Read that today. While i don't necessarily agree with a lot of it (though i may not be in the best position to appreciate some points, what with having a Y chromosome and all), it was quite well written and a good read.

Just read the article above.
While I don't agree with him, I understand that a lot of people are upset about the first attempt to TRULY personify Samus Aran.
However, it doesn't really stand to make claims, like this dude does, that the character we see in Other M is "out of left-field."
Samus has never been given a voice and a backstory, so what basis for comparison is there? Just because YOU thought Samus was an impossible bad doesn't mean her creator pictured her like that, or she was ever meant to really be perceived as such. I think that was the main idea that went into the original revealing of Samus as a girl. Originally, like back back in the day, none of us were really sure if she was even human, and then, upon beating the game, we found out the truth. And it wasn't surprising because she was a woman, not a man, it was surprising because there was a girl behind all that armor and weapons. It made your reexamine the whole adventure you had just partaken in. There was someone feeling and thinking through that entire game, not some emotionless robot just doing work.

right. when people say "they ruined samus' character" i have to wonder, "what character?" she was a blank slate just the same as link and mario with no defined personality until fusion came along and laid out some of her history with adam. this game builds on that story that was begun nearly a decade ago and it does it pretty well at that, so it's not like the person we're seeing in other m is a total surprise.

http://www.gamespot.com/wii/action/metroidotherm/video/627654...
new interview here with....

he addresses the backlash and it's very interesting to hear him talk about his motivations for the story. he says that every metroid fan has their own image of samus, which as we know now is very true, and he didn't think that was a good thing for the series in the long run. he wanted to define her character across the board and get everyone on the same page about who she is, which of course is going to be a noisy chaotic mess, but in his opinion it had to be done.

@lockelocke
The writer of the IGN piece is a woman.

@the_shpydar
I figured. Okay, that sounded sexist, but it wasn't meant to be.
I call everyone 'dude,' even my mom. Especially my mom.

There's a live run of the game on Backloggery now

Lol. Just figured you didn't notice since you specifcally referred to the writer as "him".

I think a big thing of the piece is that she identified Samus as a strong, typical gender-role-defying protagonist, but Other M ruptured that identification for her (which i don't necessarily agree with, but as i said i'm not in the best position to judge from that perspective).

sigh haven't I already read this article? Oh wait, that was the G4 review. My mistake. I can see why people might be off-put by this game, but I'm playing Fusion now, and I've got to say--it's pretty consistent. Nothing in that game makes Samus out to be a bad bounty hunter. It's all introspective, somewhat whiny, and, when referring to the baby Metroid, quite maternal. I just don't see why people think it's inconsistent if they've really played every game in the series.

I find it interesting that the author of the IGN article claims there was never any sign of emotional response to the baby metroid before. I wonder what the cold-blooded super-bad bountyhunter Samus was thinking when she didn't shoot it when it hatched ("A hatchling metroid? I know I should kill it, but if I sell it on EBay, I'll make a fortune!") Or what she thought when she saw it sacrificing itself for her ("Hah! That's right, sucker, take the brunt of the blast, then I'll drain your power from your dying body for myself! Mwa-ha-har!") But apparently, admitting to having fear makes you panicky, having emotions makes you whiney, obeying orders makes you subservient... At least, if you're a woman. It's okay when you're a man (or did anyone complain about Alan Wake, or the various guys from Silent Hill, etc?[EDIT: By complain I mean in the form of a lengthy article, not the usual forum-whining]) I always thought that overcoming your fears was a sign of strength, since if you don't have fears, you don't need strength. But it seems that's not the case when you're a female: Admit you're afraid, and you remain a weak, hysterical woman even if you subsequently blast seven kinds of hell out of your enemies.
Then again, if Nintendo had stuck to the emotionless bad bountyhunter stereotype, we'd be reading articles along the lines of "Nintendo once again missed an opportunity to mature one of their heroes into a living, three-dimensional being and instead opted to furbish their character once more with an empty husk of an idenity, yet another carbon-copy of the soulless bad killing machine. By refusing to acknowledge that video-game characters are more than just lifeless puppets to be used by the player to kill other things with, Nintendo remains firmly rooted in the shallow world of the 80's..." or something similar (quite possibly by the very same authors).
Apparently, video game heroes need to be forever constricted to space marines and brainless bullys.

you said a lot of the things i was thinking. after some 9 games samus was beginning to beginning to feel like an empty shell. you can only see so much of a character without any glimpses into who they are before they start feeling less mysterious and more shallow and 2 dimensional. it was starting to feel like there was nothing under that helmet.

i also think it's very true that samus was never a cold, invincible person. having the mercy to spare the baby metroid was the first real insight into her character, and it turned out to be a disaster: samus was directly responsible for deaths of all the scientists at ceres and the revival of the space pirate's metroid cloning program.

if she hadn't stopped the cloning she would been gone down in history as a very foolish person, but she was lucky enough to succeed mainly because of the baby metroid. it not only allowed her to kill mother brain but also saved her life, making it very plausible that samus would feel a bond with it and want to protect it in return.

the fact that samus was lucky enough for the blast on zebes to destroy the space pirates in the end is probably the only reason she wasn't punished by the federation, and there are a few glimpses into that in other m. she comments on how adam probably lost respect for her over her decision to save the metroid, and the general at the end clearly looks down on her for it. that type of idealistic but irresponsible behavior is the crux of her character in other m, and you can see it in the old games too.

so really it's nothing new in other m, it's just that the old games never overtly showed you any of what was going on in samus' head. i've only picked up on these subtle plot points because i've played super metroid a hundred times over.

I'm finding that even though I've 100%'ed Normal mode already and completed Hard mode, on another Normal play through I literally just started I'm still finding out new things which I probably should have found out already but it shows that there are so many ways to do things in Other M.
Such as with the Chameleon enemies that are quite frequent towards the start of the game in sector 1, as they dash towards you, you can jump on their backs for an Overblast which dramatically speeds up the kill time.

i had the same experience playing through it again. not only finding that you can do overblasts on enemies i didn't think you could before, but finding multiple ways to attack the same enemies. the funnest is doing two or three overblasts in a row without touching the ground.

Haha gotta love chaining overblasts, just managed to do 2 in a row on zebesians which again I don't think I had previously realised that I could overblast.

She spared the baby Metroid in Metroid 2, right? The one that no one played and is generally regarded as the weakest Metroid? (I speak rhetorically)

They should remake it. For the 3DS.

Yea right at the end after the Queen Metroid. Also I agree, with the same treatment that the Original got in the shape of Metroid Zero Mission I believe Metroid 2 could become quite a formidable (re)entrant into the series. Plus as its the only Metroid currently unplayable on any current Gen consoles its due a make-over or at the very least a port

Reminds me of the App Store. People give random 1 reviews to games because "They will open and go back to the home screen" When that obviously is a glitch on the OS and yet people complain about it.

There should be a minimum amount of intelligence required to give something a review.

@GabeGreens
Not necessarily. Some games just aren't programmed right for all of the iPod/ iPhone types, and they end up crashing. Some developers are also too lazy to update their games to the latest major firmware.

And, well whaddayagonnado about the 1 star reviews. They're always gonna be there.

They need to unite the fans next time around. They need a compromise, like bring back the quiet bad bounty hunter but give her a belly ring so she seems more mature. It makes a statement: she can be vulnerable, she can make mistakes, she's not perfect. Or stretch marks! Stretch marks tell us more than 10 monologues ever could. Then everyone's happy.

Certainly they didn't take your feelings into account. If they had I'm sure they would have given Metroid Other M 5 stars regardless of their own opinions. I find the bigger problem with amazon reviews are having 35 or 15 separate reviews that all say the same thing or those guys who go on for 12 paragraphs like out of work writers.

In that case, the articles would read something along the lines of "In a pathetic attempt to appeal to present day gamers, Nintendo forced a steaming heap of pop-culture on one of it's oldest gaming heroines, effectively ruining the timeless appeal of the science-fiction setting and selling out it's soul. What's next? A coke vending machine in the Galactic Federation flagship? A Katy Perry cameo as a fellow bounty hunter? A tribal tattoo? Or should Samus receive a smartphone?" After all, every change is a sacrilege, while every omission of change is a sign of lazyness

EDIT: P.S: I REALLY hope no one actually suggests a belly ring in the "Sakamoto Wants to Know Your Metroid: Other M Thoughts" thread...

Someone should wrote a counter article to that IGN's. Also, isn't this just Nntendo being traditional, as always? In the first Metroid the shock was that Samus was actually a woman and not some badass robot. Now in Other M the shock is that Samus is actually an emotional, individual human being and not some bad chick with the personality of robot.