The Older Metroid Games
Metroid
The original Metroid was one of the games that I loved a whole lot and I played at several of my friends houses but I never owned myself. I don't know why I never owned it, but I never did. When I heard the news of the Wii having the Virtual console, this was the first game I thought about. Unfortunately I didn't end up getting it till about 5 years into the Wii's life and took about 4 months after purchasing it to actually play it. However once I sunk my teeth into this game, I couldn't stop. Despite the technical limitations of the time it withstood the test of time and kept my attention the way it did when I was a young pup with a NES.
Easily a 9.5 out 10 for me (only because its short).
Super Metroid
Another Metroid, same story, though it didn't play as big of a roll in my childhood, it was definitely a game I always wanted and a game I seen others play and played myself quite a few times that I wanted. To be completely honest, I prefer a lot of SNES games like this one over a lot of the current lack luster games. This game is easily a classic and imo the best in the series. It's style has been cloned on many occasions but outside of Symphony of the Night, I have yet to try one out that really compares to this.
Another 9.5 out of 10 for me (for the same reasons).
Metroid Prime Trilogy
I've had this game for quite some time, I don't know why it took me so long to get started on it - or the entire Metroid series as a whole but this is easily one of the best packages this generation out of any consoles, right on par with the Orange Box, Elder Scrolls IV Oblivion: Game of the Year, Smash Bros Brawl, and Dragon Age Origins: Ultimate Edition.
Metroid Prime
I originally got this game on the Gamecube. I started it up three times and all 3 times my GC memory card got messed up do to Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles and Phantasy Star Online... dang those games and there addictive awesomeness. Anyways I like this game before but once I played it with the Metroid Prime Trilogy I have to say, it got a lot easier to play do to the controls which were implemented pretty well (as long as you customize them). Also the the game held up pretty well to this generation current gen and despite it being in first person, it did retain the Metroid feel and style. One complaint though about it and this series in general is while I liked them, they're a bit slower paced do to the scanning (which I did like but wasn't as fun) and you don't feel anywhere near as powerful in this as you do in Super Metroid. Over all I like the experience though.
Another 9.5 out of 10, it lasted longer but was slower paced.
Metroid Prime 2: Echoes
The red headed step child of the Prime series, Echo's while not as good as the other 2 Prime games is better then what people make it out to be. It still retains the interesting logs, item collection, exploring, and good graphics however also adds a light and darkworld system, in the vein of certain Legends with a blonde kid who can't speak right. It does add another lair of depth to the game but it also could of been implemented better as it also makes the exploring, item collecting, and scanning a lot more tedious making the experience even slower then the previous game. Also the difficulty was turned up a few notches which I welcomed but the morph ball puzzles were just down right annoying. Still, despite the gripes, I really enjoyed fighting dark Samus and the challenge while annoying at times was fun.
8.5 out of 10
Metroid Prime 3: Corruption
Easy. That's the best word to describe this game. I liked it a lot, I liked the story, it was the redeeming title for Retro Studios after Prime 2 but it was really easy, which while I like a challenge, it didn't give me headaches. I still got lost a few times but its much easier to figure out stuff, especially when your items appear on the map. The game has more story then the previous 2 with voice acting and other bounty hunters added into the fray. The phazon mode was unbelievably useful and powerful which made the ending pretty much a breeze, especially if you took your time to collect items.
9.5 out of 10
Over all the Trilogy gets a 9.4 out of 10 from me. This as I said is one of the best titles out there and is greatly worth it.
Metroid: Other M
Before it came out, this was one of the most anticipated games for most people out there. After it came out there was a lot of hate on it with a lot of people bashing it. At the time I didn't have much money and had to choose carefully what I would get that year. With Monster Hunter Tri, Tatsunoko vs Capcom, Goldeneye, and many other games dropping that year, Metroid had to take a back seat, especially after seeing so much negativity. I know, I shouldn't base my purchases on reviews. I know, I don't, I base them on how much game I'll get out of it. Eventually, I got this and other games I missed (though I'm still missing Galaxy 2) so when I started up the Metroid series I had to make sure I did this one.
I honestly have to say, I'm against the crowd on this game. This game was a whole lotta fun. The pacing is quicker a lot like Metroid 1 and Super Metroid, the game was as challenging as the older games, it went back to a 3rd person cam which I welcomed and Samus feels strong again like she did in Metroid Fusion and Super Metroid. It retained the item collection, the exploring, and had a first person view point again, which while there was some annoying points with it, it didn't hurt the game pacing the way people made it out to. Despite not using the analog, the controls worked very well. The morph ball wasn't annoying and the sequences were actually kind of cool. The big problem I had with this game was the fact you don't get all your powers until literally the very end of the game.
The story has been the big thing that people talk about when they say they don't like it. A lot of the people who say they don't like the story then go on to say they liked games such as Eternal Sonata and Final Fantasy 13 which I couldn't stand, so I can't take a lot of them seriously. The story was decent imo, it's Team Ninja, I wasn't expecting a Hideo Kojima or Bioware production, however it's far from bad. I'm not really fond of the hero who's a robot and doesn't have thoughts, opinions, or personality that's thrown into a story that everybody thinks is amazing - it feels fake to me. Anyways, the voice acting could of been better, it wasn't bad, but it wasn't as high quality as the rest of the game, more so for Samus. The facial animations were pretty good, especially when compared to Metroid Prime 3 and while I'm not a fan of FMV's in games, they were very well done in this.
Despite the negativity about this game I liked it a whole lot more then I thought I would and felt the same way playing it I did with the old Metroid games. 9 out of 10
Other Games I beat
Lost Planet 2
As I said in a previous blog post, a friend has been trying to get me to play this game for quite some time. I gave in and I beat it recently, beat it as in seen the credits, I got a long way to go with unlocking stuff. This is easily one of the funner third person shooters I've played in recent times. Good action, nice graphics, coop, and some really awesome weapons. Also the story and bosses weren't half bad at all.
9/10
Grand Theft Auto IV: The Ballad of Gay Tony
Finally finished this game, started it a when it first came out and never got around to finishing it, mostly because each time I turn it on I end up going online which online is a whole lot of fun and a crazy time waster. Anyways the story in this was really good, like all Rockstar products the voice acting was good, and unfortunately the gameplay was the same as the previous 2 "GTA4" games which is feeling its age do to a crappy physics system. I liked the game but I hate the physics.
8/10
The Charge
So, a few days back I check my email and I have a nice email from Microsoft saying thank you for purchasing Record of Agarest War, a game that I do have an interest in trying and want eventually want to get around to playing but not something I remember purchasing.
So the next day I call them up and talk about it and try to get the charge removed. Well apparently it was bought from my 360 so my account wasn't hacked however because it's a full game and not a downloadable game I could only remove the purchase if it wasn't downloaded already, however instead of saying download now, it said download again meaning either A somebody downloaded it and deleted it or be it started downloading then was cancelled. Either way I didn't do it and it was charged to my card. So I look at my 360 and noticed when I turn it on, the first thing that was up on the screen was this game, so if I or anybody using my 360 drops my controller when its on, while its a very small probability, it could be purchased. Also the full store titles don't require microsoft points, meaning it charges straight to the card.
This really brings my piss to a boil. Seriously.... I remember about 6 months back trying to get my card out of their freakin system and them giving me all this run around, now this happens. Well at least they took my card out so this won't happen again but this really ticks me off. It's stupid things like this that make me wonder how game companies intend to compete with these other multi purpose platforms that have there stuff together.
