E3 Editorial: Folly of the Major Game Companies UPDATE!

Return of Jaysun:

To say E3 has been below my standards of expectations would be unfair. My personal life has taken a massive blow to a perception of natural enjoyment. But I can still see where the problem lies for major growth in the gaming market. And it's pretty major. I will go by each keynote for the big 3 companies and offer some brief thoughts on each.

More After The Jump Time...Click Away!

Potato Time! Portal 2 Review.

    Puzzle games and sprawling plots rarely marry. Though it has been known to happen (the “Professor Layton” series comes to mind), its not in the minds of their game creators. That being said, the first Portal game did not have the highest in plot development. Nor was it meant to, actually it was developed as a concept game, like a Tetris. But GLaDOS as an icon of ironic evil in an age of undefined human emotion forced Valve to develop the game as a standalone (originally part of the “Orange Box”). Yes, these are things most of us know, but maybe someone doesn’t? Maybe... Well, does Portal 2 inject a healthy dose of plot and more humor? Does it match the gameplay fun, while creating new twists on a now classic? Why else would I write the review if I weren’t to tell you?

Portal 2’s game mechanics are nearly identical to the previous game, though according to the creators it was almost an entirely different experience. This is good, Portal was too fun but we demanded more! That’s why we have a sequel. The game begins with the player character, Chell, waking up in the a broken down hotel-type room. There was some retconning here, involving getting dragged back in by computers while she was passed out. Chell, now is woken up by an intentionally annoying robot (personality core for those that have played the first game) named Wheatley. Wheatley is an interesting character, voiced by Stephen Merchant. Interesting is intentionally vague, while I loved him and found his dialogue and gag setups quite hilarious, there will be a very vocal unit standing against the character, as I have now seen already. Fret not, this is all part of the plan. If you hate him, good. If you love him, good. Both factions will find a very satisfying outcome to his story. After making a joke about the main character not being able to speak, we jump into tutorials. They are enjoyable because the environment is so vastly different from the first game, and there is a major sense of urgency to complete these missions. No Portal gun at first, so be ready for that. And then GLaDOS comes back into our happy little lives.

She is still as inventive and starkly fresh character as she was previously, even changing shape into a most hilarious...well, I won’t spoil that. Nothing here seems incredibly contrived, or unconvincing. All motivation from every character is completely clear, and intentions are shining. Let me just finish plot discussion by saying that Portal 2 has such a major character arc for all three main characters, even one that doesn’t speak. The writers worked very hard to avoid the usual pitfalls known to plague stories of multiple games, so that we as players have to continually forgive it. This is one of the very few instances that we can let it roam free. Yes, we will see a detractor claim is has plot holes, or some silly thing like that. It doesn’t, you can see the care taken to make this story really resonate. Wear this badge proudly Valve, you made me finish a puzzle game quickly just to get to the next plot development.

This game is also a game, who would’ve known. And it’s fun! The inclusion of the gels to enhance our experience, was bold and really pays off. Let’s begin from the first game. The object of each smaller “Test”, as GLaDOS calls them, is to use a portal gun with an entrance and an exit (Orange and Blue). You use physics and gravity to your advantage as well. For instance, if you place a Blue Exit on a side wall, and an Orange Entrance on the floor 20 feet in the air, the force of your fall with factor into how far you are propelled through the Blue portal. There are various tutorials, and the design team never leave you with a clue of some sort to solve. There can be multiple solutions, the fun is choosing how you solve. So the gels. Well there are 3 colors, Blue, Orange, and White. Blue makes the surface it touches bouncy, Orange makes it’s surface slick so you can run extraordinarily fast, and White makes a non-Portable surface accessible for one of your fine physics-defying creations. The routine of the previous levels is broken, and a player now has some new possibilities for completing a stage. As a player, you do go outside and again, the aura of freshness still hangs heavily. This is creates exciting new challenges not yet offered in the Portal experience. Game play is top notch through out, and is never tiring. Valve created an all inclusive single-player experience. Wait, wait...multiplayer? In Portal? Yes, and it is fantastic.

There is no local multiplayer, which is an absolute bummer, but makes perfect sense. Splitting the screen would make players extremely confused with the amount physics defying already occurring. I played a 5 hour run with a complete stranger, even though the game recommends a friend as a better experience. Unfortunately, thanks to the Playstation Network fiasco of 2011, this was not possible. Nonetheless, I had no problem jumping right in (I played this on an iMac) and a partner was matched. The story of the Co-Op is that GLaDOS cannot rely on full human testing and has created two types of robots to solve her insidious tests. These machines are called p-Body and Atlas. If Norm MacDonald and Artie Lange from “Dirty Work” were Portal testing robots, this would be them. You earn different taunts to perform solo or in a team like a high-five as rewards throughout the experience. And they are worth it, the animation team makes sure of that. With your partner, you solve some 40 levels of sure-destructive madness guided by the goading and sarcastic GLaDOS. These were challenging and engaging with an extra person involved. Again, the design team went to pain-staking effort to make the player experience fresh and exciting. I do not enjoy multiplayer experience because I am typically so bad at playing games, but this is definitely an exception. Even if you do not do most of the solving (this time I didn’t do bad at all though! Aww Yeah Me!) you have an enormous sense of accomplishment.

I’ll give numbers for those that skipped all the words. 

Seriously, imagine this as white gel...

Scores are 5 out of 5, no halves. Story-5, Visuals-4, Gameplay-5, Co-Op-4, Value-5. Overall, I give it a 5. I know that there are two 4’s, but this is my aggregate. I don’t think visuals matter for a game like this. Co-Op gets knocked a bit for not having innovation in local multiplayer. Not a big deal, that’s why it still gets an overall 5. I love this game, it’s a definite contender for Game of the Year, and there isn’t much I can point to as a poor point. GLaDOS’ wit as the disaffected HAL diagnosed with bi-polar disorder makes this game so very unique. We don’t get the cake gag played to death, and this only makes the game that much better. My vote as new meme, the White Gel known as “Peter North Gel.” I really couldn’t help but giggle the entire time I saw it.

Favorite Robot Masters: Mega Man 2

Mega Man's "You got 'X' weapon" sprite is on the loose!

Well, like Arnold before me, I said I'd be back with more of these; to make up for the delay (and because it was hard to pick just 2 from what really amounts to my favorite Mega Man game) this edition is going to be an over sized 2 parts long!



Oh Mega Man 2, how we all love you. A franchise watermark almost a quarter of a century later, this is still the one to beat in my mind. Sure there's no Rush or Proto Man. You can't use the Mega Buster charge shot or the slide move. But you can thrill to 8 of the best Robot Masters made for a Mega Man game and some of the best music of the 8-bit era.

Is he throwing the Metal Blade or trying to catch it before it destroys him?

Metal Man

Apparently Metal Man is Keiji Inafune's least favorite Robot Master because he's so easily beaten with his own weapon. Sure that only comes up during your rematch in Dr. Wily's castle but I suppose he has a valid point. Still, poor Metal Man here is at a disadvantage in general: he's themed pretty obviously for a robot, he's usually the first Master in the game you take on (unless you prefer the Air Man route), his level is not extremely difficult etc...

So why is he so great? Because of those reasons! His level is fun with catchy music, he draws you into the game with a quick victory (something lacking in the original games frequently difficult first steps) and the Metal Blade is a totally sweet weapon! Just in light of the weapon being cribbed for other future Robot Masters is a sign that ol' MB here deserves the love.

Are they gears? Or are they lids having gone through a can opener?

When you get down to it the Metal Blade is a pretty good weapon against most of the Robot Masters; makes sense because they're all at least partially metal right? So you can hardly blame MM here for being doubly vulnerable as a result of having that weakness squared. Don't hate him for being a victim of cruel logic!

There's enough challenge to be found to make him interesting and it's not like there aren't other Robot Masters that can't be one-shot kills.

Which brings me to...

He's kind of like that episode of Futurama where Bender goes organic. Except Wood Man aged better.

Wood Man
Fun fact: in the normal difficulty of Mega Man 2 in the US, you can OHKO Woodman with a fully charged shot from the Atomic Fire. Obviously that's not quite as goofy as being so easily defeated with your own weapon but I'm not here to split hairs; the Metal Blade works decently well on everyone but the Atomic Fire just seems obvious to anyone fighting a robot with a delicious bark coating.

So why Wood Man? Well for one, the idea behind him is outrageous. But he also plays into a fun theme of some of the robot masters being based on the four elements along with cohorts Heat Man, Bubble Man and Air Man. Sure we already got Guts Man, who was technically 'earth', in the first game but the age of the truly bizarre Robot Masters was away and there only seemed like a certain number of sane choices for themes (don't get me started on Fire Man). Plus they really went crazy with Wood Man's level: it's got some of the best themed enemies in the game, great (as always) music and nothing annoying like those floating heads in Air Man's level that I hate so very much.

I really love those goofy rabbits with their carrot missiles though. Plus the gorilla bots and those crazy road runner things at the end

I digress.

It'd have been great if the Dragon in Wily's Castle was super vulnerable to the Leaf Shield; you'd never be able to stand still long enough to use it accurately so it would have been an extra special bastard kind of move to have in there.

The Wood Shield is a very special weapon because it's got a ton of unique qualities. The first shield type in the franchise, it was followed by skills like the Plant Barrier or Jewel Satellite; however, it stands out from them by being useless against all other Masters in the game excusing Air Man.

You heard right: the Wood Shield is useful against one boss in the game and chances are you've already beaten him before going after Wood Man. All the others, even the bosses in Wily's Castle, are immune to the thing. That leaves only the eventual rematch as your opportunity to get some boss related mileage out of this thing.

Admittedly I never thought of the leaves having rockets in them. It's the ultimate fusion of organics and technology!

Oh Wood Man: you are utterly preposterous as a concept for a robot and yet I love you. The fact that such a crazy choice for a themed robot showed up this early in the franchise is a testament to Capcom's ability to have fun with the game. The bizarre greatness of Wood Man continues in his appearances in other games like his use in Mega Man: the Power Battles. There, he's resistant to the Rolling Cutter and the Leaf Shield is actually the best weapon to use against Cut Man. Crazy.

So, that's all for now. Tune in sometime soon when I break down 2 more of the Masters from MM2 in the way that best selfishly reflects how I champion the game over its brethren!

Episode #36: Don't be a Dopefish

ORCCAcast returns with a new Top Ten! This time we're button-mashing through our Top Ten Video Games of the Nineties and with games ranging from PC adventure titles to which Mario is the king of the 90's console ring, you are bound to hear an old forgotten favorite or at least get pissed off about something. Like Gabriel Knight? How about Commander Keen? We probably talk about at least one of them here! Lament about the depreciated nature of the Sonic franchise with us! Marvel at how Lucasarts was a nonstop hit factory! There's also enough time for us to ruminate on some other stuff! What kind? Well that would be telling so you should just listen instead!

Hey look what I bought!

Epic Mickey came out for the Wii today and since Kmart has been having these great coupons with buying various games I cashed all of mine in for the Collector's Edition. I'll be using the coupon I got with that for Golden Sun DS when they finally put one out but in the meantime I think you guys would like to see some awesomely amateur photography of what you get with the Collector's Edition.

It's my game in a box

The Collector's Edition does have 'exclusive packaging' according to it's back, but really that just means everything comes in a relatively nice cardboard box. One that has one annoyingly difficult to open top flap I might add.

Have fun restraining yourself from destroying the lid

Once you take out the little green air bag you get the whole spread: Two console skins, a Wii-mote skin, the bonus disc, the Mickey figurine and the game itself.

If you ever wanted Oswald the Rabbit on your Wii-mote, your dream just came true

I'll never use any of the skins; they're a nice thought but I've never had much interest in them. The graphics on them are pretty cool though, the same image as the box art.

Serious packaging optional

The bonus disc is cool though it comes in a little cardboard sleeve that's sure to scratch it up. Fortunately, if you preordered it (or got one of the Kmart coupons they were offering that apparently is not a preorder according to the fine print) you probably have an extra white case with the same art as the cardboard box. That's what I'll be using to house mine though who knows when I'll get any time to actually watch any of it. I can tell you the four remastered shorts are 'Thru the Mirror' 'Lonesome Ghosts' 'Clock Cleaners' and 'The Whalers'. You've all seen the first two (in fact 'Thru the Mirror' is directly referenced in the game's opening cinematic) but the second two are slightly less famous. I'm interested to know why these two were picked as opposed to something like 'The Mad Doctor', whose antagonist is featured in the game. Maybe when I actually get to the game it'll be clear.

The Mickey figurine is actually a lot better than expected. He is kind of small but he's got articulation at his neck. shoulders, wrists and ankles. The deep crouch is a drawback but it's made to imitate the pose on the cover art. Mickey's mouth is open and there's a dab of red paint in there to clarify his expression; it's nice because there aren't any smudges or smears and the figure is very on-model. The Paintbrush is also removable and has it's own little paint ops on the tip.

Next to Roboto for scale, mostly because he's what happened to be on my kitchen counter at the time

Winner of over 15 awards already?

Then there's the game. It's slid into it's own holder in the back of the box and is exactly what you get when you buy the normal version, right down to the sticker mentioning all the awards the game's already won. We'll have to see what I think of the game itself later partially because I wanted this to be up for all the people curious about the CE, partially because I have to go give my dog a bath.

The complete package, though the skins completely blend into the cover art of the game

Overall not a bad package; with all my coupons I basically paid $20 for this and I got another $30 one by doing so. Getting Golden Sun DS for $5 is totally worth it for me and as a bonus I got all this stuff. However, for those without the coupons I have to say you're basically paying $20 for the figurine. It is very nice but it's not like there aren't others like it in the world. Heck, Jas has an Oswald statue he got in the Disney Store 2 years ago that was only $8, so it's not like there's a lack of Disney figurines out there (at least not a lack of ones that aren't the cool imported ones from Medicom anyway). I'll be back later in the week to give you an idea of what the bonus disc is like, unless it spoils something huge; if that happens, then I'll get back when I beat the rest of the game, long after the CE becomes a pain to get a hold of.  Fingers crossed guys!

In the meantime enjoy more pictures!

Interesting spread

Mickey in his bubblewrap prison

I thought the tail may be articulated but it's not. Likely for the best in light of it's thinness

I wonder if IGN got Collector's Editions for review copies...

Rated 'E' for 'Cartoon Violence' but strangely not 'Comic Mischief'. Though I guess this means the game is full of 'Toon on 'Toon hate crimes...

Favorite Robot Masters: Mega Man 3

20 years later and my Ire for those Porcupines burns just as bright

I've been playing 'Mega Man Zero Collection' for the past few days (after getting it from the TRU buy 2 get 1 free sale) and before I do a real review of that corner of the Mega Man franchise I'd like to talk about what got us all loving the Blue Bomber in the first place: the original games. More specifically, about the Robot Masters in those games









Shadow Man

Shadow Man deserves your love because he's a ninja and we all know ninja's are the greatest thing ever because they wield real ultimate power. So what else makes him great? Well he's got one of my favorite levels in 'Mega Man 3' which was unique because of all the vertical drops at the very start. There are those cool bubbles that turn off the lights and the breaking platforms that I prefer infinitely to the ubiquitous disappearing blocks we usually see (see Magnet Man's level). There's also one of those crazy jumping helmets with the hydraulic pumps on his legs. You know, the ones that you slide to get underneath Capcom.

Sorry, a little Mega Man 9 and 10 frustration slipping in there. Because when a move's in 6 out of 8 previous games, it's not a standard or anything.

Anyway, the music in Shadow Man's level is crazy; it sounds like it should take place in a railroad station or something. I love the Shadow Blade; sure it's just the Metal Blade with fewer directions and shorter range but the fact that you have to beat a robot ninja to get it has to count for something.

Fight Mega Man! Fight for everlasting peace!

Also, as I'm sure everyone realizes, the Mega Man universe is all about Balance. Dr. Light parallels Dr. Wily, Fire Man counters Ice Man, Rush is equaled by Treble. So if there's a Robot Master that's a Ninja you have to wonder: is there one that's a pirate?

Arr! I be a fan of ancient Internet jokes! You best be turning over all your LOLcats if you expect safe passage!

Damn straight there is!

Magnet Man

I can't even decide which reason to best love Magnet Man.  He's got a giant magnet on his forehead, which is presumably where his hard drive/memory bank is, so he must suffer terrible memory loss. Or at least be in a state of constant delirium. Who knows, maybe Magnet man here thinks he's the Queen of Namibia or something...

What is he? The result of a drunken bet between Dr. Wily and Dr. Light that was followed up on years later? A giant 'eff you' to all the people who said it couldn't or shouldn't be done? Then of course, there's the old standard of Dr. Wily just being a total dick with an obscenely cruel sense of humor.

Though, I guess you could also make the argument that it's quite genius for him to be built that way: Wily could just as easily have done that because it'd make him totally jealous of Mega Man! Or maybe he's taunting Mags here with the promise of rebuilding him so that magnet sits in a place that won't make him infrequently believe he's a prize winning Greyhound.

For that matter, the Robot Masters of 'Mega Man 3' were originally built with a non-rampage purpose in mind though I find Magnet Man's somewhat suspect. Bomb Man? Demolitions. Ice Man? A relentless worker in sub-zero conditions. Cut Man? The ultimate Lumberjack. I know that Magnet Man was apparently built to destroy garbage and scrap metal with his powers but I have to wonder how a Magnet helps that. I guess his amnesia makes it so that all he's suited for is to pick things up and smash them together.

The Magnet Missile is great because it changes direction to home in on enemies like some kind of tech-geek nightmare smart bomb. Wily must hate bringing in Magnet Man for repairs because he'd probably come to think he's in the enemy base or something, firing missiles that would eliminate the Doc's cake recipes and prized research.

Magnet Man: Bad idea or Baddest idea?

So in the end, Magnet Man has a ton of potential: Tragic Amnesiac or comical Spaz? Powerful threat or dangerous loose cannon? Only the player knows for sure...


As you can probably tell I'm only getting started here; I picked Mega Man 3 because it was the first Mega Man game I ever really got to play for more than 5 minutes at a friend's house. It was brand new around the time I finally owned an NES and Mega Man 2 was a pain to rent as they only had it on the opposite side of town. That still didn't stop me though as it’s still my favorite (along with most other fans). You'll see that for sure next time when I discuss some choice Masters from it.

Yeah I don't know why he waggles his eyebrows so much either.

My personal history with Metroid or a preface to my review of Metroid: Other M

Before I review Metroid: Other M I wanted to preface it by looking at what impact these games have had for me personally; they're near and dear to my heart and there's very memories tied to each one. Plus it gives me the chance to space out the images from the Other M preorder bonus. Please tolerate the wackiness of how some of the pics had to be oriented.

Still in it's shrink wrap

I adore Metroid; I always have ever since playing Metroid II: Return of Samus for the Gameboy. Yes I know its blasphemy that I played what's arguably the least liked game in the whole series as my first installment. What can I say? I never had an NES until November 1990 and since this was long before the Internet came along there was no way to really hear about the original Metroid. The only way I ever heard of the second game was because Kool-Aid was offering it for free when you traded in a certain number of points for it. I was intrigued; who was this masked person with a smoking gun? Why were they returning? Why of all the games for the Gameboy was Kool-Aid offering this one? There was also a very cool TV spot for the game at the time with an ostentatious talking head that looked like a Lite-Brite come to life. That likely didn't hurt, as it ran on Nickelodeon nonstop during the latter half 1991. I never got enough points to get the game from the Red Punch Man himself but it was fine because my Mom got it for me and my Brother for my Birthday. Yes I had to share; my family was somewhat convinced that video games represented the first strike by Japan to corrupt America's youth so we'd be easier to conquer in the future, so they were VERY reluctant to have anything to do with them. The game was the 6th one I ever owned, coming after Super Mario Brothers/Duck Hunt (pack-in), the old Kemco NES Batman game, Tetris (pack-in), and Super Mario Land.

The slip around the pictures and a picture from one of the flashbacks

Metroid II was one of the first games I ever beat all the way to the end. They may not sound like a lot but when you're 6 years old and had to share all of your games with your older Brother it seemed like a big deal. I played that game nonstop for ages and it felt like I'd accomplished something major when I finally beat the final monstrous Metroid Queen. I'd never played a game like it beforehand excusing a weekend rental of Kid Icarus. But I never thought that there was a prior entry to the series; the local Blockbusters didn't have it and this was ages before places like GameStop were around. If you hadn't already heard of a game, chances are you wouldn't until it got another installment or there was a feature on the series in Nintendo Power which I never got to read regularly until the school library started getting it in 2nd grade.

Dream Girl?

I finally got to play the original Metroid when it finally popped up in a Movie Warehouse around a year later. After waiting for what seemed like an eternity I beat the game in a weekend which was a pretty rare feat for me with rentals excluding the Mega Man series (and even then only #'s 2-4 and 6). I was thrilled to death by it; sure the Metroids weren't as varied or interesting as the ones in its sequel and Mother Brain wasn't nearly as frightening as the Queen Metroid but the music was infinitely better and it was much easier to tell where you'd been and where you were going.

Zero Suit Samus

6 months after my parents finally succumbed to me and my Brother's desire to have an NES, we saw the first advertisements for the SNES. My Dad told me this pretty much proved his point that the instant we got something like this, something better would be out right afterward. I still believe to this day he only bought the original Nintendo because he knew the SNES was coming long before we did.

Flashback Samus

Because of that, we didn't have a Super Nintendo until around early 1995 when my parents bought a van that had the system hard wired into it. I had to settle on just renting Super Metroid whenever we were going on vacation. That was fine with me because I'd been waiting over a year to play it; at least for more than the brief moments spent at the Best Buy display anyway. There had even been a comic running in Nintendo Power that served to intensify my fervor at making it past the first areas of Zebes.

Galactic Federation Soldier

I love Super Metroid; it’s still arguably my favorite game in the series though you could never force me to pick just one. I played it over so many vacations that it’s essentially etched into my memory to the point where I had to take year or more gaps in playing it just so I wouldn’t remember EVERYTHING about it (I had the same problem with the Wind Waker and Resident Evil 4).

Flashback Malkovich

After getting into the SNES generation much later than most people and going to a school with a rigorous math curriculum I sat out on the Nintendo 64 generation. Sure I played parts of Mario 64 and made it through Ocarina of Time at a friend’s house over one weekend, but otherwise my experience with most N64 games is just hearing about them from other people. Samus made no appearances in the 64 bit generation and I was a long way from having any real money of my own so it seemed like a convenient compromise.

Samus chillin' out with the GF soldiers

Because of that I actually drifted out of playing video games seriously for a long time. Oh I kept up with Mario and Link in one way or another but the only games I really bought were for the Gameboy or at that time, the Gameboy Color. That’s just how things were until around 2002 when I first started to hear about not one, but two new Metroid games. Retro had been working on Metroid Prime and Nintendo R&D 1 was getting ready to release Fusion. Needless to say I bought both a GameCube and a Gameboy Advance in anticipation of both of them.

A still from one of the much hyped cinematic kills. This enemy's a real pain in the ass at first.

Fusion came first if not for the fact that it was cheaper overall to afford, then for reticence on my part on Metroid being reborn as a FPS with the Prime series. The first entry in the franchise in almost a decade, Fusion remains something of an odd man out even now. It had very discreet objectives and was more story based then past entries had been until that point. Also the addition of the SA-X, Samus’ original evil clone was unique in that there was a character seemingly pursuing you now, one that was actually scary because it could kill you relatively easily. It’s also interesting to note that with Samus' new look, the SA-X taking on the appearance of her wearing the Varia Suit is kind of a metaphor for where the franchise was going. There hasn’t been any other material since that takes place after Fusion which I still feel is a lost opportunity.

So here we are at a glossy still of gameplay footage. This is where the bonus kind of goes downhill.

While I had been a little wary of Prime being an FPS, when I finally went into Sam’s Club in the middle of December and bought it, I soon realized I had nothing to fear. Retro took Metroid and brought it to its largest audience ever with an innovative and immensely fun game that was genuinely challenging. Fighting the actual Metroid Prime creature was quite difficult (at least on GameCube; it was much easier on Wii for some reason) and it’s one of the first games I ever played that used every button on the controller. I beat Samus’ first 3-D adventure over a breathless 2 weeks taking up my entire Christmas break and I couldn’t wait for more. Metroid Prime is pretty much responsible for my reentry into the home console market and as a result I ended up having more games for the GameCube then for any system I’d ever had before. By the time the system’s unpopularity had finally transformed into semi-obscurity, I owned almost every well reviewed game on the system short of Cubivore. You could say Prime is the game that cost me over a $1000 because at one point my GC collection was over 60 titles.

More gameplay footage though this shot does look pretty cool.

In 2004, another two Metroid games came out. Metroid: Zero Mission and Metroid Prime 2: Echoes didn’t have the simultaneous release that the prior games did but they still ran me ragged in their own special ways. Zero Mission had 8 endings (of which I’ve only gotten 6 of at this point) and Echoes came closer than any other game ever to giving me a nervous breakdown. I missed a creature scan in one area and that in tandem with the surprising difficulty of some of the bosses put me off of it for some time. For the next 3 months or so I just played Zero Mission a few more times to get my Metroid fix and only came back to Echoes after I’d cleared my head with the incredibly satisfying Resident Evil 4. For a while when I was coaching a high school Speech team, a lot of the competitor’s on other teams knew me because of the GBA I was running around with. Zero Mission was an excellent use of the Fusion engine to remake the first game, and I couldn’t get enough of it since it came with the original version included. It also introduced the Zero Suit which is likely the last radical change to Samus’ look that most people are going to accept. As for Echoes, Retro’s second entry wasn’t quite as great as the first but it had the burden of being the sequel to a revolutionary, franchise changing game that pretty much stole everyone’s attention from their issues with the GameCube. That is, until some guy reminded everyone that the next Zelda game still looked like a cartoon.

A good shot of what the game's HUD looks like but not the most exciting piece of art you could have picked for this.

A year after the DS was released Prime Pinball came out and 6 months later Hunters was released. Pinball was interesting in that it came with the DS rumble pack, one of those great Nintendo peripherals that only work with about 10 games ever and Hunters tried to make a serious bid towards adding a multiplayer aspect to the series. The different abilities of the characters kept things fresh and it made a conscious effort to keep players from resorting to standard FPS tactics as a result. I’m not sure how successful the game was considered by Nintendo as the only person I knew who ever played Hunters with me was Jas and he eventually sold his copy. Nevertheless, I enjoyed it as it was one of those fun games you can finish over a long evening much like Luigi’s Mansion.

The rest of these are all just gameplay shots. Weird considering how there were more character designs they had to use.

Shortly after the launch of the Wii, the last installment in the ‘Prime’ trilogy, Metroid Prime 3: Corruption streeted in August of 2007. Rare pulled out all the stops in this one, making it the first game where you saw the inside of Samus’ ship as well as the first where there was flight to multiple locations instead of one giant overworld. The origins of Phaazon were finally explored and there were multiple NPC’s to interact with, a step up from the singular Luminoth in Echoes. It ended up being an easier game than its predecessors though that may have been a result of the new control scheme. I still find it to be a stronger game then Prime 2 if not just for the fact that the locations in Corruption are more interesting. The confrontation with Dark Samus was also a lot more satisfying and the opportunity to launch a satellite that would reveal all the powerup locations was great to keep track of what you’d already obtained. Prime 3 was a big deal to me: it was that year's Birthday present I get for myself which is no small thing as those are usually a pretty big deal. Past ones have included Transfomers Masterpiece Megatron, my 3 original Astro City Hardcovers, my Nausicaa Manga boxset, Masterpiece Starscream and the Amazing Spider-Man Omnibus. This year's either the new AT-AT or Masterpiece Grimlock. It gave a great closing to the first time that Nintendo had picked another developer to work on a AAA franchise (sorry Donkey Kong) and felt like a complete story even with the extra cameo of one of Hunters characters in the 100% completion ending.

A frame from the opening cinematic that wowed so many at E3. Ironically not one of the videos you can watch from the main menu after having beaten the game.

 2 years later Metroid Prime Trilogy came out and revised the first two Prime games with the Wii control scheme as well as streamlining the bonus content from the various games. It’s out of print now which is curious as I’m not sure what that says about how Nintendo thought it would perform. If you can find it definitely worth it, though it’s important to take note it doesn’t work with some of the first released Wii consoles.

The Bottle Ship. This is just one of the many similarities the game has to Metroid Fusion.

Before Other M was revealed there was talk of the next game in the series being called Metroid Dread but that seems to have dissipated. Yoshio Sakamoto has said that the game does exist and he may go back to it someday. Here’s hoping as it would be the first game in the series set after Fusion and in 2-D to boot so maybe on the 3DS. The Metroid franchise has always been the third tier one for Nintendo but that’s left it open to be the one experimented with the most radically for better or worse. It’s got the most discreet continuity but at the cost of having the fewest entries next to its compatriots. There’s a lot of interesting qualities that set it apart from other properties at the big N and I’m happy to see them acknowledging that.

Episode 9: Squindigo

Ahoy!
75% are back from Chicago, 25% are moving to new digs. And 100% of us are in the new podcast! This episode includes Blackest Night #8 spoilering, SPECULATE!, and Video Game Wrap Up. If you care about comics and haven't read Blackest Night #8, then why are you reading comics? If you don't then it doesn't matter if we spoil does it? We record tomorrow and we should have a consistent schedule starting with this week's show. If not, blame Robert, I always do! I actually don't, I blame myself...mostly...
Also, we will begin a monthly podcast with some of the crew, called It's Super Effective! Yea, it's Pokemon, but so what? It's still us and we still entertain, you'll love it.
On to Episode 9: Squindigo!

-Jaysun