I am sorry but I have to interrupt our regularly scheduled program to bring you a video game review. Now I know most of you were hoping that you will be seeing "My Thoughts On: Nightcrawler" however one of the possible three people who read this wanted me to talk about Metroid Other M. So I gave Deadpool the day off and an extra thousand to not shoot me. So lets look at the a very confusing games and believe me I am trying to figure out my thoughts on the game as well. So sit tight as we talk about Other M or I will make you listen to Samus talk about a stupid Metroid Baby.
Okay to start things off Other M was made by Team Ninja (Ninja Giden or something.) Now this means one thing Samus is faster, does more hand to hand combat, and has big female jiggly parts. Okay even though I listed it last I am going to talk about the Jiggly parts and get it out of the way fast. Any scene that shows Samus in her Zero Suit you can plainly see that she her breasts and her "booty" (To quote one of my friends) are well big. Bigger then they have ever been. Now I am sure there is some strange person somewhere who thinks that is something super sexy (I can't say she doesn't look good but the size change was not needed.) However unlike other female characters that Team Ninja have designed Samus isn't in her Zero Suit long, and her jiggly parts are not often seen (I feel like a creep even talking about this just so you know.) That is all I am going to mention about her "updated" look.
Now to something actually important I want to talk about her increase in speed. I will honestly say I was happy with how fast she is. It almost seemed like she was as I always thought she should be. I know she is in armor which looks heavy but this is Samus the intergalactic bounty hunter who has a large amount of Bad Assitude. I thought she should be face and be able the jump around. I just loved running around all fast and what not. However the control scheme did not allow the speed to be fully explored. I will get to that later when I talk about the controls.
Now the last big Team Ninja addition is the "Hand to hand" combat. Now Samus didn't really fight hand to hand but she did get up close and personal with the enemies. This was also a bad ass addition but it also made Samus seem slightly ruthless. She would often fire fully charged shots at point blank range right into enemies heads. Now I know she didn't fight any people like that but she was still shooting things in the head. No matter how many times I did it though it seemed cool every time I tossed a an enemy around or jumped on them and shot them in the face.
So thats the major Team Ninja influences that are seen in the game. So lets look at the more technical aspects of the game and lets start with graphics. I know graphics have never been one of Nintendo's strong points but this game is beautiful. The graphics for this game are great some of the best I have seen on the Wii. It looks realistic(ish) it also looks like the Prime games all of which were very good looking. I really can't say anything bad about the graphics so I am going to end this part and move on to music.
I really wish I could give the music the same praise that I gave the graphics. Its not really bad it just isn't as good as other Metroid games. The music is trying to be more atmospheric instead of music. However it doesn't really work at being atmospheric but that isn't all the musics fault more the level design which I will talk about next.
The game is designed like two other Metroid games Metroid Prime 3 and Metroid Fusion. Both games took place on a space station (Prime 3 was more then one space station but same thing.) The game however took after Fusion over Prime 3. Fusion and Other M are both linear games with an obvious path to follow. The games also have a commanding officer (In fusions case it is a computer program) that Samus is receiving orders from. The commanding officer in both games also grant you access to different weapons and upgrades as the game progresses. Now I mentioned about the game trying to be atmospheric but failing. I put all the blame one the level design not the music. The music was atmospheric (not to the extent of the Prime games) however the countless hallways and tunnels that all look the same (for the most part) ruin the atmosphere. Another thing that annoys me is pointless invisible walls. Not really ones that are blocking your way but the ones that they try to hide on you. Metroid games should let you explore the area around you even Fusion let you do exploring. However this one stops you from doing that.
Lets move on to the game play and controls. I am going to be honest and just say it I wish they used the Wiimote and nun-chuck because that would have taken care of all of the control problems. This game used the Wiimote as an NES controller by turning it on its side. This however I found was to small for my hands and just made the game play more complected. Having to point the Wiimote at the screen to enter the first person perspective. When in first person mode you can't move at all, but this is the only way you can fire missiles which you will do a lot. Now if they would have just done Wiimote nun-chuck you could fire missiles and enter the first person perspective with out causing so many problems. The Wiimote nun-chuck worked perfectly for the Metroid Prime Trilogy it would have worked perfectly here to. Another advantage to the Wiimote nun-chuck would have been the joy stick. Using a joy stick in this game would have fully captured Samus's speed compared to the tiny directional pad they used for this game. Even a gamecube or classic controller would have worked better then the sideways Wiimote. Now for games like Donkey Kong Country Returns the sideways nun-chuck looks like it would perfectly for that game but not this one.
Spoilers!! Spoilers!!Spoilers!! Spoilers!!
Okay it is now time to talk about the story and to me the story would have made more sense if this was before the first game not towards the end of the series (or at least before the Prime Games.) There are just so many parts to this games story that do not make sense with its placement in the time line. The biggest of these "Why is this happening" Moments is when Samus is facing Ridley for about the fourth time in the series (Ok three of them were Meta Ridley but its the same monster.) Even though she has faced him before she acts like a little baby practically wetting herself from fear and seemingly killing one of her friends in her fear. (He is later shown to have survived but still.) This shouldn't have ever happened she is a powerful bounty hunter with a gun for an arm there is no reason she is afraid of him. If this was first time she ever faced Ridley or anything like him then I could understand but it wasn't. Not only this but the constant talk about the stupid baby Metroid from Super Metroid (On the Super Nintendo.) This makes Samus all self reflective and talk a lot. Just a bunch of exposition talking about the story of this game and Super Metroid and its really annoying. In fact with out the stupid story or if this was just placed earlier in the time line the game would be a lot better. Even the pee your pants scared when Ridley showed up. All they had to do was get rid of the stupid baby and this game could have been a look back to how she was before she became the bad ass bounty hunter she is today. Instead they kill Samus's tough character making her into a wimp. The story is hands down the worst part of the game the stupid controls were tolerable but the story is not. It pisses me off even now thinking about it.
Okay now to cheer myself up I am going to talk about the combat and items. This was a part I really liked. The battles were fun and even though you might fight someone over and over again the big battles were still fun. I always felt worry when I saw that giant tree creature or the bull thing that would reflect my attacks back at me. I also like the items used in the game I thought some were used creatively like using the grapple beam to fish (Fighting a giant lava fish monster was fun.) Using the missile to crack the ice and then the bomb to shatter it. I thought is was fun and creative. Back to the commander allowing you to use the weapons and items he lets you was good but also stupid. There is a point when Samus is slowly dying because she is walking along the bottom of a super heated volcanic area instead of being allowed to use her Veria suit which would have let her crossed safely. Its just these stupid leaks in logic that make this system make little sense.
Okay so over all this game isn't a terrible game its just not a good Metroid game. If the game took place really early in the time like I could forgive the story. The controls are just stupid and could be done way better with any other controller setup then just the Wiimote. The Graphics are beautiful and the music isn't bad. The action is fast paced and fun. The Speed just makes me happy and the hand to hand is also really cool. If I were to score it I would have to give it a 6.5 out of 10 maybe a 7 but no higher then that. So those are "My Thoughts On" Metroid Other M.
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