Metroid Prime 2: Echoes

We all know how great Metroid Prime is. After all, it’s sold over a million copies and you can pick it up for about $20. Finally, Retro has released a sequel. And it remains…will MP2 suffer from ’sequelitis’?

Metroid Prime 2: Echoes is a first-person action adventure game published by Nintendo. You take control of Samus Aran, a bounty hunter caught in a fierce battle between two unstable worlds. What do you do? Who do you do? Well, in Retro’s case, you make a sequel to an unbelievably good game that well…feels different.

The control system is still here. The graphics are even better, and the sound is vibrant. What’s missing? Well…the fun. The game is just hard. So hard, that sometimes you’re waiting for a Save Station so you can end your session. The game is out to tell you that only MP1 players should play it.

The game starts with a tutorial level that will leave you puzzled instead of feeling pumped-to-play. Once you get the controls down, you’re introduced to undead soldiers who are out to kill you. Then after that, if you don’t know what Save Stations are, you’ll die…and go through the tutorial again.

After the tutorial, meet your first boss. The boss is a mighty challenge for a first one, and it’s there to teach you…”love your Save Stations”. After the boss, you meet the good guy and then go out to grab things. The game revolves around three bosses you have to kill to go and kill the big boss, Emperor Ing. The ‘kill these big dudes so you can kill this dude’ structure is interesting, but it can get boring. Quick.

Along the way of your scavenger hunt, you’ll enter a parallel dimension: Dark Aether. This ‘other world’ is quite hard to survive in, and the creatures in it are even more annoying than the bosses. You’ll enter a room and see a small creature and spend countless minutes shooting it…and shooting it…and shooting it. It’s like they want to artificially lengthen the game.

And now…Multiplayer. Multiplayer is a mixed experience. There’s only one character you can play as: Samus. Different colored ’sami’, actually. Anyway, the experience gets boring quick and you’ll soon yearn to play something different…something fun.

Metroid Prime 2 is only for Metroid Prime players who want a harder challenge. Everyone else, play something else.

Star Fox: Assault

It’s February, 2004. Star: Fox Assault hits the shelves. Namco delivers it this time, trying to combine the space missions of Star Fox 64 with the action/adventure of Star Fox Adventures. And oh how it tries.

The single player mode isn’t that long, with someone beating it within 5-7 hours on the bronze setting. The missions are made so that you can replay them over and over. Why would you? You’ll find out later on.

Anyway, it starts to look like another ‘Andross’ battle at the beginning, but soon turns out to be a race called the Aparoids, which are robotic bugs bent on assimilating everything.
The graphics are pretty well done. The team’s outfits have never looked better, and I’ve yet to see a pixelization when you look at something really close. Fox’s fur seems to have clung to his skin, though.

The sound is great for a futuristic game. Orchestrated. A lot. It has enough music to add to the action, but not get in the way.

The gameplay, however, has changed. There isn’t just Arwing mode. Now there’s the Landmaster and on foot too! Actually, on foot was done before, but the system is new. The pilot mode is just you carrying a gun. It isn’t all that bad, though. Fox goes at a nice speed, the weapons nearly never reload, and the variety of weapons is quite good. The Arwing is on rails most of the time in single-player, but in multiplayer, you’re free to roam wherever.

Speaking of multiplayer, the action is fun and exciting. There are lots of unlockables. LOTs of unlockables. And each mode you unlock adds more variety. Now you can pit Fox against Falco, Peppy against Slippy, and Krystal against Wolf. The modes in multiplayer aren’t that varied. There is Team Deathmatch and Deathmatch.

Wow. Also, no computers. CPUs should’ve been included.

Value…how can I put it? In single-player mode, you can beat each mission with a certain difficulty, and the higher the difficulty, the higher the rewards. Multiplayer is the main factor when it comes to multiplayer, so make sure you have friends if you buy this game.
All in all, Star Fox: Assault is a ‘good try’ to Namco, and it can be improved, but any Star Fox fan really should at least give this a play. You probably won’t regret it.