Metroid: Other M

Metroid: Other M isn't a terrible game. Okay, that's not exactly a compliment, but when such a well-respected franchise like Metroid comes out with a big-budget sequel that doesn't come close to living up to previous installments, it's easy to be hyperbolic about your disappointment. Because of this, a decent but flawed game showed up on many 'worst of 2010' lists when it probably shouldn't have. Metroid: Other M made a lot of changes to the series, but that's happened to Metroid before and it worked out great. Unfortunately the changes here made it a clear step down from the Metroid Prime trilogy. I just think the game does deserve a little credit for being for the most part actually pretty decent. There was criticism all across the board on this game, so let's take a closer look at each issue and whether I think it was warranted or not.

The Controls: Well, clearly. Metroid: Other M attempted to simplify the control scheme from Metroid Prime 3: Corruption by getting rid of the nun-chuck accessory entirely, but in doing so seemed to make things more convoluted than before. For the most part you play in third-person holding the Wii-Mote sideways sort of like an old NES controller, but at times you need to point the Wii-Mote directly at the screen to switch to a first-person view and fire missiles. When this happens you can't move until you switch back to third-person again, so a lot of people hated that.

Was the criticism warranted? In my opinion, no. I've already admitted I'm pretty forgiving of bizarre controller schemes, but this never really felt like a problem to me and I found the controls pretty non-intrusive for the most part.

The Story: Here's another big one. The Metroid series is famous for being light on story, which is often only presented in a few quick cuts-scenes or scanned pieces of lore- all you've ever really needed to know is 'Samus is on an abandoned planet with lots of monsters that want to kill her'. All of this changed however in Metroid: Other M, where there were plenty of boring cut-scenes that dragged on for 5-10 minutes, full of goofy dialog and cookie-cutter characters.

Was the criticism warranted? Yes, the story's pretty terrible and I used the cut-scenes as a break to go on Facebook most of the time. It also made Samus seem weak compared to the men in the game, which is a shame considering she's one of the few strong popular female video game characters.

The Atmosphere: Atmosphere has always been a huge part of the Metroid series, usually in the feeling of being completely alone on an alien planet. As I mentioned in that last blurb though, Samus isn't alone at all in this game. There's like 10 other characters running around this abandoned space station with you, and you take orders from a former commander, Adam Malkovich (who you may remember being mentioned in Metroid Fusion, which occurs after Other M). In a bizarre choice, Samus actually has access to all of her advanced powers for the entire game but needs to wait for her commanding officer to authorize their use. This sort of made sense for some of the strong weapons- dropping a power bomb could hurt one of your allies! But on the other hand, why wouldn't I be allowed to use my grapple beam or gravity suit whenever I wanted?

Was the criticism warranted? Maybe. 'Authorization' of upgrades was an odd choice, but Metroid has never really had a clean way to explain why Samus has to re-find her special powers in every game. Also there's no denying that it's a different feeling in Metroid to take orders and know you'll run into random allies, but aside from cut-scenes and one early team boss-fight, you're mostly on your own.

The Pixel-Hunt Segments: In another weird choice, the game will periodically force you into a first person perspective where you have to look around and find some hidden oddity before you can move on. The big problem for me with this what that there was zero explanation as to what was happening when it first occurred, a cut-scene simply ended with me in the first-person view with seemingly no way to get out. Some pixel hunts were hard, and some were easy.

Was the criticism warranted? Probably. It really seems to have no place in a Metroid game and rarely added to the game experience. I didn't find them nearly as frustrating as many others did, but I think it would have been much easier if the game explained what the hell was going on the first time it happened.

So there's my take on the criticisms, but I still feel that for the most part the gameplay holds up pretty well- it's just interrupted every few minutes with something that doesn't make a lot of sense compared to old Metroid games- allies, pixel-hunts, and big dumb cut-scenes. I've still got Super Metroid left to play and have no intent to ever play the pinball game, but in the overall series I'd rank this ahead of Zero Mission and Hunters at least. It's a disappointing game for sure, but as I said earlier, it's not a terrible game.