Customer Reviews

Metroid: Other M

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This game suffered the old vs. new genaration of gamers. Since the youger audience as more active players than the later (and have more time expressing themselve on the internet), this game is seen like a bad one. I'm from the old school and this game made me buy a Wii (this and DKC Returns). Event though the Prime trilogy was very good, I never felt that Metroid feeling. It could have been any other hero and it would have been as good.

Metroid: Other M on the other hand gave me that feeling I was looking for, the first minutes I played! It’s like Super Metroid with modern look. There are annoying things in the game (most notably a fragile Samus always near crying in cutscenes and a very linear play) but the action, the ambiance and the way it plays is totally Metroid! And yes, you can skip cutscenes by pressing the minus button.

It’s in my Top 5 Wii games.

Let me first say that I'm a big fan of the Metroid series and I own all games except this one. The reasons are many but I will point out the obvious ones:

- The plot of the game is pretty weak.
- Samus starts with all her powers but isn't able to use them until commander Malkovich tells her to. What kind of game design is that?
- Enemies don't drop any health or ammo, so in the end you just pass through the many rooms of the space station while avoiding all of them.
- The voice acting is horrible, it completely changed my perception of Samus since I heard her monotone voice. Samus is a crybaby when she encounters Ridley she has a mental blocking and starts crying like a baby until commander Malkovitch tells her to snap out of it. It's very funny because in the Metroid chronology she's beaten Ridley about 4 times before and never acted like this.
- The pacing of the game is hindered by investigation moments where Samus just stands there in first person mode and waits for the player to find something of interest in the environment. There are also moments where there's an above the shoulder view (like Resident Evil 4). The player needs to move Samus from point A to point B just to view another cut scene. At that moment, Samus can only walk very slowly, she can do nothing else and there are no enemies. This breaks the pace of the game. Couldn't the designers just skip the walking Samus part and get to the cutscene already?
- There is absolutely no memorable music in this game, only ambient sounds.
- The control scheme is original, but doesn't work 100%. The controls in first person view don't allow you to move left or right and since the locking feature for the missile launcher takes about a second to work, you are very vulnerable to enemy attacks. Most of the time it takes a moment to find the crosshair on the screen while switching to first person view and this can be disastrous during boss fights. The auto targeting mode also only works half the time.
- Avoiding enemy hits is very easy: you just shake the wiimote like crazy and prepare to charge your beam while the enemy is attacking. Then you just shoot and hope the auto targeting mode does its job.
- Bosses are almost all beaten by the same strategy.
- The game is short. You can beat it in 6-8 hours. There is no reason to play it a second time (I've beaten it so I know what I talking about).
- This game is a mix of Ninja Gaiden and Metroid. If Ryu Hayabuza and Samus had a kid together it would be Samus from Other M.
- The only good point: the graphics are great and the animations are very well done.

Overall, the game is still fun, but it has some major design flaws. You should rent this game before thinking of buying it. It could save you a lot of money.

Metroid other M is very contraversial. Fans of the 2d metroid games are more likely to enjoy it. While fans of the prime series such as myself are likely to be disappointed. I would recommend you rent the game first.

The METROID franchise was slowly going astray, falling "victim" to innovations that mostly worked yet, at the same time, were turning METROID games into a typical space shooter. Don't get me wrong, I greatly enjoyed the Metroid Trilogy - it just did not give off the sense of a classic METROID game. Well, NINTENDO made sure to take care of that.

THE OTHER M is an old-school platform shooter, only equipped with the latest innovations that enhance rather than hinder the true character of the game. Samus Aran can now move in 3D (and not only in a sidescrolling manner), yet this is and feels like a classic platform game. There is some puzzle-solving and expect to spend quite some time in the form of a morphing ball, zipping through pipes, bypassing obstacles, unlocking security doors and finding powerups; and the FirstPerson perspective is still available to deliver devastating missile shots (while keeping Samus stationary and vulnerable to enemy attacks, one cannot play the game as an FPS). Nevertheless, this is an pure action-shooter game that is greatly enjoyable.

Visually this must be the best game I ever played on Wii, with beautiful and distinct environments than never get boring and never interfere with the gameplay. And, following the tradition of the classic Metroid games, the THE OTHER M experience is enhanced by great orchestral music. Nothing epic, but it sure fits the mood of the scene it accompanies.

THE OTHER M is a tad story-heavier than I would have liked and the cinematic sequences are unskipable(?) whereas, annoyingly, the story at times throws Samus in the midst of her enemies with minimal firepower and often without her Varia suit. Other than those minor complains (and it being a bit short), this is one of the best games I have ever played on a console.
I dare say, this is a title that is comparable to the monumental Super Metroid.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!

Playing through this two years ago, I was mainly just playing it for the story. I didn't think it was so bad. Playing it again now though, I was playing for the game part of it. It's not very good at all, and the story is just a lame copy of Fusion for the most part. You want to have fun? Avoid this game then.