However successful Nintendo is being in its continuing quest to expand videogames into new areas, there is still a huge group of people to whome the company’s E3 appearance was always going to be about the two big Ms; Mario and Metroid. Chad’s already brought you the video of the plumber’s appearance during Nintendo’s press conference, but what about Samus? (He asks naively, assuming you haven’t hit the play button well in advance of reading this preamble.)
Well things are looking good. Tension was at a high level around this one, following the appearance of some variable screenshots over the last few months and the eternal worry over the controls. Let’s face it, despite being seemingly made for each other, the Wii and FPS have had a rocky relationship so far, and a gimped Metroid would have been the highest of high crimes.
From the on-stage play-through however, it looks like we might be close to a sigh of relief, with the possibility of a big grin to follow. In lieu of actually playing the game, the video makes Corruption look far smoother than the Wii’s previous dabblings in the genre, showing what appears to be a very small “dead-zone” (though we understand this to be adjustable) and some quick and accurate turning and aiming. The battle mechanics also sound a lot freer than previous Metroid Prime games, with run and gun the order of the day and Samus now having the ability to engage different enemies while locked on to one in particular.
Obviously though we’ll have to hold back genuine judgement until one of our E3 team has made me horribly jealous by having a hands-on, but hopefully that will happen fairly soon. Keep watching this space people.
