Metroid: Other M

[Quasar]

My initial impressions after playing a few hours into the game:

• It's great, for a semi-interactive movie.
  
• It's basically Metroid Fusion but in 3D.
  
• The voice acting and writing are as bad as you've probably heard they are. High school honors English students could probably have come up with something more eloquent. They evidently stole the plot from a corny, mushy Metroid fanfic I started and never finished back in 1999, because it's basically the same story.
  
• Probably its strongest point is how fucking creepy it is. I've never been more afraid to take another step down a hallway in any game I can think of.
  
• I doubt I'll be playing it in 12 years. In fact I'd probably really rather be speedrunning Metroid Prime 2 for the 3rd time within the last month right now :)
  
• While this is an okay game, if they keep making Metroid games like this one, the series will turn out like Castlevania IMHO.
  

[Craigs]

I still want to know why it's called "other M".

[Quasar]

Craigs said:

I still want to know why it's called "other M".

Even giving a hint would count as a spoiler, from what I've inadvertently read on the internet ;)

[Use]

What about the music? Does it control much like Prime? I haven't played the other Metroid on Wii, so I don't know how that one works.

[geekmarine]

Quasar said:

Even giving a hint would count as a spoiler, from what I've inadvertently read on the internet ;)

But everything I've heard about it says that the story and whatnot is absolutely terrible, so I don't know how bad a spoiler on that front really is.

[Sporku]

Use3D said:

What about the music? Does it control much like Prime? I haven't played the other Metroid on Wii, so I don't know how that one works.

The controls are pretty aggrivating, as you'd expect from a Wii title. It plays like a sidescroller Metroid (except for the autoaim!) title from back in the day with the Wii remote held sideways like an NES controller.. but you can also point the remote at the screen and go into a first person viewpoint where you can... shoot at stuff. You can't move or anything. And yes, it is a required aspect and there are points where you have to frequently flip the controller around, switching between first and third person. It is exactly as annoying as it sounds (note: very). I'm sure given time you'd get used to the controls, but I could only stand to play it for about 20 minutes before I got frustrated and stopped playing.

Metroid has always been about atmosphere and isolation, and it feels like they pretty much threw that out the window on this one. Like Fusion, they tried to put more emphasis on the storyline, which I've always felt has not been a major player in the series. In fact, one of the reasons I love Super Metroid/Metroid Prime is because of how little emphasis there is on standard story development. There are small details that flesh out the world, and Metroid Prime gave you detailed (but optional) information on lore, enemies, and events throughout the game. But again, it's there if you want to look for it. Metroid Fusion and now this game pretty much ditch that and instead force storyline down your throat that quite frankly I don't give a shit about. Shut the fuck up and let me explore the world, okay? It'd be like if they came out with a Grand Theft Auto game where you had a cell phone and every 5 seconds some annoying douchebag would call you and ask to go bowling when you'd much rather be taking stolen cars for joyrides and blowing the fuck out of everything--OH WAIT.

Also, another thing I've always liked about the series is that for the most part, Samus has always been a pretty mysterious character. Aside from Fusion, there was never really too much of an attempt made to delve deep into her character, and honestly I liked the fact that she was so mysterious.

lolz metroid fanboy ahoy!

[JadedLexi]

geekmarine said:

But everything I've heard about it says that the story and whatnot is absolutely terrible, so I don't know how bad a spoiler on that front really is.

Just throw out everything you've heard about it and actually try the goddamn game, it's pretty fun.

[Philnemba]

Recently bought this game this past weekend and so far its fun.

Quasar said:

Probably its strongest point is how fucking creepy it is. I've never been more afraid to take another step down a hallway in any game I can think of.

Heh I had some frights too in this game. Examples:

-while running down a tunnel a giant worm creature crashes towards you from no where.
-While running through a tunnel full of Wavers I decided to go morph ball and went down a slope and ran into spikes that I didn't notice. I died instantly due to having 20 hp left -_-;

[Quasar]

The lack of energy pickups of any type is another annoying factor. You have the so-called concentration to restore energy, but it's useless during boss fights since the enemies aren't going to just back off and let you refill.

As far as the music goes, it's completely understated, ambient stuff. Every now and then in Sector 1 the music acts like it's going to pick up like the Sector 2 music from Fusion, and then it goes back to being ambience. It's like you're like WOO MUSIC and then awwwww. This is, unlike Prime 1 - 3, not a soundtrack I will be loading up into WMP or Winamp or burning to CD to play in my car anytime soon.

Where was Kenji Yamamoto on this game? His music has practically made the franchise what it was, and yet they left him out. The only thing that does is make me hopeful that maybe they have him already working on the next secret Metroid project. Maybe something involving Retro or ANYBODY OTHER than Team Ninja. :P

[Philnemba]

Quasar said:

The lack of energy pickups of any type is another annoying factor. You have the so-called concentration to restore energy, but it's useless during boss fights since the enemies aren't going to just back off and let you refill.

That was the only thing that annoyed me in the game. Its pretty much useless to me as the only time I REALLY need it is during boss battles(which as you mention Quasar is useless due to constant attacks). I really prefer farming for energy pickups like I use to from the previous games BUT NOPE Team Ninja decides to make us "concentration to restore energy" crap which I feel breaks the formula of restoring your hp in the series.

[Sharessa]

I saw my friend play through the last 1/3 of this game then I watched the "Metroid: Other M: the Movie" that you unlock when you beat it (basically all the cinematics with clips of bossfights and the like in between to make a comprehensive movie). I thought it looked pretty cool, but then again I've never really played any Metroid games before. I probably wouldn't play it just because I don't like console platformers. The whole Ridley storyline was hilariously awesome, though.

[Quasar]

Well my opinion is shifting more toward hate at the moment. I'm sick of the cheap mechanics and the unavoidable energy attrition. Don't put me in a boss room after taking half my health with a stupid heated room. What a load.

[Technician]

I didn't care for prime so I think I'll skip this as well.

[Quasar]

Technician said:

I didn't care for prime so I think I'll skip this as well.

Well this isn't anything like Prime (which I love btw). This is basically GoW (or pick your favorite run-around-and-mindlessly-kill-things-while-dying-a-lot game) reskinned to have Samus in it.

[Sporku]

Quasar said:

Well this isn't anything like Prime (which I love btw). This is basically GoW (or pick your favorite run-around-and-mindlessly-kill-things-while-dying-a-lot game) reskinned to have Samus in it.

So in other words, the exact opposite of what Metroid is supposed to be.

[Craigs]

you can also point the remote at the screen and go into a first person viewpoint where you can... shoot at stuff. You can't move or anything.

Sounds like Resident Evil 4 and 5, both of which I found pretty damn frustrating. To be honest, I've only owned two Metroid games, specifically Metroid 2 and Metroid Prime. Metroid Prime was pretty cool, but the controls seemed extremely odd for a first person shooter.

Metroid 2 is still by far my favorite game that I have owned for the Gameboy. I know a lot of people complained that it kind of sucked compared to the others, but I enjoyed it a lot.

[Sporku]

Craigs said:

Sounds like Resident Evil 4 and 5, both of which I found pretty damn frustrating. To be honest, I've only owned two Metroid games, specifically Metroid 2 and Metroid Prime. Metroid Prime was pretty cool, but the controls seemed extremely odd for a first person shooter.

Metroid 2 is still by far my favorite game that I have owned for the Gameboy. I know a lot of people complained that it kind of sucked compared to the others, but I enjoyed it a lot.

I guess you could compare it to Resident Evil 4/5, but there's a couple of things that make it much worse than those games. For one, you obviously don't have to change the angle of the controller in those games, and for good reason; it's simply not intuitive at all. In fact, it's a pain in the ass, and I don't know why they felt the need to do it like that. Also, Metroid: Other M is a sidescroller, not an over-the-shoulder shooter. Which means there's a switch between 3rd and 1st person camera viewpoints. To me it's incredibly disorienting to have it suddenly change viewpoints like that.

If you liked Metroid 2, I'd really recommend giving Super Metroid a go. It's aged incredibly well I think and still holds its own, even today.

[Use]

Metroid Prime 1 and 2 are both phenomenal games, this one is pretty much fail everywhere it goes from what I've read, so maybe I'll just avoid it for now and preserve the happy Prime times a little longer.

[Craigs]

AgentSpork said:

I guess you could compare it to Resident Evil 4/5, but there's a couple of things that make it much worse than those games. For one, you obviously don't have to change the angle of the controller in those games, and for good reason; it's simply not intuitive at all. In fact, it's a pain in the ass, and I don't know why they felt the need to do it like that. Also, Metroid: Other M is a sidescroller, not an over-the-shoulder shooter. Which means there's a switch between 3rd and 1st person camera viewpoints. To me it's incredibly disorienting to have it suddenly change viewpoints like that.

If you liked Metroid 2, I'd really recommend giving Super Metroid a go. It's aged incredibly well I think and still holds its own, even today.

I downloaded a Super Metroid ROM a while ago. It's pretty damn hard compared to Metroid 2. Not sure if I'll even bother with this new one from what I've heard about it. At the very most, I might consider renting it but that's about it.

[Sharessa]

Craigs said:

Metroid 2 is still by far my favorite game that I have owned for the Gameboy. I know a lot of people complained that it kind of sucked compared to the others, but I enjoyed it a lot.

If you like Metroid 2, you might like at least the plot to Other M. It apparently has a lot to do with the plot for Metroid 2, and takes place right after it (and I think right before Fusion). Also, a shit ton of Samus's back story.

[Craigs]

Danarchy said:

If you like Metroid 2, you might like at least the plot to Other M. It apparently has a lot to do with the plot for Metroid 2, and takes place right after it (and I think right before Fusion). Also, a shit ton of Samus's back story.

Honestly? I didn't give a shit about the plot for Metroid 2. Hell, when I first played it I was pretty young and had no idea what the hell was going on. As far as the plot was concerned at the time, all I knew was that I was someone in power armor with a gun for a hand. I had flown to some planet and I was shooting all sorts of weird aliens. I love it for the same reason I loved Unreal. You're all alone on a hostile planet full of shit that wants to kill you, isolated from civilization. Something about that kind of plot appeals to me and really gets me interested.

I watched a few cutscenes from Other M. That is some ridiculously shitty dialogue and voice acting. A lot of the dialogue seems redundant and repetitive. If I had a nickle for every time Samus says "The baby" in the first couple of cutscenes, I'd probably be rich. Yeah I get it. You're referring to the metroid. You don't have to keep remind me. From what I've seen in the cutscenes, a lot of it is like this. It strikes me as something I'd read in some shitty fanfiction.

[Quasar]

Danarchy said:

If you like Metroid 2, you might like at least the plot to Other M. It apparently has a lot to do with the plot for Metroid 2, and takes place right after it (and I think right before Fusion). Also, a shit ton of Samus's back story.

Actually it's right after Super Metroid, to the point where Samus is still being housed in a GF quarantine to make sure she didn't bring anything bad back from Zebes with her when you start.

This isn't revealing much about Samus that wasn't already shown in the Japanese manga or the Fusion backstory. It almost completely ignores Samus's childhood with the Chozo, which is probably the most enigmatic and most interesting part of her past.

This game also completely ignores and in a couple of cases outright contradicts the Prime story arc. It's clear that Yoshio Sakamoto is content to remove it from his pet timeline.

Sakamoto has become the next IGA IMHO. Departing from all the traditions of a series he took over from somebody else who was a lot smarter than he is and tainting it with his own Mary Sue fanfic, convinced that everyone needs to be corrected to share his own point of view on the series and its characters.

But aside from that, I enjoyed Other M a bit more last night. Beat that stupid dragon (after narrowly recovering 90 energy with a well-timed focus at 0 health!), cleared out Sector 3, and moved onto Sector 2. This game has a few redeeming qualities, so it's not outright bad.

One of its better qualities is the amount of minute detail poured into every room. Not only is every one unique, but every corner of each feels just as different. That's definitely something the Castlevania series cannot say for years now, with IGA's copypasta-happy level designers.

[Sporku]

Personally I find it kind of amusing that Metroid Prime, which came out in 2002 for the GameCube, manages to look wholly better and will most definitely age better than Metroid: Other M, which was released almost 8 years later. But hey, who cares about graphics, right?

[Craigs]

AgentSpork said:

Personally I find it kind of amusing that Metroid Prime, which came out in 2002 for the GameCube, manages to look wholly better and will most definitely age better than Metroid: Other M, which was released almost 8 years later. But hey, who cares about graphics, right?

It's the gameplay that counts and with its intuitive controls Other M proves to be... oh wait.

Well there's still the story to take into consideration and with the game's brilliantly dialogue and amazing voice acting... oh wait.

Also I gave the game a try over at my friend's place. Nothing better than trying to fumble around with the controller when you need to make a quick and precise shot in a really small amount of time.

[Belial]

AgentSpork said:

Personally I find it kind of amusing that Metroid Prime, which came out in 2002 for the GameCube, manages to look wholly better and will most definitely age better than Metroid: Other M, which was released almost 8 years later. But hey, who cares about graphics, right?

Ugh, quit reminding me of the GC emulator that's sitting on my desktop with MP being the only game I have for it.

I simply don't have enough time to enjoy such a game properly.

[Quasar]

Craigs said:

Also I gave the game a try over at my friend's place. Nothing better than trying to fumble around with the controller when you need to make a quick and precise shot in a really small amount of time.

I can only speak for myself but I really think this is a learning curve kind of thing, as I've gotten much more proficient.

Prime had some of the same complaints about its much more reasonable control scheme, and I dunno about anybody else, but I tear around all three Prime games like an absolute madman now.

So as far as that goes, I'd say time & practice are the only factor.

[Sporku]

Belial said:

Ugh, quit reminding me of the GC emulator that's sitting on my desktop with MP being the only game I have for it.

I simply don't have enough time to enjoy such a game properly.

Does that emulator even run at a tolerable frame rate?

[Use]

Quasar said:

Prime had some of the same complaints about its much more reasonable control scheme, and I dunno about anybody else, but I tear around all three Prime games like an absolute madman now.

I took to Primes controls instantly.

[Sporku]

The main complaint with Prime's control scheme was that it didn't use standard FPS fare for consoles (left stick move, right stick look), but most people who complain about it don't seem to realize that Prime isn't standard FPS fare. Above all else it's an adventure game, not a shooter. The ability to lock onto enemies eliminates the need for the right analog stick to be used for looking around, and I think it works incredibly well for switching weapons.

[Belial]

AgentSpork said:

Does that emulator even run at a tolerable frame rate?

Sure. I finished the first level without any problems. Not sure how it would work with wide open areas though, the starting area outside the space station ran at 25-30 fps.