Metroid: Other M

I've just finished playing through the game and I must say that I don't see why it deserves so much hate. It's a great game! But, it is not without it's faults of course. 

First off, I must say that the graphics are spectacular, especially for Wii. The CGI cutscenes are a treat and even the standard environments are cool to look at. Samus as a character also looks great, much sleeker than in most other Metroid games. As neat as the graphics are, the story matches up pretty well. Basically, Samus receives a distress signal from a ship. Upon going and investigating, she runs into her old Galactic federation team and they team up to find out just what's going on. I'm not going to say anymore for fear of spoilers but the story is very deep and thought out, with a lot of fantastic symbolism in the cutscenes. But, the story can be a little heavy handed at times and can just be a bit too dramatic. There is also a plothole which I thought that the devs were going to explore, but instead they just dropped it, which makes me sad. Personally, while I do like the story, I can see why other people hate it. At the beginning and end, there is an amazingly long cutscene which takes a very long time to watch. This might tick off some people. Luckily, the rest of the cutscenes will take a lot less. I've hear complaints that Samus' voice is very monotone. It is, but I like her voice acting. In emotional parts, her actor is very emotive, but otherwise she will speak in a slow, calm yet sad voice. I like this voice and I think it suits her because Samus has had a very hard life and she doesn't have any reason to be happy of excited.

But the real meat of Other M is the gameplay. Simple. Press 2 to jump and 1 to fine. D-pad moves you and a turns you into morph ball. But there are a lot of interesting add-ons which are very cool. You have a last second dodge move which, with timing, can make you dodge out of the way of most attacks, charging your laser, dropping bombs and going into first person. This feature was inspired by the Prime games and although it can feel a little clunky changing perspectives, it's done pretty well. In FP you can scan objects and fire missiles. She cannot move in this mode though, so it feels a bit weird. When running around in third person there will be some platforming sections and some puzzles as well to go along with baddie blasting. Fighting has some cool tweaks. As I mentioned, you can dodge by using sense move, but there are also two melee attacks which you can perform. When enemies drop their guard, if you are fully charged, you can jump on them and fire a blast at point blank range doing massive damage. There is also a fatal move. When enemies are lying on the ground, weakened, f you run to them while holding 1 you can perform a move which kills them instantly. There will be sections where all you have to do is run and spam 1 to get past a corridor with weak enemies, but these are few. Mostly, you will be in a large room with tough enemies and have to fight your way out. The boss fights are numerous and fun. They all have at least a few techniques to beating them, but most will involve you using a combo of missiles and charged shots. They are also radically different too, so you rarely feel like you'd done it before.
Metroid: Other M is a game which has a lot of hate which it doesn't deserve in my opinion. I know that not everyone will like this game, but I know people who will. It's fun, fast and at times freaky. The story telling can be a little heavy handed, but it's well thought and polished. The action is pretty intense and I had a lot of fun with the boss fights.
4EVER