Metroid Prime 3: Corruption (Wii) Reader Review

Metroid Prime 3: Corruption
Brief overview: Metroid Prime 3: Corruption is a first person adventure/shooter. The game has three difficulty settings: Normal, Veteran, and Hyper Mode. The difficulty settings Normal and Veteran are available at the start of a new game, but Hyper Mode has to be unlocked. Metroid Prime 3: Corruption is the third entry into the Metroid Prime series and the first Metroid Prime game to be on the Wii.

Controls: 9 out of 10 The controls in the game are really good, for the most part. You move forward and backward using the joystick on the Nunchuck and you turn left/right and look up/down by pointing the Wii Remote in those directions. You can increase or decrease how fast you turn under the options menu. I highly suggest setting the look sensitivity to “Advanced” as it allows you to turn and look the fastest. Shooting and jumping is set by default to the A and B buttons. You press the C button to change into the morph ball and Z is used for targeting and grappling enemies or for using the grapple to swing in certain locations.
My one little control issue I had with the game was jumping when as the morph ball. The game has it set up where you do a quick flick of the Wii Remote UP causing you to jump when in the morph ball phase. This works most of the time, but sometimes I would flick the Wii Remote and it wouldn’t seem to register in the game. It’s not a huge issue, but may be a little aggravating to some people.
The - button is used to bring up your visors screen, the + button is used to go into Hyper Mode. If you press the 1 button, it will open up your map screen and allow you to change control settings and see your inventory and current objectives.

Game Play: 10 out of 10 I classified this as a first person adventure/shooter in the brief overview. In the game, you are trying to stop the spread of the enemy. There are four main planets in the game where most of the game play will happen. You will travel to the different planets to stop the spread of the enemy. You will find out you sometimes can’t accomplish goals without a proper suit/weapon upgrade, and that upgrade may be on a planet you visited earlier in the game. This is where I consider Metroid Prime 3 to be more of the adventure/exploration type game than a first person shooter type. It forces you to explore the different sections of each planet and get suit/weapon upgrades to complete parts of the game. The game was well paced in the fact of keeping the adventure/shooting going. Many times you will work your way through an area on the map, get a suit/weapon expansion, and then almost immediately find yourself in a situation to use the new expansion in battle.
The enemies in Corruption are varied. Some enemies walk/jump around, other enemies are clinging to walls/ceilings, other enemies fly around. The variety of enemies really allows the player to see the capabilities of the Wii Remote in a “first person shooter” setting.
Each planet has at least one “Main Boss” to defeat. The strategies to defeat the bosses are almost identical in my opinion, the strategy being mainly: “move and shoot, move and shoot, move and shoot”. While I would have liked to have seen some different ways to defeating the bosses, the boss battles are great in the fact of keeping you on the offense and defense the entire time and making sure you are concentrating on what you are doing. No lazy gaming here!

Graphics: 10 out of 10 I’ve played many Wii games and I thought the graphics in Metroid Prime 3 were really great and the art style was a great choice. I hope that other developers see what Retro did and take notes. I would like to see more FPS type games on the Wii with Metroid’s type graphics. The Wii may be only slightly upgraded from the GC, but that shouldn’t give developers a reason to not push the hardware. I thought the animations of death scenes of different bosses were done really well.

Level Design: 9 out of 10 I thought that the levels were pretty well thought out, especially Elysia and Bryyo. Elysia is a sky town (think Cloud City from Star Wars). I thought one of Bryyo’s puzzles was extremely difficult to figure out when trying to get 100% of the items, but it made me think(and appreciate how much effort Retro put into making the game with quality play time).
Again, a minor complaint with level design is the boss battles. Almost all of the boss battles are set up and designed the same way:
Circular/Square type arena. The boss is usually in the center of the room, attacking outwards. Samus(you) are usually around the outside of the arena. As I said earlier, the boss battles are “move and shoot, move and shoot, move and shoot”, usually with Samus(you) running and jumping around the edge of the arena while concentrating weapon fire at the boss in the middle.
I would have liked to see some arenas with different multiple level platforms being used during the fights or even environmental objects (i.e. stone pillars, fuel gel pools, etc.) used as strategic ways in the battles. The boss battles definitely keep you moving and keep your finger hitting the weapon fire button. If you try the game on Hyper Mode, be prepared for some long boss battles as it takes a lot more to damage them.

Sound:10 out of 10 The sound in the game was a varied assortment. I really enjoyed how the music changed according to what parts of the planets you were on and I really thought that the music did a great job with setting the correct moods for the game. The voice acting was really good and the sound effects of your ship, weapons, and enemies were all done properly, adding to the game, not taking anything away or being annoying in anyway.

Replay Value:10 out of 10 Again, this was my first Metroid Prime game to play. That being said, my first time playing it on Normal I logged right over 25 hours of game play on the game clock. I thought that I would play through the game on Normal and then put it away, but the game really did draw me in and I enjoyed the game so much and had so much fun, that as soon as I beat the game on Normal, I started another game on Veteran and logged right over 16 hours of game play. Then I decided after Veteran to go ahead and just TRY the game on Hyper Mode, because I had heard how hard it was and wanted to see if what I heard was true. After seeing how much harder the enemies were on just the first level in Hyper Mode, I knew I had to try and beat the game on Hyper Mode and I did in just over 14 hours. My total game play time for all three difficulties so far has been 55 hours.
Adding to the replay value of the game is the fact that they included two bonus endings. If you beat the game with less than 75% of the pickups, you will get just the normal ending. If you beat the game with more than 75% of the pickups, you will get the normal ending plus one bonus ending. If you beat the game with 100% of the pickups, you get the normal plus two bonus endings (the previous ending for collecting 75% of the pickups and a new one).
The game also includes different unlockable items you obtain by spending “tokens” you collect while playing the game. You get tokens a variety of ways: scanning items with your visor, beating bosses, getting different number of kills(100, 200, etc.), killing enemies in certain ways, etc. One thing that Retro did was to include something called “Friend Vouchers”. The difference with the Friend Vouchers and regular tokens, is that you can’t spend the Friend Vouchers. The only way to unlock everything(from what I know) is to have another person that has played Corruption send you their very own Friend Vouchers. When you receive their Friend Vouchers, they are then converted to Friend Tokens and can be spent on some unlockable items.

Issues or Problems: I have already listed several small complaints in the review. Here is a summary of them and one or two added:
1) Almost identical strategies to defeat bosses and almost identical boss arenas.
2) Jumping while in the morph ball didn’t always seem to register.
3) When trying to grapple onto either enemies or items, sometimes it wouldn’t seem to register my motions in time (sometimes allowing a boss to get back up, which was really aggravating).
4) Load times. While you won’t see the screen actually say, “Loading”, the game disguises it different ways. You may walk up to a door, shoot it to open it, and have to wait 10-20 seconds for the door to actually open. During my first time playing the game, it wasn’t a big issue. After I knew where items were and what I was supposed to be doing, it was sometimes aggravating to have to wait for a door to open. Also, traveling between planets consists of using your ship to fly to the planets. When flying between planets, the game uses in-game cut scenes of the ship flying to disguise the load times between planets. Again, this is something that I don’t see as a HUGE issue, but something that may aggravate you a little.

Money’s worth: 10 out of 10 Is it worth your money? Being that I've gotten 50+ hours of game play out of the game and I haven’t even unlocked everything yet, the game is definitely worth $49.99. Many people may be skeptical to play it, because they have never played a Metroid PRIME game…DON’T BE! This was my first Metroid Prime game of the series to play. This game is staying in my collection and I HIGHLY recommend it! Buy it; rent it; whatever you do, just make sure you play this game!

The overall score of the game is the average of scores from the:
Controls: 9 out of 10
Game Play: 10 out of 10
Graphics: 10 out of 10
Level Design: 9 out of 10
Sound: 10 out of 10
Replay Value: 10 out of 10
Money's Worth: 10 out of 10
Score: 9.7