Why Metroid: Other M Didn't Kill Samus (Moviebob's View)

[Kimarous]

1) MovieBob, you may not agree with other people, but for the love of god, stop treating every differing stance as complete and utter idiocy.

2) Last I checked, the biggest issue of character derailment people seem to address is how she went from a someone who never spoke to someone who never shut the fuck up.

3) Even if she is regularly employed by the Federation, even if she has a strong connection with her former CO, she is still a legally independent bounty hunter; she shouldn't need authorization to use her personal property, particularly for self-preservation functions.

4) Samus faced Ridley, what, five times before Other M? She's faced him and emerged victorious each time... and NOW all of a sudden she freezes up? I can accept that she has emotional scars and childhood trauma; these things are, in fact, expected. What I cannot accept is that after multiple victorious face-offs with this demon from her past that she would panic out and need rescue. That makes ZERO sense!

 

[Nomanslander]

I agree with MovieBob when it comes to the argument of how to portray female protagonist. I'm also not in favor of man hating emotional vacuums being the only choice, I want my characters to show their humanity, but that's exactly where Other M fails because they just didn't do a good job at it.

The new Samus sucked, they characterized her as a 14 year old melodramatic type with a monotone voice.

Complete and utter fail.

>>

 

[tiredinnuendo]

I'll say that he makes some good points. He also completely glosses over certain areas and misrepresents others.

Let's imagine for a moment that there were... say... a movie. And that movie had a character who spoke with the same sort of ham-fisted, long-winded, over dramatic dialogue and borderline stroke victim voice inflection. Let's say MovieBob reviewed that movie. Does anyone think he wouldn't comment on it?

Oh wait... Michael Cera in Scott Pilgrim.... huh.

It may well be that there are just some things that annoy us more than others. I have a friend who can't stand Al Pachino because he constantly yells. Never bothered me. I can't watch the first fifteen minutes of Forgetting Sarah Marshall because I'm the type who gets embarrassed for people on screen and the new 'humor' of "let's have a guy be more awkward than any grown man could possibly be" causes me physical pain. Bob is apparently not the type to get hung up on bad dialogue and voicework.

With that in mind, I'm trying to play the game back over in my mind again. I'll admit, I didn't really care about Adam approving Samus' stuff at stupid times. Yes, I laughed about the whole, "Why did I wait until now to switch on Gravity? It sure would've been helpful a boss fight ago," but it didn't bother me because I saw it as a replacement mechanic for finding all the stuff and I was able to look past it.

The Ridley scene... yeah. I can't understand why they didn't have her get pinned under something and struggle to free herself while Anthony had to fight Ridley or something like that. Maybe even have her freak out for a second, but to actually turn her into a little girl wearing a nightgown? That's the sort of film technique that only works if Ridley killed her parents in front of her at that age or something. Sorry Bob, PTSD doesn't work that way, and you know it, which is why I suspect you glossed over the whole scene with a passing comment in half a sentence.

All that said, Other M is lots of fun and a solid game that you should play if you enjoy that type of gameplay. But to praise the characterization is overselling it.

- J

 

[JourneyThroughHell]

I did not see the point of Bob's video. At all.

Now, I am not a Metroid guy, so I don't know whether Other M murders the character with a rusty pitchfork. But I did watch the cutscenes of Other M on YouTube just to know what the fuss is all about.

Of course, he did address the point of the game being mysoginistic, which it isn't. But he missed one particular thing.

The cutscenes sucked. They sucked bad. The VA - terrible, dialgoue - terrible, character decisions - terrible. People cry "Foul" not because Samus's character was betrayed, but because she didn't really have one before, but now they gave her one. And it's terrible.

The whole point of Samus could've been that you would just imagine what her character would be like. Now you can't. Now she is co-dependent and stupid.

That's not sexism, mind you, that's just bad characterization.

 

[tiredinnuendo]

I'll say that he makes some good points. He also completely glosses over certain areas and misrepresents others.

Let's imagine for a moment that there were... say... a movie. And that movie had a character who spoke with the same sort of ham-fisted, long-winded, over dramatic dialogue and borderline stroke victim voice inflection. Let's say MovieBob reviewed that movie. Does anyone think he wouldn't comment on it?

Oh wait... Michael Cera in Scott Pilgrim.... huh.
- J

Moviebob not only worshiped Scott Pilgrim to the point of calling it the best movie of 2010 as well as an artistic masterpiece,(Both statements being questionable as I see it.) but he also verbally assaulted the movie going public for going to see The Expendables instead. And he continued said assault for three weeks.

blah blah blah GET OVER IT. Nobody cares if MovieBob hurt your precious little feelings because he made fun of you for liking a popcorn flick.

Opinionated critiques sell. Being opinionated is in fact ENTIRELY the point of writing a critique. I don't want a video going, "It's okay if you like this sort of thing but if you don't that's okay too so I guess it could be good or maybe not?" I want a hard line video. If I know that I usually agree with the critic, I'll take the advice on board.

My observation was more about noting the areas in which this critic and I do not agree, so I can bear those in mind when considering his opinion later. For instance, Michael Cera's "acting" annoys me to no end for his complete lack of believable delivery and inability to have any sort of chemistry (friendly, romantic, or otherwise) with any other actor. It clearly doesn't bother MovieBob. This will be a good thing for me to bear in mind the next time he reviews something with Cera in it. Pinch of salt.

No need to make this a "bash MovieBob" thread. Nothing productive's going to come out of that.

- J

 

[Onyx Oblivion]

I agree with everything.

Except that Other M controls better than Ninja Gaiden.

Other M controls like shit. Ninja Gaiden controls fine, it just suffers from a shitty camera.

 

[tiredinnuendo]

Like anything productive ever comes out of an internet forum.

Sorry, you can "blah blah blah" until Rosie O' Donnell trollops off into the distance belting out The Rainbow Connection for all I care. I'm never going to be kind to anyone who makes a living being an asshole. I don't care that the guy has an opinion that differs from mine. Lots of people have opinions that don't match up with my own, that's the way the world works. What gets me irritated is people who have the gall to tell me my opinion is invalid and then insult me for having said opinion. And while I'm willing to forgive the large amount of people like that who stalk the cheeto-stained sewers of the web, doing it of their own voiltion, I'm certainly not gonna give any quarter to someone who gets a salary for that sort of behavior.

Go right ahead and accept that if you want. It's okay if you like that sort of thing.

It's not about acceptance. It's about not giving a damn. I don't care when MovieBob calls me an idiot for going to see the latest action movie, or when Yahtzee says the same because I enjoyed the Transformers game. It just doesn't matter. I watch their reviews because I have a pretty good idea of where their tastes and mine line up, and can use that as a meter-stick for how I might feel about certain aspects of the latest media.

You apparently get all bent out of shape about it. Just stop caring, dude. It's just faceless audio from an internet video. No need to get your panties in a bunch over it.

Anyway, you have your way and I have mine. Mine seems to leave me generally happier than yours leaves you, but by all means keep doing it your way. I've lost interest now.

- J

 

[archvile93]

Even though he made some decent points, I still believe that the Prime games had better gameplay (and avoided the problems Bob seems to have with FPS's, along with lock-on), and that it did horrible things to Samus's character (in response to his points about extreme feminism; a woman admiring a man is fine, but being that dependent, especially when you have an established record of badassary, is not). Say what you will about it giving her more traits, it was preferable when she was silent, kinda like how giving Gorden Freeman a Barney (the purple dinosaur, mind) voice would add to his character, but his silent self would still be better.

And while he's right that gameplay-wise, authorization and collection are very similar, in terms of basic in-universe sense waiting for authorization to use the Varia suit is incomprehensibly stupid, adding that much more to the assault on her character.

Of course, right now I'm more worried about the backlash to his "stop being hard on Japan" statements (remember the response to his Halo: Legends review? I don't want that again).

Edit: Since this is an issue I'm pretty big on, I'll blabber on some more:
It's my belief that Other M is an extreme incarnation of a trend that started in Prime 3, namely, a greater focus on linear story and explicit world-building (as opposed to the in-the-background style of Super and the first Prime). While Prime 3 was a good game, it felt the whole way through like it was trying to be Halo to an extent, what with the greater focus on the Federation, dialogue, combat, cutscenes, and generally more upfront story-telling at the cost of atmosphere (my favorite part was when you teleport to an ice section, as it was quieter and reminiscent of the first Prime).

Don't get me wrong, explicit story-telling has its place (MGS3 is one of my favorite games), but it doesn't work for Metroid, a series pretty much made by atmosphere and exploration, both of which were compromised in Prime 3 and done away with in Other M.

While I agree with many of your points I don't agree that Metroid should focus entirely in backround and atmosphere and nothing else. You can only tell so much story when it always seems to be happening while you were looking the other way, and honestly, I always thought that metroid games had incredibly lackluster plots, as non existent as Mario games in fact. Atmosphere makes a game better, but it can't tell a story. One thing I hate about certain game series that are considered classics is that many refuse to change and improve. These games inevitably stagnate and either crumble, or the developers just keep beating the long dead corpse until something spurts out of it until there's nothing but some spinal fluid left. The fact is Metroid needs to change and I don't think people should complain that Other M did just that, they should complain because it changed for the worse.

 

[psychic psycho]

Remember that if you remain silent you can be assumed a fool, but the moment you open your stupid fat mouth you confirm it to the rest of the world.

Heh, I love that saying. I never thought about applying it to silent protagonists in video games before. It fits so well I can't believe I didn't see it.

I agree, there's nothing wrong with silent protagonists, especially when the alternative is a poor character.

 

[Pendragon9]

Good points aside, that doesn't excuse the fact that Other M is steaming garbage.

 

[Armored Prayer]

Ah, yes I remember watching this awhile ago.

I'm neutral on this subject because I never played a Metroid game, but I was very pleased to hear that Samus now speaks and emotions. Unfortunately from what I heard the story, voice acting, and overall execution was pretty bad. From what I'm interpreting in the vid, Bob seems to be pissed that fans are accusing her for being more human, but the fans are pissed that it was done poorly. Kind of reminds me of his Expendables review.

I'm kind of getting tired of his attitude as of late. I help but fell that Bob is more angry in his latest vids. His newer Overthinker vids are more aggressive and sometimes looking trollish. (Almost all of his latest vids he has to insult Halo in someway) I don't know, I think I'm going to quit watching his Overthinkers for awhile. I don't hate the guy, but his attitude as of late tends to piss me off.

 

[Casual Shinji]

I thought we put this shit to rest already?!

Can't we just focus on the controversies at hand?

 

[Ranorak]

I think people are reading WAAAAAY too much into the whole varia suit thing.
It was a game mechanic entwined in the plot.
Yes, it doesn't make a whole much sense in plot alone. But it's also a game mechanic.

 

[A random person]

While I agree with many of your points I don't agree that Metroid should focus entirely in backround and atmosphere and nothing else. You can only tell so much story when it always seems to be happening while you were looking the other way, and honestly, I always thought that metroid games had incredibly lackluster plots, as non existent as Mario games in fact. Atmosphere makes a game better, but it can't tell a story. One thing I hate about certain game series that are considered classics is that many refuse to change and improve. These games inevitably stagnate and either crumble, or the developers just keep beating the long dead corpse until something spurts out of it until there's nothing but some spinal fluid left. The fact is Metroid needs to change and I don't think people should complain that Other M did just that, they should complain because it changed for the worse.

True, atmosphere isn't as good at telling a solid plot as dialogue is. However, Prime managed to tell a more solid (back)story with the scan visor while furthering the atmosphere even more. Besides, even with simplistic plots, the atmosphere in itself still makes much of the story-telling experience, strangely enough (the first Half Life is another example of this; the plot was a somewhat expanded version of Doom, but the method of storytelling, and yes, atmosphere made it).

You're right about the change, however; it's not bad because it was a change (Prime was an even bigger departure, and yet is up there with Super), but that it's a bad change that ditched the exploration and atmosphere (in a Metroid-related context, I'm pretty big on that, yes) in favor of giving Samus annoying daddy issues (this is coming from someone who sympathized with Shinji, for the record) and making a poor man's Ninja Gaiden.

 

[Drakmeire]

I almost always agree with Bob but I had to make an exception this time. I feel that he had to add the strawman being racist to his argument because up until then (as they say on tvtropes) Strawman had a point.
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/StrawmanHasAPoint?from=Main.TheStrawmanStrikesBack

I also think he was offering the game unnecessary praise for it's control scheme due to nostalgia goggles (the game's controls are very broken and the gameplay excludes the Metroid mainstay of "exploration" with very linear maps)

I feel that the more humanized (not necessarily better) Samus character may have worked if a remotely good actress was cast instead of that untalented wreak that made me want to stab my ears with power drills.

I'll hold out hope for the next metroid but I'm fine if some people like it, to each their own.

 

[Balkan]

Im just here to say that bob is dead to me . im sick of his whining all the time . He is a movie reviewer ( I wont say critic because it will be laughable ) and he just complains about side matters .I dont think he didnt like this movie because it wasn`t good , but just because "the baaaad " corporate guys made it . In my opinion thinks that this is noble somehow .
Ill stick to jeremy on youtube , atleast that guy is actually funny and talks about the movies he is suposed to . Oh and did i mention that bob`s humor is more dull than Nathan Drake`s ?

 

[MetalDooley]

Im just here to say that bob is dead to me . im sick of his whining all the time . He is a movie reviewer ( I wont say critic because it will be laughable ) and he just complains about side matters .I dont think he didnt like this movie because it wasn`t good , but just because "the baaaad " corporate guys made it . In my opinion thinks that this is noble somehow .

So why exactly did you resurrect a 2 year old Metroid thread to complain about Bob's Amazing Spiderman review instead of just posting in the relevant thread?

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/6.380712-Escape-to-the-Movies-The-Amazing-Spider-Man