Once again I say that it must be nice to be a professional video game site, as both Joystiq and IGN got some hands-on time with forthcoming Wii title Metroid: Other M. Also nice: being a super-hot intergalactic bounty hunter with an insanely versatile suit of power armor.As seems to be the case with all 3D Metroid games, Other M is an "interquel" taking place between Super Metroid (Metroid 3) and Metroid Fusion (Metroid 4). In case you've forgotten, all three entries in the Prime series (Metroid Prime, Metroid Prime2: Echoes, and Metroid Prime 3: Corruption) took place between Metroid and Metroid 2. In a definite departure from the Prime series, Other M will actually take place primarily in 3rd person. This is particularly interesting considering how controversial the move to first-person was with Metroid Prime and how celebrated the transition was after Prime's release. Other M does still have first-person play, however, but we'll get into that shortly
With Team Ninja (of Dead or Alive and Ninja Gaiden fame) collaborating with Nintendo for this entry, many fans feared that Other M would become simply a "Metroidified" version of Ninja Gaiden. Joystiq quickly assures us that not only is Other M "really impressive" "really fun" and "totally Metroid" but also "in no way a re-skinned Ninja Gaiden." Whew, you can let that sigh of relief out now, you're gonna need to because I'm about to make you gasp: Metroid: Other M releases this June, just a year after its announcement.
Speaking of which, let's have a refresher on that debut trailer (courtesy of IGN) shall we?
Yep, still awesome. Are you salivating for me to get to the details of the hands-on yet? Good, because there's going to be some spoilers if you want the hands-on, which covers the first 45 minutes or so of the game.
Metroid: Other M is looking like that game that will finally give players a glimpse into the personal history of main badass chick Samus Aran. What this means, besides that there will be voice acting (players will hear Samus's voice for the first time), is that Other M is a far more cinematic experience than Metroids past. In fact, Other M opens with a fully pre-rendered cinematic that gives the player something of an abstract view of Samus's origins that IGN describes as 2001-esque. The destruction of a space station by meteor shower with the lone surviving baby girl rapidly aging before our eyes. Once the camera reveals an adult Samus quickly encapsulated in her trademark Power Suit -- which has seen a slight redesign since Prime 3 -- the scene quickly moves to a recap of the climactic battle with Mother Brain at the end of Super Metroid. After Samus wakes up in a hospital wearing only her Zero Suit she is told that everything appears normal by a "quarantine officer" who then instructs her to move to the training room where the player gains control of the bounty hunter for the first time. In something of a reversal of the death animation from Super Metroid and Metroid Fusion the Varia Suit materializes on Samus and it's time to recall her skills in asskicking. Here's where things really differentiate Other M from any other entry in the series: the controls.
The majority of Other M is played from the third person and sometimes in an "almost 2.5D" perspective, according to IGN. The Wii-mote is held sideways, much like when playing a title form the Virtual Console, meaning that Samus is controlled entirely with digital controls via the D-pad. No analog control also means no control over movements speed, Samus runs everywhere. This gives traversing environments a speed more akin to the 2D Metroid games than the methodical pacing of the Prim series. While the levels are largely presented in a 2D perspective, Samus can run into the background or foreground in true 3D movement. In general, Other M's controls are a melding of classic Metroid with Prime, and a few new twists of its own. Additionally, during third-person play the 1 button fires, and holding the button will still charge a more powerful shot, while the 2 button jumps. As far as aiming at enemies, gone is the lock-on of Prime, replaced by an extremely competent auto-aim that has Samus firing at the nearest enemy in the general direction she's facing. When in morph ball mode (accomplished via the A button) the 1 button will lay down bombs, charging will produce a screen-clearing powerbomb and, in a move reminiscent of Super Metroid, charging your beam and then switching to Morph Ball will lay several bombs simultaneously around the Morph Ball Samus.
The other half of Other M's controls scheme is in the first person mode. Switching to first person mode may actually be the most innovative thing about the control scheme. There is no button press of any kind required, you simply point the Wii-mote at the screen and the view changes to first-person almost instantaneously. Although unable to move while in first-person, the player can aim freely in a way that will remind most players of light-gun games like Time Crisis or House of the Dead.
This view is quickly taught in Other M's training room tutorial. Tasked with locating an "old friend" (read: Space Pirate) that hides, partially cloaked, somewhere in the room, the player must look around by holding the B trigger. At any time the player can fire by tapping the A button. Once the enemy is located and locked-on to, however, tapping the A button fires a missile. Aside from combat, IGN asserts that using the B trigger to look around in first-person can be quite useful for exploration purposes as well.
With the holographic enemy dispatched, it was time to learn some more advanced third person moves, such as dodging. Dodging is a simple matter of moving just before an enemy attack makes contact. Rather obvious, right? Performing an actual dodge, however is more a matter of timing than simply moving Samus away from the attack. The player does not simply run in a direction to escape attack, he taps the button just before getting hit and Samus performs a booster-assisted dodge animation that both IGN and Joystiq claim is pretty slick. Samus can also perform reversal attacks, according to IGN, but they don't go into detail on how this is accomplished or what it entails. The same goes for the finishing moves glimpsed in the above trailer. Weakening enemies sufficiently allows Samus to finish them off with a move reminiscent of God of War, or even Nero's Buster moves from Devil May Cry 4.
Moving on from the training room, the demo quickly finds informing a crowded meeting hall that her Super Metroid mission was a success and the Metroids are now extinct before fading to a shot of her ship zipping through outer space. Just as soon as we are given an interior view of the ship, Samus receives a distress call (she seems to do that lot) and finds herself on a "Bottle Ship" in answer to the call. Throughout all the cinematics, Samus's inner dialogue drives the story.
Once inside the Bottle Ship, Samus quickly discovers she is not alone and the player is prompted to the first person view to examine another ship waiting in the landing bay. A quick scan reveals that it is a Galactic federation ship, and another inner monologue reveals that Samus was once in the military before an "incident" prompted her movement to the private sector; mkinging GF troppers that own the ship her allies and former brothers-in-arms. Samus doesn't get too far in exploring the ship before she encounters the troopers, all of whom recognizer her. Including the somewhat notorious "Remember me?" soldier from the debut trailer who is apparenlty named Anthony Higgs, according to IGN. It seems these troopers will play a somewhat large roll in Other M, with their Commanind Officer, Adam Malkovich, dictating when and where Samus can deploy which weapons. This is a noticeably different turn from the normal formula of Samus reacquiring her suits weapons and functions that are somehow lost at the game's outset.
After using a missile to open a door for the soldiers, the two factions separate for some individual exploration and enemy extermination before they are reunited in the game's first boss fight. When a bug crawls out from a scientist's corpse, it is quickly joined by a swarm of thousands more than come together and form the giant purple boss seen in the trailer. Working together to bring the beast down, the GF troopers will freeze its tentacles with Samus using first-person to lock and and shatter them with missiles, avoiding attacks from third person.
With the boss defeated, the two groups separate once again for some more exploration and alien butt-kicking. During exploration Samus will come to a long vertical shaft that requires Other M's new, and very Mega Man X, kick-climb ability to traverse. Although IGN claims to have found an area holding Missile and Energy Tank, Joystiq mentions never seeing the standard Metroid power pick-ups. Instead, health was restored by "focusing," an act accomplished by holding the Wii-mote vertically and holding the A button. Continuing exploration brought Joystiq to a bridge that gave out to drop Samus into a large room filled with "familiar two-legged beasties" (more Space Pirates? Your guess is as good as mine.) who brought Samus's health to the dire condition requiring the new "focus" mechanic. Also discovered by Joystiq was a bathroom that revealed yet another camera and control mechanic utilized for cramped corridors. The setup was described as a zoomed in over-the-shoulder view with controls "a bit like Resident Evil 4. The quest to restore power to the ship also revealed Other M's save stations, which still restore energy besides saving in a very speedy manner. The demo ended after a few more hatches had their doors blown of via missile fire and Samus made her way into the "command room."
Overall, Other M sounds like an exciting and very Metroid game that anyone with Chozo in their blood should be really excited to see this June. If you want to have a look at some more in-depth coverage of each publications experience with the demo, as well as some screenshots of Other M, you can find both articles at the links posted at the top of this article. Now, if you'll excuse me, I think I'm going to go replay every Metroid game I own to try and sate my hunger for Other M.
