Metroid, the third franchise in the oft-mentioned Nintendo “big 3,” has long been overshadowed in hype by the other two in the three – Mario and Zelda. Although the quality of the Metroid games has always been high and they have a committed fanbase, they just don’t generate the same level of excitement in the broader gaming public. In the case of Other M this was particularly the case – Metroid Prime fans seemed a little concerned about this new direction while old-school Metroid fans seemed concerned about the game quality and the whole cut-scene and talking Samus concept. These fears are only fears that the game is not exactly what fans of previous games want. As such they are somewhat well-founded, but this doesn’t mean the game isn’t good.

Samus is flying through space after defeating Mother Brain in the opening cinematic when she hears a distress call coming from nearby. She responds to the call and lands on a ship that seems to have been used as a giant research laboratory but is now curiously uninhabited by scientists. It turns out that other people have got there before – an old colleague and his platoon of Galactic Federation soldiers. Samus joins them in investigating what went wrong on the ship and she uncovers some dark secrets along the way. The events take place between Super Metroid and Metroid Fusion, and the intriguing plot is told using cut-scenes and voice-overs, a first for the series. This is not something Nintendo has done a lot of in the past, and it shows – the cinematics, while adequate for conveying the story of Samus’ past as well as the events on the ship, are not particularly impressive, and the exploration aspect of the game is reduced because plot is handed out as opposed to the way you pieced it together in the Prime games.

The action is very slick – this is much more of an action game than a Prime-like exploration experience. The camera ensures that most of the time the action happens on a 2D plane, which means you play the game by holding the Wii Remote on its side and moving with the D-pad. Sometimes the camera is side-on like traditional Metroid games, and other times (in big rooms) it moves to an isometric overhead view. This happens so seamlessly that everything feels just right. Pressing the 1 button shoots in the direction you’re facing, with the game taking care of aiming for you. Pressing the 2 button jumps. Pressing the A button morphs Samus into a small ball so you can roll into tiny holes in the wall. I still don’t understand how someone human-size becomes a little ball, but such is the power of Samus’ special suit. While in morph-ball form you can also drop bombs by pressing 1 and you can jump by pressing 2, so you have some maneuverability. While in normal suit mode if you point the Wii Remote at the screen the game switches to first-person mode – necessary for locking on missiles and firing them.

In first-person mode you can’t control the movements of Samus other than to perform a dodge move, so you often have to quickly change between holding the remote sideways and pointing it at the screen. You can also recharge your missiles (and your health if it’s low enough) by holding the Wii Remote vertically and holding down the B button. There are some close combat moves too – pressing 1 while running towards certain enemies will make Samus jump on the enemy’s back. You then hold 1 down to charge your shot and let go to hit them hard. All these movements feel very natural and work so smoothly – the control system is a great example of elegance and simplicity in an action game.

Most rooms have a little treasure of some sort somewhere – usually in the form of another missile silo (increasing your capacity) or perhaps another energy tank (collect enough of these and your suit’s maximum charge increases, effectively increasing your health). Fortunately the treasures appear on your mini-map once you’ve killed all the alien creatures in the area, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy to find them. Most of the time you have to find some little hole in the wall somewhere to roll into if you want to get near the upgrades. Sometimes it’s obvious that you will need to come back later, but it’s a little infuriating when you don’t know whether you need some weapon upgrade or future ability or whether you should be able to get to the item now. Fortunately the little dots stay on your mini-map for good so you can go back and search for them later.

Other than the treasures/upgrades, exploration is almost non-existent. Most areas seem to be a linear sequence of corridors through which you run. Every now and then I got the feeling that an area was thrown in just to extend things – another beehive, another three funny rolling things to kill, but for the most part you are doing new things all the time. The game is a reasonably focused 10 hours or so – not as epic as the Prime games, not too short or unrewarding to feel cheated. This is how the whole game feels – long enough but not quite as long as you hoped, fun enough but not quite as fun as you hoped. It’s different in form to the early Metroid games and to the Prime trilogy, and it doesn’t quite fall into any mould – instead it feels like it’s a little in-between and not quite there. Metroid: Other M is a fun action game, but doesn’t match up to the quality of its predecessors.

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