I didn't think much of the Metriod series. They seemed to me like giant mazes with no maps, no land marks, just a huge purgatory of endless roads that split up into other roads....and for the first and second game to be released, I was right. Yet they changed something that made the game great: a map system. Something that would tell you where you were, but not tell you where to go. I didn't play my first Metriod game until some time ago, in which the only aspect I cared about was the controls. Metriod Prime 3: Corruption was it's name, and it got me into Metriod. The game had motion sensitive controls on the Wii, and I wanted to experience that, where the aim of your shoot was as true as it would be in real life....almost. Lets see what this game has to offer.

Now, I acknowledged that the first two games were out on the Game Cube, but I wasn't interested in them. In fact, my brother highly recommended that I played the first two games.....at any time. Well, I considered this, and I might play the other two if this game was decent. So lets crack on with the review. The story starts with some error messages on the screen, then some huge glowing blue thing explodes and we see Dark Samus. Then we see you, Samus Aron, in your space ship. You start playing pretty much at that point. You can interact with the cockpit and other buttons that are useless to the game play, but amusing to press. Such examples are setting up the shields and calling upon the communication thing. Now, to be fair, this is used at the beginning once to alert people that you are coming and are about to board your ship, but apart from that, this is just some useless feature. If you punch in the correct code, you should receive a secret message that is purely an easter egg. Still nice though. I always felt they could have done more to use this ship in the main game like dog fights such as the ones you see in Star Fox.

So once your finished messing around with the cockpit, you thrust your boosters to get to the Galactic Federation base. Here, you are given a quick run-down on how to use your equipment. You fire your gun at some targets and your set to go. Then you find these two curious items and decide, with your new knowledge of how to shoot things, to shoot them. The aim here is to keep the item in the air as much as possible. Why there are two, I don't know. If you get a certain high-score, you get some credit. There are many different types of credit in this game. Completing certain tasks will grant you with some. These are mainly used to unlock bonuses in the main menu, such as the ability to take screen shots of what ever you are looking at by pressing the "up" on the D-Pad. This was quite the feature when I unlocked it, and look many pictures that took me as "breath-taking". They probably aren't, but I felt the need to capture these images.

As you move further in the Galactic Federation, you meet three other bounty hunters, each with a unique property, weather it be shape shifting or using the power of ice. The admiral tells you at a meeting that several super computers (named the Aurora Units) have been corrupted by a virus that has some connection with Phazon. Your job is to cure them. Then, surprise surprise, the place is attacked by Space Pirates. This is where the real adventure begins. Later on, there are plot-twists that change the course of your adventure to more urgent things. The controls are simple enough, you point and shoot. Holding down the A button charges your gun, giving it more "explosive" power, while the Z button locks onto enemies, the joy-stick moves you around and the C turns you into a ball. That's one thing I never got my head round. How can she fit into such a tiny ball? I was always told that it was the right size, but when I saw it, it seemed to me that she had shrunk. It wasn't until I realized that the ball was 1 meter high, which made a lot of sense. Other controls include the B button to jump, the 1 and 2 to operate the map and log book respectively, and the - and + buttons to change visor screens and weapons respectively.

As with any 3D Metriod game, you can scan different things to help gain insight of an enemy, the meaning of a strange object, or sometimes even activating something. Sometimes, you might come across a log book which might give you some history on the past of this planet, and it's worth reading. The beauty of it is you don't read it all in order, so you might come across something and not know what it is, then read something chronologically earlier and it'll make perfect sense. A great way to keep the player in suspense if they give an interest in the history of the planet. These can be reviewed later in the log book if one finds they need to read the full story.

The graphics are good. My favorite planet is Elysia, due to the steam powered machines, carming yet mysterous music, old fasioned charm and it's mainly in the sky. I like things that are in the sky, and the music suits really well to an entire civilization floating above the clouds. It's a shame there was a huge void of clouds hiding what could lie below, but in some way, the clouds give most of it's charm to the planet, making it almost magical. Byrro also has that ancient charm to it, with it's stone golems and explosive lava and carved stones, the designers did a great job to make it feel mystical, yet it is missing something, and I didn't know what it was missing until I played the first game.

In the first game, you crash land on an unknown planet. You don't know where you are, you can't leave, and you are living off life support. You are stuck there, and are forced to explore the planet for help. As you explore, the music sets the mood and you experience a great simulation of being on a different planet. Just one look at the Chrozo Ruins and you instantly feel the mysteriousness of the place, the ancient power it could hold, new things to discover and generally feeling out of place, yet welcomed. In this game, that charm isn't here. You can freely travel from planet to planet, there are no restrictions, and you can leave at any time, and I think that is what this game is missing. Your not trapped, which what made the first game so magical. Now, it would be pretty lame every time you went to a new planet, there was something that made you crash and had not only complete the objective, but repair your ship as well, so with the given circumstances, they did pretty well.

The music is pretty epic. When at ease, the music sets you in a calm mood, as if nothing could hurt you, but when there are a set of enemies around, the music changes key and gets you in the mood to kill some baddies. The music is mostly atmospheric, so it normally tries to influence you into feeling what your suppose to feel at that time. The best music in the game has to be the boss music for when you are fighting the bounty hunters. It sets such a great mood, and some of these bosses were by far the best I've ever seen in a FPS game.

At some point, you get the PED (Phazon Enhancement Device), in which at the cost of one energy tank, will turn on Hyper Mode, which will give you the power of Pazon coming out of your gun. If in this Hyper mode for too long, you will start to get corrupted, in which the bar at the top will rise. If this bar gets full, then you are corrupted, turn into Dark Samus, and it's game over. I find it useful to get corrupted, as it gives me free Phazon energy. So I can have infinite Phazon until the safety feature kicks in. Dangerous and risky, yes, but I've yet to die this way. I just let myself get corrupted to see what happens.

The controls are fair and fun to use. It simulates you being a bounty hunter rather well. Once you get used to what does what, interacting with everything will be a joy. The difficulty is also fair, if not a little too easy for the most part of the journey. The Veteran difficulty matched me perfectly, and the Hyper mode was a challenge (and very hard when coming to the last boss, it took me nearly a week to beat the last boss in Hyper).

Overall, I give this game a 8.2/10 Overall, it used the motion controls for the Wii rather effectively, and that was the main reason why I wanted to play it. I was not disappointed. The graphics and the music tie in really well with the game play and the controls to make a very nice game to play. Although it's a little easier than the first game in terms of where to go, it is worth a play if you want to finish off the Prime series. Something special happens if you get 100% of items and defeat the last boss, just so you know.