you haven't). Sadly the cutscenes here lack any of these characteristics. You can get away with a lack of one set of these characteristics only in the event you've got the others nailed down. Quite why in this day and age nobodies managed to come up with a cutscene you can pause is frankly baffling. There is no call for this behaviour. We have the technology. We can rebuild him Get with the goddamn program people.
I want to like this game more than I should. Out of 10 I'm tempted to rate it a 6 or 7, but really, once you take all the problems into consideration, it's about a 5 tops. And Metroid games have very little buisness down that end of the scale.
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