Metroid Prime 2: Echoes Launches

The sequel to Metroid Prime, Metroid Prime 2: Echoes has been released to consumers. Details on the sequel can be found via a Gamespy hands on look or a Gamespot review. A snip from the review: "If you've played Metroid Prime, you've essentially played Metroid Prime 2. Retro hasn't mucked with the original, winning formula, so veterans of the first game will feel quite at home resuming their position behind Samus' computer-enhanced visor."

Re:WTF?

[cubicledrone]

Why is it in every review they make the point to emphasize "this is not full of revolutionary new gameplay"?

Because the game media (and therefore the entire entertainment media) is only impressed with companies that spend enormous amounts of money on "new, unproven technologies," therefore they must remind everyone that every other project is "not different enough."

Without such confusion, they wouldn't be able to write articles like "Polar Express is an awful movie and oh yeah, someone wasted umpty billion dollars making it" or "the Incredibles is the finest artistic achievement since the Marriage of Figaro, and they should have spent more."

Re:Well

[cubicledrone]

"If it isn't broken, don't fix it."

How about "if it isn't broken, make a sequel?"

Re:Its not a name

[bludstone]

s o m e - 1 s e t - u p
u s - t h e B 0 M B 1 1

That works too :)

No, seriously. Just make sure the 0 in bomb is a zero, not an O.

So, does anyone know where the name justin bailey came from? Ive heard things from "its someone to nintendo" all the way to "Just In Bailey" and a bailey is a bathingsuit (is it?)

What happened.....

[Rooked_One]

to the good old side scrolling games? I mean, we had 3d games isolated to the PC and the side scrollers for consoles, and while some games on the XBOX and PS2 like Sudeki are very cool, they are not first person and save a certain aspect.

I look at all the people, including me, who would like a side scroller with outstanding graphics - which could be done quite easily, and I don't see it happening.

Did companies either...

a - decided that side scrollers aren't popular enough, or

b - decided that its easier to basically copy the computer industries years of work?

Sorry for the ran, but i'd just like to see a super graphical mario brothers, or better yet, Metroid. The real metroid - the first one. After they turned it into 3d blasphemy they should have renamed it.

tired of the game cube is dead argument

[ocularDeathRay]

I keep hearing about how the game cube is dead and there are NO good games... buy an xbox etc.... I am sick of it. there are some great games for gamecube still being released. this is a PRIME (/me ducks) example. PSOIII is also a good example IMHO. these games really are breaking ground if you ask me. yes this particular game may be similar to prime1 but I don't see anyone else in the industry making games like these. besides. any system that you can play Ikaruga on is not dead!

Re:What happened.....

[tukkayoot]

Though I agree with you to a certain extent, that there aren't enough quality sidescrollers out there, I really do think that the jump to 3D has greatly improved the Metroid Series. There have already been several good sidescrolling Metroid games (although I never was really a fan of the series until MP), I think it's good that they continue to experiment and take the game in a somewhat different direction.

Metroid Prime is probably overall favorite console game to date. I guess it might be "blasphemy" to a die hard veteren of the classic series, the same way the Ocarina of Time was for many Zelda fans. I myself have always been a great Zelda fan, however, and OoT was my favorite console game until Metroid Prime dethroned it. So obviously the decision is not an entirely bad one, since Metroid Prime and the Ocarina of Time are two of the most critically acclaimed games of all time, and are often cited as favorites in their respective franchises even by people who have been fans of those franchises since their inception.

Others have pointed out a host of games that have been done in 2D. They aren't all classic franchises, but what does that matter? I think they did a 3D/mostly sidescrolling Contra a while back that I haven't seen anybody mention yet, too.

One franchise that I don't think has as gracefully entered the third dimension is the Mario series. Yoshi's Island is still my favorite Mario game. However, Mario 64 wrote the book on 3D platformers, so even if it isn't my favorite game, I respect the fact that it helped usher in the age of a genre that quite a lot of people enjoy. Maybe it's just that I'm frustrated by the fact that I seem to lack the skill to beat Super Mario Sunshine.

Personally, one thing I'd like to see is a 3D modelled, sidescrolling Castlevania, something which has controls like Symphony of the Night, but perhaps has more of a RPGish element, like Simon's Quest for the NES (since the SOTN formula has been done to death, albeit done masterfully, with the Castlevania GBA titles, and Simon's Quest is often mentioned as a favorite Castlevania title).

By and large, I happen to like 3D games better than 2D games. They usually look better, they usually feel more immersive, and in some ways they may be more flexible from a gameplay/design perspective. Sidescrolling still holds a special place in my heart though. One thing I do honestly fear is that the new crop of 3D capable handheld consoles kill off virtually all new, good 2D game development.

Re:Haven't Played Yet

[calethix]

"multiple players can play multiplayer games using just one Nintendo DS game card."

Everything I have read about this says the DS is capable of allowing multiple people to play with a single game card but it's up to the developer as to whether or not they want to allow it. So I'd wait before I get too excited about this aspect.

Re:So it pretty much sucks?

[Brand X]

Timesplitters 2, I use a heavily modified scheme from the default.

Heh. I actually modified my scheme in Timesplitters 2 to be *more like* the scheme in Metroid Prime. I've played a lot of PC FPSs, and a few on consoles (Halo, for example), and can handle the controls, but Metroid Prime is the only (technically) FPS I can think of where it feels like the controls are an asset, not another challenge to overcome. I prefer puzzles to shooting, and I really appreciated being able to let the FPS aspects take a back seat, thanks to the targetting system and the rather natural jumps. Yeah, there should have been a way to lower the angle of view for jumps, and your feet should have been visible... but otherwise, there was a smooth arc that is missing from so many FPS jumps...

Re:WTF?

[antoy]

I couldn't agree more. I remember reading the Gamespy review of Soul Calibur 2. A page was dedicated to let every reviewer to express his opinions: All of them but one (I think Fargo was the exception) whined about how they expected it to be 'revolutionary' and a 'huge leap forward for fighting games' (the way Soul Calibur 1 was).

Thankfully, I had already played Soul Calibur 2 and I knew how fantastic a game it was. This game magazine mentality results in stupid reviews. For now, the only people I trust on game opinions is Gabe & Tycho, and my little brother.

(Sorry for the rant, I'm just glad other people see the foolishness too)

Sequence breaking?

[Spleener12]

I'm curious as to whether or not Retro managed to make this game as sequence-breakable as its predecessors.

Prime contained a lot of ways to do things out of order to the point where it was possible to finish the game in a little over an hour (impressive given the fact that it's designed to be done in 7-15 or so). But then someone between them and the Nintendo higher-ups (I'd like to think it was Nintendo) ordered as many of these to be removed as possible in later (PAL, Japanese, NA Player's Choice) versions- for example, in the original it was possible to get to the Plasma beam room without the Spider Ball or the Grappling beam, but in the Player's Choice version there was a lock placed on the door to the room that went away when you got the grappling beam. I'm surprised you didn't get a picture of a middle finger when you scanned the thing.

Hopefully over time people will discover as many ways to sequence-break Prime 2 as they did Prime 1. At the very least it won't be as bad as Fusion in this regard.

Re:awesome

[PhoenixFlare]

I strafe all the time. Pay attention to your day-to-day movements, and you'll find that you even do it in real life. However, strafing wasn't my biggest complaint. It was jumping. If you're going to put me in a first-person perspective and then throw jumping puzzles at me, let me look down!

Maybe i'm just different than everyone else, but i'm about 75% and 13 hours into the game, and I have not yet run into a single situation where I had to look down to make a jump sucessfully.

People justify Prime's control scheme by pointing out it's not a shooter. That doesn't mean you should make it more difficult for me to move, especially if you're going to make me jump.

As the previous poster was saying, the only people who seem to complain about this are those that play lots and lots of dual-analog twitchy FPS games like Halo, and seem to suffer a sort of brain meltdown if they're forced to use anything else.

What a lame excuse for a broken control scheme, especially when you have to "get used to it" all over again if you stop playing the game for a week or two.

Has anyone else had to do this? I know I sure haven't, and I went about 6 months inbetween plays once.

My hopes for MP2E

[Argon Sloth]

Like many other posters, I was utterly appalled when I heard Prime would be a FPS. It didn't turn out to be, but it was very close. After seeing the reviews, I was prompted to play it. Once I reached Flaagra, I became a convert. As think was officially added into the standard FPS formula of point & shoot. The one thing I found missing, however, was the game still felt too linear to me, for something labelled Metroid. I noticed Fusion had the same problem. The key powerups must be found in a set order. In my opinion, the most alluring part of any of the previos Metroid games was the ability to do things in pretty much any order (assuming you had the skill to do so). As long as you started with the morphball, bombs, and a pack of missles and finished with Mother Brain/Metroid Queen. I think Nintendo was picking up on fon feedback when making Zero Mission. Sequence breaking was back in, as well as the addition of alternate goals (eg: finish with less than 15% of the pickups). And it was only through sequence breaking that one could achieve the goal of 100% of pickups in under 2 hours play time. Any how I'm starting to go off topic here. My point is that although Prime was the First Metroid game to allow one to change the difficulty rating, this does not offer the same replayability as sequence breaking which is what made the open concept of (Super) Metroid so interesting. In short, had Metroid Prime 2 been a repackaging of Metroid Prime with the same weapons, bosses, etc. and the only new component being sequence breaking, I would be pleased.