The guys over at GamePro got to attend an invite-only gaming marathon held by Nintendo and managed to lay their hands on a playable version of Metroid Prime: Corruption. It looks like they had a blast with the title, to say the least. Here are their impressions of the game:
Metroid Prime 3: Corruption Definitely stole the the show. The graphics looked amazing — better than Halo 2 on the Xbox without a doubt — and the levels showed off sparkling details, proving the Wii is far more powerful than the Gamecube. Out of all the games we played, the Wii controller seemed most at home with Metroid.
You don’t fire with your index finger, but with your thumb (using the A button). This sounds a little goofy, but in practice it worked very, very well. You could press the directional pad to fire rockets or enter your scanning mode, and the trigger (aka the B button) handled jumps very nicely. Samus has a few new moves that take advantage of the motion-sensitive controller. By locking onto a target and thrusting the left nunchuku forward, Samus could launch a grappling beam. The beam is similar to Half-Life 2’s Gravity Gun, but was mostly used to push rubble out of the way, open grates, or in a nice touch, yank shields from enemy hands. The other major Wii functionality was that some control panels needed to be lifted, rotated, and pushed back into slots — these movements were all handled on the Wii controller.
Aiming with the point-and-shoot controller felt very nice, though it took a few minutes to become truly comfortable. The experience was much like playing a PC first-person shooter, especially since the nunchucku analog stick controlled movement We found that standing roughly four feet from the TV provided the best motion, and the cursor stayed smooth and steady — no shakiness! The frame rate was also smooth and consistent, even when the screen got crowded with special effects.
In the mean time, it looks like News Observer also has a few very interesting details about the game. Hit the jump to check ’em out!
Nintendo continues to refine the game controls to best utilize the new Wii controller. “Corruption” will allow you to adjust how fast the onscreen cursor moves in reaction to your twitching hand (something we hope other developers will incorporate into their Wii games). After finding your ideal setting, you’ll aim with more precision and turn the camera at a speed that feels more natural to you. We’re also excited about some of the unique hand movements incorporated into the game, like whipping out an energy beam to yank a door off its hinges.
“Corruption” takes full advantage of the first-person perspective to make you part of the action. There’s also a new hyper mode in which Samus can fill up her phazon supply to a certain point to push her into a heightened period of speed and power. Push the phazon limit too far and it will overload her armor and you’ll be seeing a game over screen. Finally, word is that at long last Samus’ ship will be used during gameplay, an intriguing twist that should cause the saliva glands of “Metroid” fans to work overtime
Looks like Corruption might just turn out to be the first really good FPS on the Wii after all. To be honest, I’m kinda hoping Nintendo releases the game with the “Zapper” peripheral for the Wiimote and Nunchuck. That would be beyond cool. Good to hear that they’re paying attention to the graphics, too. I’ve always maintained that, although the Wii would never compare to the PS3 or the 360 in terms of visuals, games would not look downright bad on it if developers made the effort to address their graphics.
