impressions: http://www.gamesradar.com/wii/metroid-other-m/preview/metroid...

it says that the switch to 1st person works much more smoothly than before. also- "Fully charging the arm cannon and entering morph ball mode plants five bombs on the spot". i love how they're working in all the hidden super metroid moves.

for you haters, here's the worst impression i've seen yet: http://kotaku.com/5598501/what-if-the-next-metroid-is-a-bad-game

i can't pay any heed to most negative impressions because the authors more often than not make themselves out to be idiots. for instance, complaining that the switch to 1st person leaves you looking in the direction you were facing in... what do you expect? can you hold it against the game that it doesn't magically correct your mistakes and point you the direction you're thinking of?

he then complains about the fact that the story has emotional substance (which he's too macho to be bothered with) and that the game is generally not exactly the same as it's predecessors for a while before surprisingly saying that he actually wound up liking the controls once he figured them out, rendering the entire first half of his article useless.

the best part: "You replenish missiles by "concentrating." That concentration will also refill some of Samus energy if she is low on her last tank of power. These are definitely not the controls of older Metroid games."

if you get paid to be a professional nerd, you better do it right.

@romulux: Thanks for the link—I say link because only the first one is really worth reading, but you knew that already—that was quite a good read...

As for the other article, well, the guy playing was obviously under the learning curve mentioned to him by the PR person...

You're kind of harsh on anyone who doesn't like this game, despite not having played it yet. His concerns sound legitimate. I would expect the IR to point where I point it, too. That sounds nothing but natural.

The Crystal Flash drains your weapons in favor of energy. You don't just stand still and get everything back. And it's not available until late. That's not at all the same (though kudos for bringing it up).

And you grossly misrepresent his attitude toward the story. He doesn't fault it for being emotional. He faults it for being cheesy and inconsistent with her in-game character.

He's listing concerns, not saying the game is bad, just that it could be. I'd like to think we aren't "idiots" for sharing his concerns.

It seems like his only lasting concern is the story, which pretty much coincides with my worries. That isn't a huge complaint since it's all lagniappe, and certainly not enough to qualify anyone as "haters." I'm still greatly looking forward to the game, despite minor reservations, as it looks more and more with each trailer like a 3D Fusion or Zero Mission. I think the writer is looking forward to it, too.

man, stuff is coming up left and right now. here's the newer japanese box:

and new 4 minute video. the environment about 2 1/2 minutes in looks amazing: http://gonintendo.com/viewstory.php?id=131726
there's also Iwata asks! ...in japanese.

adam, the 1st person system is the same as the zelda's aside from using the IR camera instead of a button. if he were reviewing ocarina of time and held it against the game that he wound up facing a wall every time he went to 1st, it'd clearly be his own problem. it's no different here, although i can understand that IR controls confuse things a bit. my problem was that he liked the switch by the end of his review, but still wrote an article that held it against the game that he didn't know how to use it right at the beginning.

if i sound harsh it's because i've read a lot of impressions where people make pretty unreasonable complaints. there was one guy who criticized the story without even having seen any of the scenes just because 'team ninja doesn't do story well'. nevermind that sakamoto wrote it and D rockets animated it, leaving team ninja little if any part of the storytelling. and this guy i linked above seemed to be criticizing the story as cheesy because it was emotional, at least that's how it came off to me.

Yea, that environment looks wonderful. Game play is looking good, too. At this point my only worry is regarding the story, and I can always skip that if it turns out to be bad!

But you just said how it's different. Turning the remote at the TV for Metroid, the natural instinct is that you will aim where you point it.

He's giving impressions as if he were going through the game. At first IR's confusing, but then he adjusts. He's holding the learning curve against it, if anything.

He said that the cut scene character and in-game character seem inconsistent. In the cut scenes Samus supposedly sounds vulnerable, weak, and inexperienced. But then you switch to the game play and she's putting giant man-eating aliens in headlocks and giving them wedgies.

That new footage is sweet.Thanks for posting it fellas. Really hyped for this now after being slightly underwhelmed initially.Hope you can skip those cut-scenes though!! Especially if they have no japanese option,the english dub sounds a bit on the cheesy side to me. The action looks like a lot of fun though.

too bad they're so grainy. i can't wait for the iwata asks to be translated... my japanese is miles away from being able read more than the names.

@Adam: Judging from what he wrote, when he refers to Samus as "vulnerable, weak and inexperienced" he's mostly talking about her under Adam's command (the whole part about her giving him the thumbs down and explaining why in an inner monologue), when she was still a soldier. In other words, she was that way, but once you're actually playing she's present-day, Power Suit-wearing, species-eradicating, most feared bounty hunter in the universe Samus. Time elapsing isn't exactly inconsistency, wouldn't you agree?

@romulux: Thanks for the new link, I hope translators can crank out an English version of that new Iwata Asks feature soon...

I'm happy to say the game is looking much better to me now than it did a few weeks ago.

Agreed. I'm sure it'll seem even better near launch time.

True, but to be fair, Metroid Fan, that was my (bad) wording, what you quoted. He didn't say inconsistent. I think it was just an unpleasant juxtaposition for him. Seeing this tough warrior as she narrates via voice over about how he was like a dad to her, all set to some perhaps overly emotional piano music (his opinion, not mine; pretty sure I haven't seen these scenes yet, at least not with music and voice over). ...shrug. We'll see for ourselves very soon. Impossible to judge when we haven't seen what he's seen / heard what he's heard.

It just seems like pretty much everyone giving their opinion on the game (what they've played so far) seems to be all up in arms about the story and how "emotional" Samus is. She was just as emotional in Fusion, it's just that her inner monologues and conversations with Adam weren't voiced. They seem to expect the same stoic/"badass" attitude from her that you get from every protagonist in any FPS game on the HD twins, and while she is a badass, she's also human (and humans have gasp emotions)...

You're right, though, we'll get to see soon enough just how legitimate their worries are...

Ehh, I don't recall Samus being remotely emotional in Fusion unless you count perhaps some vague nostalgia, but it's been awhile. And again, he never complained that she has emotions. That's a huge exaggeration. He just said that it was cheesy. Sometimes emotion can be overdone.

There's nothing wrong with a character being stoic if done right. In past games, it made sense for her character. I don't see what that has to do with any FPS hero. Not only are most nothing like this, but Samus predates ever FPS ever. It doesn't make sense to think people expect her character to retroactively become like someone created after her.

It must just seem weird to some to have an emotional scene followed immediately by blasting aliens in the face. I can see how the music might be overdone, but I agree that since they're flashbacks the characterization makes sense.

I LOVE metroid game but sometimes they get too hard and challening, and most of the times I get lost in the maps, thats why most of the times I need to use a guide and that most of the time I don't like to because I fell like cheating but most of the time I need one, so...

@hulk: The only Metroid game where I sometimes end up disoriented is Metroid II, but that's because it lacks a map and the corridors all look the same, also because I have the habit of getting into areas I shouldn't be in yet by braving the lava (or whatever that liquid is that lowers after you kill a certain amount of Metroids)...

Which Metroid games have you played, by the way?

@Metroid_Fan, the only one I have played, love and own is metroid Prime 2: corruption. Im right now actually stucked before a boss, because where Im suposed to regenerate my health (a lithg portal) there is a normal monster the one idk how to kill (it is like a spider, or like a ball with spider legs or with tentacles, ok like a purple glowing ball that have tentacles or spider legs and attack me) Do you nkow maybe how to defeat it?

@hulk: That's actually Metroid Prime 2: Echoes, and your description is a bit too vague for me to discern where it is that you are. From your description it just sounds like a regular Warrior Ing that you're fighting, though...

I'm not sure if anyone has seen this yet but here's a link t... If by chance this has already been posted please let me know.

Good or bad I pre-ordered my copy. Team Ninja is awesome and the reason I recently bought a Wii in the first place. It wasn't until later that I found out Yoshio Sakamoto was the one in charge of developing Metroid Other M. He's only made 2d Metroid games so far and said in an interview that he was hoping to bring metroid back to it's roots. Now I'm worried. I'm all for making Metroid a third person platformer again but if Other M turns out to be a 2.5d game (like Kirby 64 or Crash Bandicoot) I'll be begging for Retro Studios to come back. I'm confident it will still be a fun game to play through once even if it's not better than Metroid Prime, but I'm hoping it's better.

Wow! Just wow! That is literally Metroid: Other M the Movie! They could get away with just putting that on a DVD and selling it for $20.