This is WAY overdue cause I beat it over a month ago but I wanted to tell you guys about the latest Metroid game.
It’s called “Metroid: Shadow Complex” and the whole game takes place in an underground facility that is just as cavernous and labyrinthine as it’s Zebesian and SR388 predecessors.
The game works just like any other game in the Metroid series. It’s all about exploration and finding ways to get into previously unreachable areas using items found throughout your spelunking. It’s got the classics like Missiles, grappling beam, bombs, ice beam and speed booster. This time around, you get a totally sweet new item. It’s a helmet that slowly collects energy and, once it reaches capacity, makes you invulnerable to enemy fire as long as you’re standing still or walking slowly.
Badass, I know.
It’s a bit different than previous installations, though, and I’m going to tell you guys some of the differences.
Story
First of all, no space pirates. I know, I know… what’s a Metroid game with it’s space pirates? But you quickly forget all about it. You’re actually fighting humans who are part of a large underground army who are amassing their forces to control the planet. Yeah, the game takes place on earth (WHOAH)!.
The story is actually pretty weak, to be honest but that’s never what these games were really about. Don’t get me wrong, the Metroid series has some awesome plots and lore, and the stories of the previous games are good, they’re just not the central point so it’s pretty forgivable for one to be bad now and then.
Gameplay
This game is a classic, return to roots, Metroid game with side-scrolling gameplay. This time around, however, you have the ability to shoot into the background as well as your middle ground to take out enemies. This adds a new element to the classic action aspect of the older titles. It’s a bit wonky at times but I really appreciate the effort and, overall, the inclusion was great.
You upgrade your weapons just like before but now you have the ability to use ballistic weapons as opposed to the energy beams of before. Starting sound a little strange? read on…
Presentation
This game is presented in what is now called “2.5D”. It’s a sidescrolling game but done with 3D models and environments. This is nothing new to the industry and has been done countless time before. It’s using Epic’s Unreal Engine 3 so there are some great effects in there to go along with the weapons and the graphics are nice (not amazing but that’s not really important).
The environments are varied enough and I’m pretty impressed with all the different locales that they included in one underground complex.
One of the biggest changes is quite the atom bomb: you don’t play as Samus! Thats, what I said, no Samus. Instead you play as some guy named Jason. But remember what I said before: The gameplay is so solid that you really will forget all about it after about an hour into the game.
The biggest difference in Metroid: Shadow complex is that it wasn’t made by Nintendo. Nope.
Not Nintendo.
Why was it made by someone other than Nintendo? Probably because they won’t man up and do it themselves, that’s why. For the past 6 or so years, Nintendo has been auctioning off their Metroid titles to other studios like Retro studios for the Prime series and now Team Ninja (gross) for Metroid: Other M. Are you really surprised? the difference is that this third party metroid game is a true homage to the series we all know and love but only have memories of. Games like that only get released on smaller platforms like Xbox Live Arcade, PSN, and WiiWare because, apparently, they don’t “stack up” to the “quality” of games nowadays.
I’m not saying that all games today suck, far from it… What I’m saying is this: recent games like Megaman 9, Bionic Commando: Rearmed, and Shadow Complex has showed us that games with nods to the old way of playing are still wildly popular.
