Metroid Prime Cheaters Will Be Hunted

Nintendo.com's "NOA Andy" had a chance to sit down with the game designer behind the highly anticipated new Metroid game, Metroid Prime Hunters for Nintendo DS.

Rich Vorodi first explained abit about his role in the development and what he was responsible for.

"I was the game designer for Metroid Prime Hunters. My primary design focus was the single player mode and fleshing out the world for Samus. I also came up with puzzles, and I wrote the story for the game as well."

Followed by where the game will fit in with the other Metroid Prime games we've already seen on the Gamecube.

"Mission file 791019 takes place between Metroid Prime and Metroid Prime 2: Echoes. So Samus has the Varia Suit from Echoes, but she's piloting the ship from Prime 1."

The interview then leads onto information on the different "Hunter" characters and details on the multiplayer online features to be included in the title. Anyone who's played Mario Kart DS online will be very happy about a new "Connection Percentage" or "Chump Meter".

We track a stat that the game calls Connection Percentage, but that I've been calling the Chump Meter. It keeps track of anyone who boots off. So, if I'm beating some kid and he tries to disconnect to avoid the loss, he'll be punished for that. When he turns the game back on, the game will know what happened and it will then hand out some Chump Points."

Ah ha, excellent news. Go on Rich.

"So basically, your Connection Percentage starts to lower. Everyone starts out on the same page with 100%, and as you disconnect the percentage will lower. Before you start a game with someone you can see the Connection Percentage and decide if you want to play with that person. But the cool thing is that if you get ejected from legitimately losing your connection, it won't affect your Connection Percentage. "

Although Nintendo have been slow off the mark with Online games, they seem to be learning their lessons very fast, coming up with new features such as VOIP and the Chump Meter. Rest assured, Metroid development has continued at a good pace even through all the delays.

Metroid Prime Hunters is set to release on March 20th in the US.