Metroid Prime is a "first person adventure" game, developed by Retro Studios and published by Nintendo. Metroid Prime was released and shipped on November 18th in North America, into the waiting hands of gamers everywhere.

The Metroid series has traditionally put the players in the body of Samus Aran, bounty hunter in a far off future. Samus has supernatural abilities thanks to her power suit, a gift from an ancient and exinct race of bird like creatures (the Chozo). The series was widely regarded to have reached its peak with the release of Super Metroid for the Super Nintendo in 1994. Super Metroid was a revolutionary game which set the standard for platforming games at its time. Now, the Metroid series reaches new heights with the release of the long anticipated Metroid Prime.

For the first time, the development of a Metroid game was put in the hands of foreign game studio, Texas based Retro Studios. Even spending a small amount of time with Metroid Prime, I noticed incredible polish. The game has been taken from its 2d platforming roots and thrust into the uncertain realm of 3d first person shooters, but Retro has managed to retain much of the old game mechanics and has improved many of the elements vastly.

After I had popped the game in my Gamecube I was treated to the title screen, an eerie close up shot of what is presumably the Metroid's nucleus, complete with eerie music. If you don't want me to ruin the plot, you should skip to the next paragraph, as this one is a bit spoiler heavy. Metroid Prime begins similarly to Super Metroid: Samus Aran lands and begins to explores a nearly deserted space station. This time though, she's investigating Space Pirate activity. Metroid Prime follows the first Metroid (NES) in terms of chronology, which leaves a surprising amount of room for the plot. After discovering several genetic research experiments gone horribly wrong, you begin to realize that the space station is swarming with mutated creatures have escaped their holding cells. The Space Pirates, in attempts to harness the full potential of the Metroid and other creatures, are experimenting with a new mutagenic substance known as "Phazon". If you take advantage of Samus' ability to scan her surroundings you can uncover a myriad of Space Pirate logs throughout the game which reveal the Space Pirates intentions. This is a nice touch, as you get to see the point of view of the bad guys for once. After touching down on the nearby planet Tallon IV, you can uncover a great deal of information about the previous inhabitants, the Chozo. Some time ago, a large meteorite containing large amounts of Phazon smashed into Tallon IV, poisoning and corrupting all the native inhabitants and ultimately ruining the land. Taking advantage of a huge natural resource, the Space Pirates invaded Tallon IV and set up a base to perform their horrific experiments with the radioactive Phazon. As Samus, the player must put a stop to the Space Pirates occupation of Tallon IV and combat the horrible genetic mutations they have created.

Metroid Prime enjoys one of the smoothest transitions from 2d to 3d of any game today. While many were skeptical of the first person perspective Metroid Prime employs, it certainly feels much more like a Metroid game than a regular First Person Shooter. The reasons for this are many: First of all, the player sees the game through the visor of Samus Aran. The HUD is very detailed and impressive, and the visor view "grounds" the player in Samus' body. Secondly, instead of using the traditional dual stick control common on most other console FPS', Retro opted to use the C-Stick for selecting weapons, and the D-Pad for selecting visors. You can manually aim using the R shoulder button, but this is practically useless in cases of actual combat, as it restricts Samus' ability to dodge and evade shots in a firefight. Instead, a Lock-on system is implemented. Items of interest can be locked on through the visor by pressing and holding the L shoulder button, enabling the player to both fire and dodge easily, using the A and B buttons, respectively. Locking on to enemies minimized the frustration of aiming with a stick, and places more of a focus on creatively attacking enemies and using cover whenever possible. Metroid Prime has a lot of jumping around in it, as any platformer should, and as a FPS first, the jumping feels very natural. With some practice, players can make most jumps easily, and a powerup later on simplifies it additionally. Lastly, with all of Samus' power-ups and equipment scattered throughout the immense world of Tallon IV, you can spend days exploring in search of more missle upgrades. This progressive and rewarding gameplay may be what set's Metroid Prime apart from other titles. This time through, Metroid is much harder, so exploring to find more powerups is integral to gameplay, and some mastery of the controls is required to advance to the later parts.

The graphics in Metroid Prime are nothing short of revolutionary. While the game doesn't necessarily make use of all the effects the Gamecube is capable, the sheer detail present in all the levels is absolutely stunning. The textures are vibrant and crisp, the models are smooth and masterfully made, and the atmosphere that comes from each of the different areas is absolutely immersive. In one part of Tallon IV, you must navigate a derelict space frigate, filled mostly with water. It literally made me gasp how much detail had been put into this area. There are hundreds of minor graphical touches which you notice after some time, like the heat waves that come from your gun after it overheats, or the water droplets streaming down your visor in a rainstorm. Of course, graphics are only part of the package- Metroid Prime has an equally immersive soundtrack that was just as moody, and catchy as Super Metroid's. Most of Metroid Prime has new music, but a few old tracks have made a return- notably, the old Norfair music has been used for the new magma level, Magmoor caverns. Whether new or old, the music definitely adds to the feeling of isolation that is common in the Metroid series.

I think it's sad that many people will not enjoy Metroid Prime because of petty gripes with either the control scheme or the first person perspective. I think it would be very ignorant to dismiss this game as another FPS clone, and even worse to dismiss it under the grounds that you don't like the system it's on. Regardless of the franchise, who developed or what system it's on, Metroid Prime is definitely one of the greatest games of the past few years, and I would definitely recommend even casual gamers to try it for a bit. A game of this caliber is very rare, and people will remember this game for years to come.