E3 Previews - Metroid 3 and Super Mario Galaxy

Although Metroid Prime 3: Corruption and Super Mario Galaxy were both touched on at the Nintendo press conference ... it didn't really seem like enough. Thankfully, there are plenty of hands-on writeups to satisfy interested parties. Wired's Game|Life has almost nothing but praise for Metroid. Specifically, Chris Kohler singles out the FPS controls as proving the concept for him on the system. 1up is equally pleased with Mario. They cite its unconventional nature as initially offputting, but ultimately one of the things they enjoyed most about the game. "We simply love the way the game feels. Many gamers are of the opinion that Super Mario Sunshine strayed too far from the fundamentals of the series by focusing so heavily on the water cannon/jet pack, but Galaxy puts the emphasis right back on jumping and stomping foes. The controls are tight and the graphics are crisp, if not exactly a dead ringer for top-of-the-line Xbox 360 visuals. And tiny references to games past are everywhere, from the usual coins, to Goombas of unusual size, to "?" blocks that appear as crystalline squares that can be kicked around the levels as weapons or stomped on to yield rewards."

Metroid != FPS

[ErfC]

I wish people would quit calling the Metroid Prime series a "First Person Shooter". It's not. It's actually a very faithful 3D rendition of the platform jumper genre, but with the first-person POV, highly unusual in that genre -- it's a FPPV, not an FPS. (I actually hate FPSs, but Metroid Prime is my favourite Gamecube game.)

There are two reasons this mislabelling bugs me. First, it could easily scare off the target audience; I know people who had no intention of playing the game until they saw me playing for a while and realized what it was really about, and now they love it. (Judging by the Metroid Prime franchise success, though, this isn't a big issue.) Second, it winds up getting compared to games like Halo. They're completely different. A better comparison would be to something like Mario Sunshine.

Don't ask if MPIII is going to be "FPS of the year"; rather ask if it'll be "Platformer of the year".

(This doesn't seem to be a problem with some other genres. Windwaker and Sunshine are usually considered different genres (Action Adventure and Platformer, respectively) and are rarely compared (AFAIK), even though their interfaces are superficially similar. I suspect it's just because FPPs are rare -- are there any first-person platformers out there besides the Metroid Prime series?)