Zero Punctuation: Metroid Other M

[Gasaraki]

All he did was spout the same thing that people have been spouting on the internet since the game's release. IMHO moviebob made a much better argument about Other M on screwattack than Yahtzee did in this video. Overall fairly meh, he sounded more like a troll than a critic.

 

[GloatingSwine]

Because fighting Ridley ain't the traumatic part. Remember, this is after Super Metroid, in which Samus lost both the Hatchling she had come to care for (the entire reason she came back there), and her second childhood home, possibly all in the space of a single day.

If they'd actually pushed the effects of the loss of the hatchling as the driving element of Samus' character development in this instalment, that would have been a good way to add depth to the character and show the emotional effects of what she's been through.

Except, y'know, that's not the driving force of the narrative, her relationship with Adam is. So all of this is poorly integrated within it's own plot, as well as inconsistent with previous characterisation.

And, of course, even if they'd tried it the ineptitude of the writing and acting would have killed it. Hell, even with the current plot decent actual scriptwriting, understanding of narrative construction (not only the forgotten Deleter plot thread, but most of what was actually going on on the Bottle Ship is given to you in an infodump after the last boss.), and not cheaping out on a first time voice actress without a decent voice director to actually make sure the performance was tolerable.

Of course, the abilities unlocking when you're told they can be, rather than by finding them like in a proper metroid game, and the inconsistency with why they are locked in the first place (the stated reason is to prevent civilian casualties, but in that case why is the Varia Suit locked, it's a HEP suit, it's not a weapon in the slightest, and the way the game locks you into a fixed path with little to no freedom of motion, also unlike proper metroid games (even Fusion gives you freedom to backtrack and move around to some extent, even if it otherwise leads you around rather than just dumping you in the world and letting you get on with it) would still have been a kick in the face to anyone who wanted an actual Metroid game with their badly written and performed cutscenes.

 

[88mph]

I continue to stress that the only time Samus' character ever had some sort of development was at the end of Metroid II, where she couldn't bring herself to kill the last baby Metroid because it thought Samus was it's mom, eventually leading to the events of Super Metroid so "free independent spirit" seems to be a little out of context. For all we know, that was the only thing that kept Samus from being a complete blank page, with Other M being the single time her character has even come close to third-dimensional. I mean, just because she's a badass that hunts aliens for a living doesn't mean she's also human.
Also, I think there is a point to the monotony of her voice: for the most part it's not dialogue with other characters and more of a monologue inside her head. Kinda reminds me of Guy Pearce's character in Memento (the monologuing, that is).

my problem with their portrayal of Samus is that the character is almost 25 years old, and during the majority of that time the character has been a silent completely isolated protagonist

the Samus in Metroid Other M isn't experienced or mature, you don't sense any history with this game's Samus; if this were a prequel of the first game that'd be fine but this is the 4th game

it seems obvious to me that the writer wanted to insert emotion into Samus, but when you just insert it so haphazardly and without any subtlety to a character people have already had their own ideas about for almost 25 years, yeah people aren't going to like it

 

[internetzealot1]

I'm having a little trouble here. Are the fanboys the ones attacking the game or the one defending it.

 

[jayjaykoolaid]

Extra Zero Punctuation video will be him telling all his fans this will be his last review. For some reason, I have a weird feeling in the pit of my stomach that might be true... Though it wouldn't surprise me =/

The Thought of Yahtzee being done with reviews makes my stomach turn and my head spin. If that's what it's about then I'm done with the world.

 

[SAMAS]

Perhaps this isn't my place to argue, given I've played a whole three hours collectively of any and all Metroid games ever made, but this outside perspective may have some merit.

Now if Metroid's wiki page is to be believed Samus has been running and gunning across the galaxy for some ten to fifteen years, most of which solo. And given that there's been a regular new Metroid title released, I can assume the collection of big bad guys killed has steadily increased. Also coupled with the fact that at least as far as I can read into things Samus has never particularly had any issue lighting up her threats with lethal force. Now has she ever really expressed any doubt about herself or her abilities, again as far as I can see from the outside.

Taking all that into consideration, to hear that this latest title prominently features character aspects that have Samus locked in fear and doubt and some levels of character dependency of others. All this just seems out of place, and from my perspective looks like a bastardization of the character.

Argue what you will fans about how all these aspects of Samus's character are true and just burred beneath the skin. It still feels weird and to a negative considering the stark contrast of character to the previous titles.

Now with all this in mind, I can understand why a fan would be royally irked about Other M. Furthermore I would agree to the argument that Other M is one of the weakest iterations of the series.

I think the main problem with the "As I see it" argument is the fact that we haven't seen much. Moviebob points it out in his vid, and he has a point. The Metroid games have given us only the tiniest glimpses of Samus' character. We see her running around alone shooting hostile wildlife, and most people have assumed she must always be like that.

Now I know that Spoony said he disregarded the official manga (seriously, it was shown on Nintendo's website), probably because it disagreed with him. But even taking that out, we have two, maybe three looks into her actual character.

Bob mentioned Metroid II, where she decide not to kill the Metroid Hatchling. But he forgot to mention most of Metroid Fusion, the one time she actually talked to someone else. In this case, the ship AI she named after... guess who? Adam Malkovitch. Samus mentions that she gave it that name because it reminded her of him. She also mentions Adam (both the AI and the man) having an authoritative personality. She also mentions a somewhat secret code ("Any objections, Lady?") between the two of them, hinting at a relationship that was noticeably closer than simply Officer and Subordinate.

A possible third moment is that shot in Super Metroid's intro where she is shown shaking hands with the scientist she gives the Hatchling over to. It's not exactly something an emotionless soldier-type would do.

I'm having a little trouble here. Are the fanboys the ones attacking the game or the one defending it.

[Kosh]Yes.[/Kosh]

 

[mastiffchild]

I realise Yahtzee has a rep and MO to keep to which usually leads to a slight over savaging of the game but here he didn't go far enough. Sure, the story, writing and general portrayal of Samus as someone who couldn't possibly do her job much less all the stuff from the previous games being so crippled with self doubt and daddy issues was poor for games in general and a SIN for a Metroid game was worth ranting over but, for me, the controls deserved a bigger kicking.

First off I thought we were told the whole having to use the Wiimote sideways(what an ergonomic joy for us all!)and suffer THAT D-pad was bad enough but kind of understandable because they wanted to hark back to 2D Metroid's SNES control scheme with the two buttons. However, then they told us about the FP stuff which just made a mockery of it and meant they'd have been infinitely better off using the nunchuck and analogue stick. Limiting our movement in the aiming bits would have been OK if our normal movement wasn't borked and having to mess about with the Wiimote and point now and then felt tacked on like difficulty through the controls rather than through game design. It was shit.

I miss proper Metroid, I'm a massive fantart, and this wasn't nearly good enough. Traded in a week.

 

[Samurai Goomba]

I'm having a little trouble here. Are the fanboys the ones attacking the game or the one defending it.

Both.

As for myself, I think the game looks rubbish but I won't commit to a definite opinion without having played it. Although I will say that if the objective of the press, reviews, trailers and fanboy defenses of the game was to make me WANT to get Other M, it has completely failed.

But Halo: Reach is looking pretty sweet. If only they'd start porting Halo to the PC. I mean, COME ON! It's a M$ OS, for goodness sakes! It's like Nintendo refusing to port a Super Nintendo game to a system which has all the capabilities and more of the Super Nintendo and a larger player base, to boot, AND it's their own system brand. Why port the first two Halo games and not the others?

 

[internetzealot1]

And with that, the last dying embers of the Wii have been snuffed out. I can't fathom how unimaginably difficult it must be to be a nintendo fan. Failure is staring them in the face with every game nintendo release.

"Failure is staring them in the face with every game nintendo release"

What?

 

[Hammer_Wizard]

All he did was spout the same thing that people have been spouting on the internet since the game's release. IMHO moviebob made a much better argument about Other M on screwattack than Yahtzee did in this video. Overall fairly meh, he sounded more like a troll than a critic.

Ugh, MovieBobs review was the worst kind. Everybody needs to stop lampshading attacking a strawman as though that makes it alright. It never does. And he up and insulted people that criticized the game, calling them racists and japanophobes. The criticisms levied against the story are legitimate ones, but because moviebob brushes them aside with the stupid strawman sequence. I understand he wants to push the new gameplay, but that is no excuse to try to defend an indefensibly bad story and character development for Samus. He really should stop rating things according to how successful he wishes wishes they were, and judge the on their own merits.

EDIT: I'll do Bob a favor and link his review of Other M for people out of the loop.
http://gameoverthinker.blogspot.com/2010/09/episode-40-heavens-to-metroid.html

 

[SAMAS]

Because fighting Ridley ain't the traumatic part. Remember, this is after Super Metroid, in which Samus lost both the Hatchling she had come to care for (the entire reason she came back there), and her second childhood home, possibly all in the space of a single day.

If they'd actually pushed the effects of the loss of the hatchling as the driving element of Samus' character development in this instalment, that would have been a good way to add depth to the character and show the emotional effects of what she's been through.

Except, y'know, that's not the driving force of the narrative, her relationship with Adam is. So all of this is poorly integrated within it's own plot, as well as inconsistent with previous characterisation.

And, of course, even if they'd tried it the ineptitude of the writing and acting would have killed it. Hell, even with the current plot decent actual scriptwriting, understanding of narrative construction (not only the forgotten Deleter plot thread, but most of what was actually going on on the Bottle Ship is given to you in an infodump after the last boss.), and not cheaping out on a first time voice actress without a decent voice director to actually make sure the performance was tolerable.

Of course, the abilities unlocking when you're told they can be, rather than by finding them like in a proper metroid game, and the inconsistency with why they are locked in the first place (the stated reason is to prevent civilian casualties, but in that case why is the Varia Suit locked, it's a HEP suit, it's not a weapon in the slightest, and the way the game locks you into a fixed path with little to no freedom of motion, also unlike proper metroid games (even Fusion gives you freedom to backtrack and move around to some extent, even if it otherwise leads you around rather than just dumping you in the world and letting you get on with it) would still have been a kick in the face to anyone who wanted an actual Metroid game with their badly written and performed cutscenes.

Hey, that's just what I think they were trying to do. I didn't say they did it well.

 

[Worgen]

You know, I saw the trailers for this game and thought "This is going to be shit, too emo and the controls look hard as hell to use." Thank you for confirming my suspicions.

actually it controls pretty well and the game play is alot of fun but the story is sooooooooooooooo bad, its really amazing, I havent seen a story this bad in a very long time... really I cant remember ever having one this bad

 

[mandrilltiger]

I'm just glad their not making Wii Music.

 

[Tharticus]

My question is who is this Spoony I keep reading about here, why do their opinions matter so much and on top of that, why should I care what this Spoony person says? Is he some kind of industry insider? I ask this with no malice towards them, I just have no idea who they are.

Spoony is Noah Antiwiler, head of The Spoony Experiment. He plays video games and gives his thoughts on Vlogs. Almost as popular as other internet celebrities. In certain videos that I disagree on but most of his critiques are spot on.

You can watch his review on Other M part 2. [http://spoonyexperiment.com/2010/09/05/pre-pax-ramblings/]

 

[Valagetti]

You know what Yahtzee? Reviewing games on the Wii makes your job far too easy. But I guess you care more about your traffic than, your pet pooping out gold.
Ooh whats happening tomorrow? Yes dance for us again you monkey man!

 

[SimuLord]

Attention Team Ninja: Don't EVER make a game with a female character---not a protagonist, ANY female characters---AGAIN. You are NOT helping to dispel the stereotype of video games as inherently misogynistic entertainment devices that make gender roles in male-dom "exploited teen girl" pornography look relatively enlightened by comparison.

Although on second thought, SF Pride Xtreme Beach Volleyball wouldn't be nearly the same sort of guilty pleasure although in terms of stereotyping an entire class of people it'd be six of one, half a dozen of the other.

Team Ninja needs to be stopped.

 

[Skipper3]

So is Yahtzee saying goodbye to the escapist?

 

[carpathic]

Well, Yahtzee is officially on fire since returning from Vacay!

Thanks so much for another fun one!

 

[mr_rubino]

Boy... I can't Wait until Team-Ninja gets around to releasing "Devil May Cry : Generic Teenage Emo Smoker" --maybe THEN some crazed (but loyal) Fan might actually consent to putting Tameem Antoniades's ass out of existence ...maybe some Bald chap wearing a business-suit with a bar-code tattooed on the back of his Neck O.ó.

That's Ninja Theory, fruit-loop.

All he did was spout the same thing that people have been spouting on the internet since the game's release. IMHO moviebob made a much better argument about Other M on screwattack than Yahtzee did in this video. Overall fairly meh, he sounded more like a troll than a critic.

And that's another of Bobbie's followers just "happening to" show up here plugging his video and complaining that, for some unknowable reason, everyone is complaining about the same things. Seriously, Baby Bobbie Hood mentioned this review on his forum, didn't he?

 

[Nomanslander]

Moviebob would like it because it's not an FPS and it's an exclusive Wii title, asking him what he thinks is like asking this guy what he would think:

If MovieBob is a Nintendo Fanboy, then what the FUCK is Yahtzee? And if you say creditable then that just proves you're a hypocrite, an elitist, a ZP fanboy who dreams of sucking Yahtzee's cock and above all a hack just like that bitter drunken Aussie piece of dogshit. As I've said in the discussion regarding IGN's little flame-war magnet "Killing Samus", MovieBob is ten times the gaming expert Yahtzee ever will become! And this review proves it!

This was nothing but Yahtzee regurgitating not only his biased anti-Nintendo smear campaign like always but the same stupid ass complaints about non-existent control problems, sexism, and character derailment that X-Play started up in the first place. So yeah, Yahtzee's pretty much lowered himself to the same level as the lowest form of video game journalism and I hope he fucking proud of himself for doing it. It just only cost him any chance at ever being labeled a human again.

Umm, seems like you'd like to imagine me saying something along those lines, being a Yahtzee fanboy and all but if you had ever come across any of my earlier posts (just saying "if" you had) when concerning Yahtzee you'd see I've disagreed with him more times than not.

As for Moviebob, I think he's a pretty smart guy, and he's made some good points in the past. But there is no denying it, he is a Nintendo fanboy through and through. Watch any of his overthinker videos and you'd see it's just littered with extremist pro Nintendo anti everything else views and opinions to the point I'd be willing to call him the Michael Moore of Nintendo.

He even made a video where he showed just how deeply obsessed he is with that brand name, and as thoughtful as the video might be, it was also very....well......freaky...0o


Finally coming back to Yahtzee, well, what can I say...he's a fucking asshole...he plays the part well through and through and everyone has learned to accept him for it, and in some level love his stuff. But don't be so presumptuous to think I'd side with the guy just because I might agree with him now and then, and don't be using that type of language with me, if I had a little less backbone I'd feel obliged to report you....-_-