Topic: Metroid: Other M Arrives!

I walked past Gamestation today and nearly fell over when I saw the Other:M countdown thingy at 12 days. Wow!

I wish it was Prime 4, but hey, the atmos should pull me in, even if the random waggle and hammering of 'A' won't.

Not interested due to auto-aim.

LUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCKY!!!!

Wow, it's almost here.
Seems like it was just yesterday when I saw the E '09 Trailer.

What a great reason to write off this game. Pointing a d-pad in one of 8 directions to shoot one of many slow-moving creatures is definitely the main appeal to the Metroid experience--not awesome level design on kick- planets, atmosphere, and legit boss fights (all of which this game has, at least to me, decidedly proven it has in spades), not to mention solid platforming.

Auto-aiming is a legit gripe. Considering how precise and well-designed Prime 3's controls were, auto-aim seems like a major step back and a cop-out considering the Wii is designed for precision aiming. I'm still buying the game but it's a concern for me as well. I'm optimistic though, Nintendo's not the kind of company to let something like auto-targeting break the game. Microsoft on the other hand... cough Crackdown 2 cough.

you could also say the aiming systems from the 2D metroids are a major step back, since they don't give you any control other than a few different directions. it doesn't mean they're not just as fun to use; the old metroid gameplay was more focused on agility and platforming than shooting and never needed precise aiming anyway. other m shares the same focus on mobility, so a system like corruption's isn't really necessary.

i've yet to see a single impression that stated that auto aim ruined anything. the overall response has been that it's very similar to the way shooting felt in the 2D games, just applied to 3D space, which is exactly what i want from the game.

Auto-aim is pretty necessary when shooting in 3rd player in a 3D space. It would be a lot worse without auto-aim. Just think of it as making the shooting more like the classic 2D Metroids in a 3D environment. You still have to aim pretty well along the classical two dimensions while the auto-aim takes care of the added third dimension that didn't exist (and therefore you didn't need to adjust your aim for) in the 2D Metroids.

I expect the "auto-aim" will be similar to the way it was handled in Shadow Complex for enemies set-off on the Z-axis.

This is what happens when you put an obsolete mind in charge of a modern game, one design mistake after another: auto-aim, no nunchuck, static first person view from where you cannot move, repetitive and monotone "killing-movements" per enemy-type, player running all the time everywhere, no way to appreciate any possible details with the camera all the time 20m back and above the player, useless environmental stereo sound, as you are always well away from the Samus (you will never get scared by a sound at your left), etc. IMO this is a brutal step backwards compared to Retro works, and mainly in game immersion. A way better candidate for the DS than for the Wii. Next time I hope Nintendo put it in the hands of Miyamoto (as they did for Prime), leaving Sakamoto for karaoke style games (if possible in 2D, mono and monochrome, or even just text based).

Some of the control points master Miyamoto applied to Retro Studios (they did start Metroid Prime following the same direction Sakamoto is applying now for oter M).

"In 2000, Miyamoto himself visited Retro, an event compared to the Emperor visiting the Death Star. But a closer parallel might be the 2003 film Lost in Translation, where Bill Murray plays an American actor vainly trying to get direction from a Japanese- speaking filmmaker. A former Retro employee recalls, '[Miyamoto] would rant at us in Japanese for a minute and a half, and then the translator would just say, "He's upset.""

"In Miyamoto's lecture at Tokyo University in July 2003, he said, 'You fall into the dilemma where the guys up top are like, 'Are you working, or what?!' and the guys down below are like, 'See, it's the people up top! What can you do?' And the project begins to go haywire. When it gets to that point, I bust it all out in a conference. People refer to that point as the time where I 'knock over the table.' [...] When I flip out, it's because I'm being sincere in my desire to get something done with the project.'"

"Miyamoto sincerely disliked Metroid Prime's original camera system. He ordered the game changed from third-person to first-person, which destroyed the schedule. He commanded Retro to implement several types of visors Samus Aran could use in the game, such as a scanner to bring up gameplay hints or interesting history about targets. And his changes didn't stop with Metroid."

"Miyamoto pressured Retro to cancel several other projects, first (April 2000) an action adventure (working title: "Action Adventure"), then (February 2001) their football and car-combat games, and finally (July 2001) a Zelda-style roleplaying game called Raven Blade. The action-adventure team shifted to Metroid, but the later cancellations forced corresponding layoffs. For the second layoff, of 26 employees, CEO Jeff Spangenberg was so distraught he didn't show up for work."

This comes from an interview with Sakamoto:

"What's your professional relationship with Mr. Miyamoto like?

Sakamoto: Mr. Miyamoto, as I said, was actually the person who made me involved in videogame design. Before that I was never involved in any process, whereas afterwards I was working closely with him in the same game development.

All in all I respect him very much and I think he's a wonderful creator. But I think my initial goal was to come up with ideas that Mr. Miyamoto would not dare to challenge. So I'm not going to compete with Mr. Miyamoto on the same ground - I think my mission is to always come up with something very different from what Mr Miyamoto is likely to do."

I don't really understand what point you are trying to make with that interview.

On the points you made on what you consider 'step-backs', I think your wrong.

How else are you meant to aim when all of your controls is a d-pad?
Seeing the gameplay, I don't see what a nunchuck added would do? You get 2 extra buttons, for what, kicks and giggles?
On your point on the static first person view, it is one of the staples. Metroid is a game which was meant to be filled with suspense. If you limit movement, it creates more suspense.
And frankly, your thought of 'useless environmental sound' is just idiotic.

All I got out of it was that Miyamoto can be a spoiled brat when he doesn't get his way. And I personally think the Metroid Prime games never felt even remotely like a real Metroid game. They felt like Nintendo trying to cash in on the FPS craze and little more.

Well, you could say that about many games that have been remade. Prince of Persia: Sands of Time and Ninja Gaiden for Xbox were just Ubisoft and Tecmo trying to cash in on the third-person platforming craze.

Of course, it would be better to have a 2D DS game to have it being "more like a real Metroid game". I understand that you might have nostagia of your older games, these that you played when you were younger and when all this videogame thechnology was seeing the light. This happens to me, for example, with all the Vampire Killer and Castlavania series, but these were pretty well covered with new 2D versions for DS and I would never be asking for something similar for the Wii.

You read my mind.

Tecmo was working on a Ninja Gaiden since the Dreamcast era i consider it truly a masterpiece.

That's no way to treat your media indeed!

yeah... it's almost like they're being faithful to the old games, which are now of course obsolete. super metroid was one of the greatest games ever in 1994, but now that FPS are around it's completely unnecessary. i don't even know why people make 3rd person games anymore, since first person is the end all, be all perspective for every game of every type. and don't even get me started on 2D, which is not, and never was, fun for anyone.

Too bad this game comes out two days after my birthday. Now I have to buy it with my own dough. Oh well, it's gonna be awesome. There isn't a Metroid game I don't own on a home console. I haven't been this excited for the fall gaming season in a long time.

Have you even played the Ninja Gaiden for XBOX? Its got one of the deepest fighting engines in a 3D game out there. Its one of the greatest games of all time in my opinion. Im a Ninja Gaiden fanatic and the game brought the insane difficulty, the crazy bosses and story right along with the ride, its one of the greatest games to transition from 2D to 3D.

The Prime games are good, but severely flawed from the lack of a better user friendly map. The exploring the world over and over and over looking for something that half the times your not to sure what your looking for gets really old quickly. Sometimes the games are great, and your having a blast and then back to stuck for 5 hours!

You get it a week early? ^Humbug...