Can you suggest a PC game that feels similar enough to Metroid Prime?

[ninja666]

I'm looking basically for a PC alternative to Metroid Prime. I decided to use a slightly different phrasing, though. Why? Because if I straight up asked for a game that's like Metroid Prime, the answer I would get would be "there are none". I hardly believe that there are absolutely none, but I came here for game suggestions and not to argue, so let's say I want a game that's feels similar enough. What do I mean by that? By that I mean, I'm going to break what Metroid Prime is into these neat little criteria (with some exceptions because, as we all know, there are no games that are exactly like Metroid Prime) and based on them, you can help me find games that are fitting and can give me that Prime experience without actually playing Prime.

So what I want is a game fitting these ctieria:

* Non-linear, semi-open level design, made with exploration and backtracking in mind..
* Some environmental puzzles.
* Reasonable amount of combat on top of the two criteria above.
* Upgrades. Be it weapons, skills, or both.
* [OPTIONAL] Platforming.
* [OPTIONAL] Sci-fi atmosphere. As long as the setting itself is interesting enough, I don't really care if it's sci-fi or not, but I'd certainly prefer it to be. I want some kind of firearm to be your main weapon, though, no matter the setting.
* [OPTIONAL] Cool boss fights requiring some thinking.
* [OPTIONAL] First person perspective. As much as I'd like an FPS, I really want to avoid the "there are no games like Metroid Prime" routine, so I'm willing to give that up. The perspective should still be fitting for a 3D action game, though.

Can you suggest anything that fits the above criteria and, as I mentioned before, will let me have that Metroid Prime experience? Thanks in advance for helping me out.

EDIT: I also forgot to add I'm not interested in Bioshock and System Shock games.

 

[Chimpzy_v1legacy]

That's a doozy, because as much as I hate to say it, the Metroid Prime series really is unique in offering a first person metroidvania experience as far as I know. That said, there are some 3d action games that at least match your non-optional requirements and are available on PC. Not many though.

Batman: Arkham Asylum
Darksiders
Dark Souls[footnote]arguable, but it has many elements common to the metroidvania style of gameplay[/footnote]

Of course, if you're willing to waive the 3d requirement, you get more options:

Guacamelee
Shadow Complex
Axiom Verge
Apotheon
Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet
La Mulana
Strider
Outland
Shantae & The Pirate's Curse
Aquaria

 

[Riddle78]

Cave Story,if you don't mind a little more classic Metroid feel. It even has multiple endings! Besides that,I have little to offer,as I don't exactly play much of the genre.

 

[MrRaggaedeman]

What about Axiom Verge? It's basicly a loveletter to Super Metroid. Nearly identical artstyle with some Giger-esque imagery. Tons of mandatory and optional weapons and upgrades. It even hides some stuff behind absolutly non-distinguishable breakable walls. All that comes with a neat little corny story. It's a fun gane.

If that's too similar, I'd also recommend Valdis Story. A more melee combat focus metroidvania, with slightly more animeish artstyle. It has 4 playable characters that play quite differently. Biggest flaw of that one is the somewhat shitty ending cliffhanger.

Both games are available on Steam.

 

[MrRaggaedeman]

Accidental double post. Please delete

 

[Rastrelly]

Try Strife. Not the MOBA one. Also try Deus Ex. And properly patfhed and modded Vampire: the Masquerade: Bloodlines. Also try properly modded New Vegas. Also check Arx Fatalis. Also check Quake 2. Aleo try Unreal. No perfect matches, but all good stuff.

 

[Chimpzy_v1legacy]

Try Strife.

Oh wow, I had almost forgotten that game exists. Although it's arguably more of an early fps/rpg hybrid than a metroidvania (and the OP mentioned not being interested in BioShock/System Shock). And I suppose quite a few people would get turned off by the Doom era graphics and level design, and some rather outdated gameplay mechanics.

But, if fps/rpg hybrids are your cup of tea, also have a look at CyberMage: Darklight Awakening, which is very similar to Strife in many ways.

Strife is on Steam as an enhanced edition, but CyberMage is not. Truth be told, I have no idea where you'd be able to get it nowadays.

 

[CaitSeith]

Dark Souls. Seriously, it even has that part where you know you're trying take a certain direction a little too early, because you die before reaching the other side of the room.

EDIT: Oh, already mentioned. Sorry.

 

[Specter Von Baren]

Teslagrad, and Ori and the Blind Forest are the games that come to my mind.

 

[baddude1337]

Quite left field, but there is a Metroid mod for Doom:

http://www.moddb.com/mods/metroid-dreadnought

Combined with the right mapset it plays pretty damn well. There are several hub and exploitative based mapsets for Doom.

 

[shrekfan246]

I'm looking basically for a PC alternative to Metroid Prime. I decided to use a slightly different phrasing, though. Why? Because if I straight up asked for a game that's like Metroid Prime, the answer I would get would be "there are none". I hardly believe that there are absolutely none, but I came here for game suggestions and not to argue, so let's say I want a game that's feels similar enough. What do I mean by that? By that I mean, I'm going to break what Metroid Prime is into these neat little criteria (with some exceptions because, as we all know, there are no games that are exactly like Metroid Prime) and based on them, you can help me find games that are fitting and can give me that Prime experience without actually playing Prime.

I actually have spent a lot of time looking for something similar myself, and a few months ago I found an old shooter that was recently-ish released on Steam that's given me a bit of a scratch to the urge. It may not be quite close enough for you, but there's no reason to not suggest it: Eradicator [http://store.steampowered.com/app/329640/].

So what I want is a game fitting these ctieria:

* Non-linear, semi-open level design, made with exploration and backtracking in mind..

Eradicator is a shooter made back in the original DOOM era, so it has pretty sprawling levels. Unfortunately, they are still levels so it's not quite non-linear insofar as the entire game world being interconnected, but it still highly encourages exploration.

* Some environmental puzzles.

I don't know if this is what you mean, but traversing levels often involves figuring out how to navigate the environment. Finding how to start moving platforms, searching for ways to destroy certain walls or shut down force fields, using computers to hack enemies to navigate more treacherous terrain, that sort of thing.

* Reasonable amount of combat on top of the two criteria above.

It's not nearly as combat-focused as something like DOOM. In the first few areas of the game, many of the enemies are just turrets. But, there is a fair amount of enemy variety from what I've seen so far, and they do relatively quickly start ramping up the number of enemies in a given area.

* Upgrades. Be it weapons, skills, or both.

This'll be another "your-mileage-may-vary" bit; you get new weapons as you go through the game and some of them make navigating the environment easier or potentially open up new hidden areas, and there are a lot of them, but it definitely doesn't have the same pomp and circumstance that finding new items has in Metroid.

* [OPTIONAL] Platforming.

It's got a lot of that. I should mention the game is a first-person shooter, but it has a third-person mode you can swap between at any time which I've found makes the platforming a bit easier, because being made when it was means that the character "models" are just 2D sprites, while the environments themselves are 3D.

* [OPTIONAL] Sci-fi atmosphere. As long as the setting itself is interesting enough, I don't really care if it's sci-fi or not, but I'd certainly prefer it to be. I want some kind of firearm to be your main weapon, though, no matter the setting.

It's definitely sci-fi. Each character, I believe, has a melee weapon as default, but you get your first firearm pretty early on (EDIT: I'm pretty sure each character has one unique melee and ranged weapon, and I can't remember if you start with their firearm as well, but I've only played one character so far myself so I'm just going by screenshots on that) and there's no real shortage of ammo from what I've seen. I would say that the game punishes you pretty heavily for dying though, as unless you reload your last save you'll lose all of the weapons you picked up. I haven't found it to be a particularly difficult game, so far, but that still might potentially be a problem.

* [OPTIONAL] Cool boss fights requiring some thinking.

I haven't seen many, if any, boss fights yet, so I can't comment on that. I've played about four hours of the game and only encountered one thing I'd consider a "boss", which was quite challenging but part of that is because it didn't give a lot of feedback on whether it was taking damage or not. Unfortunate.

* [OPTIONAL] First person perspective. As much as I'd like an FPS, I really want to avoid the "there are no games like Metroid Prime" routine, so I'm willing to give that up. The perspective should still be fitting for a 3D action game, though.

I think I've already covered that.

I obviously can't guarantee you'll feel the same way about the game that I did, because I might just be making the connection in my mind out of pure desperation. EDIT: Also, if you don't care for old shooters in general it might go without saying that this probably goes out the window. It's been updated to control like any modern shooter would (I'm assuming it didn't have such convenient features as mouselook and WASD movement back in the day, at least, but it might have), but because it was made before 3D really blew up, things like looking up and down have strange perspective issues and aiming in the third-person mode is kind of difficult.

 

[ninja666]

-snip-

Having just seen a gameplay video of it, I'd say it's a pretty good suggestion. I can see the connections you are seeing, too. The game itself might be a bit too old for me, though - I couldn't even stomach System Shock 2 when I tried playing it and it's way newer than this game. However, I'll give it a try nonetheless. Thanks.

 

[shrekfan246]

-snip-

Having just seen a gameplay video of it, I'd say it's a pretty good suggestion. I can see the connections you are seeing, too. The game itself might be a bit too old for me, though - I couldn't even stomach System Shock 2 when I tried playing it and it's way newer than this game. However, I'll give it a try nonetheless. Thanks.

Yeah, it definitely most likely requires being able to get into older games. Mechanically it's a bit tighter than System Shock because it doesn't have RPG elements, but if the graphical style or actual control scheme turns you off then there isn't much to be done about it.

 

[Arnoxthe1]

Honestly, I'd say Crysis or Halo. Both have suit abilities. Both are 3D. Both are FPS'. Both are set in Sci-Fi universes. Both have exploration. The former is more realistic while the latter less so. The thing is though, you're never going to find an EXACT game like Metroid Prime for obvious reasons.

 

[Yoshi178]

Honestly, I'd say Crysis or Halo. Both have suit abilities. Both are 3D. Both are FPS'. Both are set in Sci-Fi universes. Both have exploration. The former is more realistic while the latter less so. The thing is though, you're never going to find an EXACT game like Metroid Prime for obvious reasons.

Halo is NOTHING like Metroid Prime.

 

[DudeistBelieve]

Honestly, I'd say Crysis or Halo. Both have suit abilities. Both are 3D. Both are FPS'. Both are set in Sci-Fi universes. Both have exploration. The former is more realistic while the latter less so. The thing is though, you're never going to find an EXACT game like Metroid Prime for obvious reasons.

Halo is NOTHING like Metroid Prime.

The irony. I remember way way way back Gamepro cover with Metroid and Killzone being touted as the "Halo Killers"

 

[Yoshi178]

Honestly, I'd say Crysis or Halo. Both have suit abilities. Both are 3D. Both are FPS'. Both are set in Sci-Fi universes. Both have exploration. The former is more realistic while the latter less so. The thing is though, you're never going to find an EXACT game like Metroid Prime for obvious reasons.

Halo is NOTHING like Metroid Prime.

The irony. I remember way way way back Gamepro cover with Metroid and Killzone being touted as the "Halo Killers"

mainstream media has always had retard journalists though.

in this case they couldn't grasp the fact that Metroid is based around exploration rather than Shooting while Halo being an FPS is all about the Shooting.

 

[Arnoxthe1]

Halo is NOTHING like Metroid Prime.

It's one of the closest effing things to MP OP's gonna find without going into 2D games. And it's not ALL just shooting... >_> Halo is not Serious Sam.

 

[Yoshi178]

Halo is NOTHING like Metroid Prime.

It's one of the closest effing things to MP OP's gonna find without going into 2D games.

actually i heard Half Life is more like Metroid Prime than anything else.

Halo is NOTHING like Metroid Prime.

And it's not ALL just shooting... >_> Halo is not Serious Sam.

true.

sometimes you drive a warthog and instead have a guy shoot for you instead. :3

 

[Kae]

Well if you are willing to try out some really old shit, I'd recommend Shadowman and Turok, mostly Shadowman, I mean the controls are awful but it's basically an early version of Metroid Prime 2, same style of exploration, similar Dark World/Light World mechanics and all that Jazz, also really atmospheric if a bit ugly because it's older than Metroid Prime, from my understanding some members of Retro studios were ex-Iguana and ex-Acclaim so it's possible that Turok and Shadowman were inspirations for the Metroid Prime series, though Turok might tickle your fancy a bit more since it has a bit of sci-fy and it's FPS, though I think even with it's weird setting and bad voice acting Shadowman definitely is the better game.

Honorable mention goes to Powerslave on Sega Saturn but you aren't going to play that because the PC version is not that kind of game, the Saturn version is but the PC version isn't, if you do get your hands on a Saturn Powerslave is a pretty fucking good FPS Egyptian Metroid Prime though.