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"How would YOU make a Metroid game?"

Although Dringo and I agree that Nintendo are the best, we never seem to be able to agree why! :-D

He says that Metroid Prime is true to its predecessors.
I say otherwise. Why?
Because it's a FPS game. And what's wrong with that?

Well you'll see as I go along.


Today, I'm going to tell you how I'd make Super Metroid into 3D.

To start with, lets look at the interface.
You control a red space bounty hunter in red armour, moving her left and right with the D-pad.

So to make it 3D, I'd have a Samus moving around on screen, controlled by the analogue stick - Mario 64 style.
Now by pressing the buttons on the Snes pad, I find that I can make Samus jump, duck, roll, shoot, and change weapon.

Likewise, in a Gamecube version, the big button would be to jump, the left shoulder button to shoot, and using the other 3 buttons to duck/roll/change weapon.

Now I have Samus running around on the screen, performing all these moves, running and jumping like a treat. All is not well though. You see, when I press “shoot”, Samus shoots what’s directly in front of her.
This is fine for shooting doors and stationary objects, only it’s not going to be any good for shooting a moving enemy, especially when there’s no way of aiming up or down.

This is where we bring in an aiming mode.
What better way to aim than to go into a first person style?

This could be done by pressing R to go into aiming mode.
In this mode, the camera would zoom in, Samus would become transparent and the control style would change. There would also be a cross hair on the screen.

Now we still have the jump/duck/shoot as normal, only the two analogue sticks now go into a Halo style of control where one moves forwards/backwards and the other is to look around.

So Samus can be jumping, rolling and accurately shooting simultaneously. It would be hard to get used to doing all things at once but it would come with practice.
And besides, there could be an auto aim for the easier difficulty settings.

Ofcourse, sometimes you don’t want to mess around with jumping and holding down R all the time to aim. When you just want to be able to aim and shoot with minimum fuss, simply tap Z to go into First Person mode with that neat little visor view.



What I’ve done is basically translated Super Metroid into 3D. The controls aren’t perfect and would need a little refining but are basically on the right track..
I think that this was how Retro was making the game, only about a year back, one of two things went wrong.

Either, Retro wasn’t up to the task and couldn’t make this control system run smoothly, or the system was far too complex for simplistic Shigsy to get to grips with (he’s not into shooters remember). It’s probably even a bit of both, but either way, it led to a change of direction for the game.

It was dumbed down to a pure FPS game.

Now we won’t see Samus jumping, rolling and maneuvering while blasting away hordes of ugly quick aliens. Now we won’t see Samus bouncing of walls, jumping across lava streams and bottomless pits.

Yeah, there’s rolling but its been made into more of a gimmick than a practical move.


And I know that Metroid Prime will still probably be a good game.
But it’s been done the wrong way and won’t be a proper Metroid game.

That’s the way I see it. How would you make a Metroid game?

I'll use my magical skills to make dringo read this...

Anyway, I thought I'd say something in here, but what I was going to say has evolved into something bigger, so I have decided to make a whole topic on it... I haven't made a gaming topic fer ages so...

Well... *psychically contacts Dringo*

Come on Dringo, lets finish this!

I know you come to the Nintendo forum still!

I know that Metroid Prime might well be a great game, AAA possibly, but it it's not going in the right direction to be a "Super Metroid in 3D" that I wanted.

You could say that Jet Force Gemini is closer to Metroid in 3D (even if the controls are sluggish and the platforming is minimal), just like Crash Bandicoot was Donkey Kong Country in 3D while DK64 was...

I'm going to keep popping until Dringo turns up...

DRINGOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

I know you have a Gamecube to play on but surely you have time for one little argument! :-)

Dringo has to show up sooner or later...

Pop until Dringo reads it...

Yeah, the control system is JFG+, but tighter and faster, allowing for jumping and easy movement while aiming/shooting and not so sluggish.

If Nintendo were going for something different, changing the Metroid style wasn't the way to go about it. Besides, having it a bit like ONE game is much more unique than having it like countless billions of generic FPS games...

I'm putting my trust in Retro Studios. I reckon they'll get it right.

The control system you suggest sounds a little like Jet Force Gemini, maybe Nintendo didn't want the game to be liek anything else?

It's still going to be more exploration than shooting, but if enemies are going to jump out in front of you and the like, it may well be more atmospheric with a fisrt person view?

It's been stressed several times that it's not a fisrt person shooter, but a first person adventure. I'm not a fan of FPS, but this game still interests me.

I guess we'll know more about it at the end of the month.

i heard that metroid would be a first person shooter but that at certain times in the game the camera would turn third person and the 'sticky ball' thing could come into practice. anyone else hear anything like this?

Pop until Dringo reads this! :-)