Metroid: Other M: Review

When it was revealed that the guys who made Ninja Gaiden and Dead or Alive (including all of the Beach Volleyball iterations) would be making a Metroid game, the gamersphere erupted, and rightly so. What a worrying proposition right? Samus with breast physics? Ridley spraying blood all around the room? Thankfully none of this happens in Metroid: Other M. What we have instead is classic Metroid with a twist (read: a bunch of twists).

Metroid: Other M stands as one of two rare attempts (including Metroid: Zero Mission) to inject some semblance of story into the Metroid universe. The story has typically been pretty simplistic. Metroids kill things, space pirates want the Metroids to do pirate things (presumably with eye-patches), Samus has a gun on her arm. Other M endows Samus with tons of character development, something we haven't seen in her before. Apparently with good reason. Other M tells the story of why Samus, being a solitary bounty hunter (who to date has collected apparently no bounties) is always so keen on helping the Galactic Federation. In the process she comes off as highly feminine (to the extent of wearing high-heels in the Zero Suit for some reason). It's totally different than I (and thus, by proxy, you) expected Samus to be, but honestly it's kind of cool to see a heroine who is also a girl. Unfortunately, this leads her to periodically stopping to tell you about how sad things make her. It's humanizing, but it's annoying. The rest of the story is ham fisted and decidedly Japanese which, depending how you feel about anime, is either silly or good. Using Super Metroid as a jump-off is a good decision though as it leads to some truly harrowing cinematics.

Above: Samus is totally sad.

The cgi movies on the other hand are beautiful and action packed. If all that humanizing left you wondering if Samus was a powderpuff, her cg antics flipping around and killing everything will leave little doubt. Samus is hardcore. If you still need convincing, the in-game action will sell you. The control is a bit strange with you holding the Wii Remote sideways (like New Super Mario Bros.) and controlling Samus in 3-D space with the D-pad. It takes a while to get used to, but eventually it feels like second nature. Missiles and free-look are handled by pointing the Wii Remote at the screen. The missiles/free-look mechanic sounds like it would be awesome, but the Wii Remote it far too imprecise and slow moving to do what it is really supposed to. Thankfully, the generous auto-aim in the regular side-scroll mode enables you to shoot the crap out of everything effectively, stunning bigger enemies for the missile coup-de-grace.

The game is actually a pretty good mix of side-scroll, first-person action (although you are stationary in first-person, which is annoying), and even some over-the-shoulder stuff. Not all of this works that well, but none of it is game ruiningly bad. Being such a mix allows for many long absent suit-upgrades make a welcome return. Bafflingly though, Samus the independent bounty hunter agrees not to use much of the suit until her ex-boss/father-figure says so. For some things it makes sense (power-bombs may kill survivors so, duh), but for some things it makes no sense. Hey Adam, I'm standing in lava and dying, do you mind if I turn on my heat-resistant suit? Pfft. People keep saying this makes more sense than Samus finding these upgrades each time, but it clearly doesn't.

Altogether though, Other M is a welcome addition to the Metroid timeline (occurring after Super Metroid which was the final game in the timeline). Team Ninja (despite Samus having comically huge breasts, high-heels, and the voice of a fifteen year old girl) added some awesome flavor to the series and took risks that mostly paid off.

This is a Metroid. It wants to kill you.

If you're on the fence about Other M, get off the fence (and clean off those shoe prints) and go buy it. It's $50. It'll be 10-15 hours well spent. And if you get stuck, look up, it's not bad game design, you're just being stupid.