Video Games: Buy Metroid Prime Online

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1) Samus now have 4 viewing visors - regular, scan (it is used to scan enemies/objects and learn about them), infra-red, and night vision. All 4 viewing visors come into play, for example, there will be a certain boss that you would have to switch to infra-red to find its weak spot. I have seen video footage of all 4 visors and it looks awesome - I know for a fact that after I beat Metroid Prime, i'm going to try to beat it again using only infra-red just for fun.

2) If you own both Metroid Fusion (GBA) and Metroid Prime (GCN) and a GBA/GCN link cable, you get special bonuses. If you beat Metroid Fusion and link it to Metroid Prime, you get to UNLOCK METROID I (NES) on Metroid Prime. Basically, Metroid Prime contains Metroid I for NES bundled inside it. Metroid Prime by the way is not a sequel of Metroid III (Super Metroid), it takes place between Metroid I and II. Another thing, if you beat Metroid Prime and connect it to Metroid Fusion, you get to unlock a 2nd costume for Samus so that you can play Metroid Prime a second time in a cooler costume.

3) Samus now has not only the morph ball..but also the spider ball (it lets you roll on some walls!!).

4) All previous Metroids have rewarded players who have beaten the games quickly. In Metroid I-III, if you were to beat the game in under 3 hours, you get a "reward" and you get to see Samus in a skimpy swimsuit. It is only safe to assume the same reward will be available to players this time.

5) Unlike Metroid I-III (which took 10 hours or less to beat..unless you were going for a speed run), it has been confirmed that Metroid Prime is a long game (20-40 hours).

First off, I'd like to say that the graphics on this game push the GameCube to its limits. The textures and colors in some areas are a bit bland, but because it looks so real, that doesn't matter. The ultimate realism of the Metroid world are surrealistic. You probably will spend about 20 minutes oogling over the graphics before gameplay. The snazzy startup menu background will really pull you into the game as well. The music in Metroid Prime has been perfected to fit the atmosphere of the world. No matter where you are, the must is what you would expect. The must is a mix of ambient calming music (when you are in a calm place) and can range to haunting and creepy while fighting enemies. The controls are where the game falls short. They are placed in the only possible setup that they could be, but often times when I am in combat and try to switch weapons, the game takes a second to register and I have to force it down repeatedly which during this time I loose some health. Another thing that can be annoying is jumping and shooting at the same time. You are likely to let go of your charged up shot while jumping. The gameplay is somewhat linear but not quite. You explore through rooms and usually you will get a hint of where to go next. This hint will show up on your map. So you must continue through rooms to eventually get to your destination, where a special item is usually hidden. Also hidden throughout the worlds are special powerups and upgrades. They are usually hidden in some rooms and sometimes cannot be accesed until the correct weapon is gained later on in the game (you can travel back and forth between major areas). The biggest major flaw of the game is the platform jumping. Because it's in first person, you often cannot judge when jumping whether or not you are above a platform. If you miss, you will probably land somewhere that will deal you a lot of damage. If you are used to this type of game, then this should not be too hard for you. When you land on the planet, you can explore the area that you are in, which appear on the map as polygonal shapes that represent the room that you are standing in (if you were in an octagonal shaped room it would appear that way on the map). Zooming out, you would find that each of these rooms, now represented in a honeycomb like fashion, is part of an area. The bosses are not too hard. Only two or three are actually hard and mostly because of how annoying they are. The overall difficulty of the game is modertate-hard and will take an average gamer between 7 and 25 hours to complete.

Metroid Prime stands out as one of the best released GameCube games ever. Anyone who is a fan of First Person Shooters (FPS) should definetly consider this game. If you liked this then you will probably like Metroid Fusion for the Game Boy Advance.

The game began with Samus on an outside platform. Thousands of asteroids were flying across the sky, and she could go to a clear spot on the platform and shoot them. Ultimately, however, she needed to search her surroundings for hidden devices that would open the doors of the structure. The adventure doesn't really begin until Samus enters the building.

This game has all kinds of terrain to explore--including some very Turok-esque jungles. These are huge places. I have no idea how long it will take people to finish the game, but I'm betting better than 60 hours.

Seen through Samus's visor, Metroid Prime is every bit as much about exploration and puzzle solving as it is about shooting. Samus's visor includes a window that exposes hidden signs and symbols. Once you uncover these clues, it is up to you to figure out how to arrange them to unlock door and find hidden items.

Metroid Prime's camera shifts to the third-person perspective when Samus curls up in a ball and rolls places. She rolls through tunnels that are otherwise too small to explore. By placing explosives on the ground, she can bounce her balled-up self to reach elevated tunnels.

The game also has these really nifty half-pipe areas. Once you find the right explosives, you can launch Samus over the top of the half-pipes to reach otherwise inaccessible ledges.

Per past Metroid games, Metroid Prime has plenty of creepy vermin to kill.

Thanks to the first-person perspective, Metroid Prime does not suffer the irritating camera problems that have plagued so many of the latest 3D games. You are inside Samus's helmet, so you see what she sees. Better look quickly, though. When the action gets going, outer space thingies will come at you from all directions.

The art direction in this game is excellent beyond belief. I doubt that any PlayStation 2 game will ever reach this level of graphic quality. This even rivals Halo--and that is saying a lot.

The big complaint about Metroid Prime is that played from the first-person perspective, it cannot possibly have the same search-and-explore feel as earlier games--particularly Super Metroid for the Super Nintendo. This was a fair concern--but Nintendo guards its franchises carefully and Retro Studios has been true to the original vision. Metroid Prime does have that perfect blend of explore and shoot.

Actually, for those of you who play PC games, Metroid Prime feels a little--and I did say a little--like System Shock II from Looking Glass. If you played System Shock II as a naval officer instead of a spy or a marine, it was about exploring and setting traps and hacking into systems.

The weakness in this comparison is that the navy guy in System Shock II could not strap on anti-gravity boots or swing across ceilings--Samus does. System Shock II was brilliant in its sci fi reality and its feeling of danger. Metroid Prime has a more powerful fantasy element.

I, obviously, have not had the chance to finish the game, but I love this game. I absoultely love it.