Finally, the dev thrust the Wii Remote towards us and we started Prime 2: Echoes (a game this GR editor has never played before). That’s said only to highlight just how great the controls felt in an environment we weren’t familiar with. And here’s where we mention that Prime 3’s controls were brought over to the first two games, an incredibly welcome feature. A shoots, B jumps/double jumps, down on the d-pad for missiles, C to form the morph ball, Z to lock-on and a flick of the Remote to jump in the morph ball. Everything felt great and natural. Within moments we charged through the opening segment, jumping and blasting our way through space pirates. We haven’t felt this at home with a FPS on the Wii since… well, Prime 3 actually.

Above: A screenshot from Metroid Prime

Accessing visors and weapons is a bit easier too. Hold ‘-‘ and a HUD comes up with your visor selection. Going back and forth between normal and Scan visor was almost seamless. Same goes for holding ‘+’ and selecting different beams. We’re not entirely sure if it’s really that different than just hitting up on the d-pad, but we’re glad Prime is being streamlined more towards an FPS and not just a first-person adventure game that Nintendo keeps pushing. 

Above: What the new Visor selection HUD looks like

We got a chance to try out Echoes’ local multiplayer, which we were surprised was included on the disk. It’s still pretty fun but nothing to write home about. Also, the mode isn’t available to play online. Granted the game is old, but that would’ve been a nice touch.

Trilogy will also have badges to collect through each game, a holdover from Prime 3 as well. Accumulate enough badges and you can unlock galleries of concept art. It’s not terribly exciting, but is a pretty cool extra all the same. Other than the reasonable price point of $49.99 for all three games on one disc, that’s pretty much the entire package. Hopefully this is a sign that Metroid Prime 4 or the long-rumored Metroid Dread is in development. We’ll see at E3. Trilogy hits retail August 24.

May 22, 2009