(images courtesy of Nintendo.com)

I've been watching movies of this game for a couple weeks now and reading all the previews, and my anticipation has only grown. I even have wanted to go to Nintendo's Cube Club when it hits Phoenix because they have a playable demo of this game (along with the new Zelda and others) and free promotional DVDs. Goodies, indeed! However, I went to Wal-mart tonight (yes, I know. Walmart. Bad. Sorry), and as usual I began to mess around with the GameCube they have on display there. The Demo disks that Nintendo puts in the stores have had videos of Metroid Prime for awhile so I selected it and hit the button. Well, I noticed that this time it popped up with a title screen and asked for me to press Start. Apparently this was a new demo disk and it wasn't just a movie.

Playable Metroid demo. Sweet.

Anyway, impressions:

The demo begins with Samus being dropped off on a Pirate station. You make your way into the complex by disabling the security fields. This introduces you to the control scheme. Right off the bat, you'll notice that this isn't a typical FPS on a console. For one, you don't have real look controls and you don't have strafe buttons. You move with the control stick and it makes you turn from right to left and move forward and back. A button fires, X button shoots missiles, and the Y button switches you to ball mode. I don't know what the B button does. I'm sure it's something I could have used, but I only got to play the demo for 10 minutes or so, so I don't quite know the whole setup. The L trigger enters into targeting mode (much like Zelda's "Z-Targeting") and in this mode left and right on the control stick make you strafe in a slight circular motion. You don't have to have an enemy on the screen to use this mode, so you can use it to strafe around. It doesn't work as well as the Strafe buttons in most FPS games, but then again Retro studios was not going for a typical FPS shooter game. The R trigger allows you to look around, including up and down, but you have to stand still to use this. It takes a little time getting used to not having full "mouse-look" style controls, but I'm sure it will get easier over time. Finally, the control pad switches your visor mode and the yellow C-Stick shifts weapons.

The environments in this game are outstanding, and that's just the impression I got from the demo level. The Pirate space platform is strangely empty with corpses of pirates and strange creatures strewn about. The entire complex seemed to be in slight disarray, with parts of the level lacking power. Graphically, the environments are rich and full of detail. One gameplay feature is that you use Samus' visor to scan items and gain information, and there seemed to be a lot of items to scan. By researching the various details of the environment, you get a feeling of what's going on in the Metroid world. I'm sure that some people will be put off by having to scan these items, but many of them seem to be just background information and I'm sure you can skip past doing this if you so desire.

As for the argument of whether the series should have gone 3d, I'm not really going to get into that argument. Personally, I think that this is a fine game from what I've seen and played. It's different, and I really doubt it'll touch Super Metriod in terms of great gameplay, but that's to be expected. Super Metroid in and of itself is one of the best games ever produced. Period. Will this game still be good, even if it doesn't match Super Metroid? Most assuredly.