Zero Punctuation: Metroid Other M

[GloatingSwine]

Of course, as GloatingSwine pointed out, Fusion became much more open towards the end of the game when you had all the power-ups and could go scout for upgrades, but the fact that it started of very linear is what I think Yahtzee had in mind when saying that Other M was more linear than Fusion.

It's not just that. It's that you can sequence break in Fusion. Not as much as in the other games (especially Super Metroid), but you can still try and do things in the wrong order, and deliberately skip items and upgrades in order to provide more challenge. (there are special ending screens for particularly low item runs).

 

[Firia]

I watched the game played out via youtube, since I knew I wouldn't get to play the game (no wii), and had the same questions. Who is the Deleter? Yeah, I know WHY that line of story was essentially discarded, but then who is the guy driving the over-sized street cleaner?

Also Spoiler alert!

Spoiler: Remember all that discussion about how the metroids were...

Remember all that discussion about how the metroids were reengineered to be resilient to the Ice Beam, and therefore unbeatable? And then when we finally start fighting metroids, it's the Queen, and the ice beam totally works? Wft, I ask you, was the point of bringing up these resilient metroids if were weren't going to even attempt to fight them? I was thrilled to see this FRESH take on metroid combat. "Goodie! Something that will challenge Samus, and perhaps bring about a new power-up," I thought. But nope! Just boom, take out a corner of the damn spaceshi via cut scene, and resume business as usual.

Overall, the game was 50% facepalm, and 50% cool. When Team Ninja starts mucking around with the story, or Robo-Samus starts to drone on, it's kinda meh-worthy. But the game play looked cool... cept for the missile system.

 

[necromanzer52]

There's going to be a special episode of zero punctuation on my birthday?

Fuck yes.

 

[Orcus The Ultimate]

i'm glad i didn't buy a Wii....

 

[Dr. Paine]

As a result of believing he was dead she was not ready to fight him and suffered an attack.

Why should Samus possibly believe that Ridley is dead? She's beat his ass down four times now and yet he keeps coming back. It's more of a surprise when Ridley doesn't turn up yet again. Quite frankly by now it should be him that suffers PTSD. The Space Pirates are already piss scared of Samus and shit a collective brick whenever she shows up. (seen in the scannable logs in the Prime games)

In space, apocalypse is you!

And agreed- if this was like, the first time Ridley had returned? Alright, I could accept Samus freezing up. Third? Hesitation, sure. But by the point of this game, it's already happened several times. There's no really getting used to this sort of thing, but you'd expect the person who's singlehandedly killed him about four times already to have more of an 'I can take you' reaction and dive right in as opposed to curling up dropping a bomb, no matter how brief.

 

[Aisaku]

Getting mad at ninja theory for their demeaning portrayal of women is like getting pissed at a dog for peeing on the carpet.

What shocks me the most is that Nintendo say okay, go ahead. It's as if they don't care and would rather cash on the DoA demographic than excercise some control over how one of their household characters is handled.

Out of curiosity, how was Samus' portrayal over the Smash Brothers story modes?

Edit: Watched Moviebob's take on this: http://screwattack.com/videos/TGO-Episode-40-Heavens-to-Metroid

While I agree that it's a bit of an overreaction to completely dismiss the new characterization of Samus, and that we can't expect the companies to get exactly how we think Samus should be, I still hope they would have given her a bit more of an authority and self reliance. Is for some reason Samus any less of an expert and a hero than Snake that she needs to be rescued and led by the hand hm?

 

[FrossetMareritt]

Pretty spot on review! Oddly enough, I already went out and bought the Metroid Prime Trilogy just to get over Other M.

 

[k-ossuburb]

Any ideas as to what the "Special Episode" mentioned at the very end will be centered around?

Duke Nukem Forever, maybe. Although how he got hold of a copy way before its release is a mystery, so it's a long shot.

 

[Cherry Cola]

Of course, as GloatingSwine pointed out, Fusion became much more open towards the end of the game when you had all the power-ups and could go scout for upgrades, but the fact that it started of very linear is what I think Yahtzee had in mind when saying that Other M was more linear than Fusion.

It's not just that. It's that you can sequence break in Fusion. Not as much as in the other games (especially Super Metroid), but you can still try and do things in the wrong order, and deliberately skip items and upgrades in order to provide more challenge. (there are special ending screens for particularly low item runs).

Hu. I didn't know that.

You have given me another reason to replay my favorite handheld game!

Where did I put my Advance SP?

 

[Flame Rider]

Brian Blessed you say?

I WOULD APPROVE!!

*coughcough*
This definitely made me laugh good and plenty, which is certainly an achievement, considering my nature.

 

[Mantonio]

So the best way to enjoy a game that's trying not to be an FPS is to play an FPS? Huh.

When was Samus established as having a "bold, independent spirit"? I don't remember that being mentioned at all in any of the games other than the fact that you, the player, are controlling her and she's completely alone. She blindly followed our orders even if it meant smacking into a wall repeatedly when our phones rang or falling into an acid pit when we mis-judged a jump she probably could have handled were she in control of her own body.

I'm sorry, but your logic is just stupid. That's like saying Gordon Freeman is actually a bad guy, because I like to throw grenades at the feet of NPC teammates and watch them die. Or that because I once spent an afternoon throwing Mario into a pit over and over, he never saves the princess and is completely incompetent.

Story and gameplay segregation dude.

 

[Dr. Paine]

Of course, as GloatingSwine pointed out, Fusion became much more open towards the end of the game when you had all the power-ups and could go scout for upgrades, but the fact that it started of very linear is what I think Yahtzee had in mind when saying that Other M was more linear than Fusion.

It's not just that. It's that you can sequence break in Fusion. Not as much as in the other games (especially Super Metroid), but you can still try and do things in the wrong order, and deliberately skip items and upgrades in order to provide more challenge. (there are special ending screens for particularly low item runs).

Hu. I didn't know that.

You have given me another reason to replay my favorite handheld game!

Where did I put my Advance SP?

There's actually an area where you can find a message left explicitly for people who pull off a particularly difficult sequence break... I've also head Prime has some nice ones, including getting the Space Jump first.

 

[GloatingSwine]

Not that I myself would ever do such a thing [http://gameoverthinker.blogspot.com/2010/09/episode-40-heavens-to-metroid.html].

Funny? Yes. Accurate? No idea. I'm too poor to own a Wii. But I find myself kinda confused by all of the hatred. Maybe it's just me.

I note that you made the link to Ripley, but here's the thing, Ripley got to be a human and well realised character, got to show human attachment (again, it was already there in Alien in the camaraderie of the crew) without turning into a broken bird that needed Daddy to protect her, Ripley was the protector. Even in Alien 3, where her character was about as broken down as it was going to get (Some might try and tell you they made a fourth Alien movie, but they are clearly mad), she was still ready to face down her personal demon.

And she didn't whine about it on her blog like Samus does in Other M.

If the person who wrote the story for this had watched Aliens a few times, we might have got a significantly better character.

 

[GloatingSwine]

Of course, as GloatingSwine pointed out, Fusion became much more open towards the end of the game when you had all the power-ups and could go scout for upgrades, but the fact that it started of very linear is what I think Yahtzee had in mind when saying that Other M was more linear than Fusion.

It's not just that. It's that you can sequence break in Fusion. Not as much as in the other games (especially Super Metroid), but you can still try and do things in the wrong order, and deliberately skip items and upgrades in order to provide more challenge. (there are special ending screens for particularly low item runs).

Hu. I didn't know that.

You have given me another reason to replay my favorite handheld game!

Where did I put my Advance SP?

It's possible to complete the game collecting 1% of the available items.

 

[eyedonutkair]

]

Then what the hell is sustaining your relentless Nintendo fanboyism? Why are you so gentle and forgiving to the slightest smell of bullshit coming from a Wii title?

*spoiler alert*
Well, its pretty obvious that a ps3/xbox fanboy would think the game is bad.
I personally wouldn't go so far as to say its perfect, but it's far from bad. The whole authorization was stupid, and true, you had to have some level of dexterity aside from button mashing to use missles adeptly without taking damage. In fact, it's safe to say someone that doesn't play WoW or Halo almost daily would probably say those games suck, whining that they 'can't do it'. The thing I have a problem with is how many stupid people can't seem to figure out who the traitor is. James was a suspect since he planted the bomb, and he was found dead in the room where you left MB, that room being the BRC. I believe the thing sustaining nintendo fanboyism is not having the need to 'feel' like an adult buy playing games that make you think you're being a bad ass by shooting people and swearing. I like to think that people play games because they like them, not because all your sissy friends think it cool, and that you're lame for not playing it. Then again, sheep don't really have control over their lives, do they?

 

[fmatthew5876]

Finally a ZP on an interesting game.

The whole deal about not getting to use your upgrades until your boyfriend tells you is pretty bad. They couldn't come up with a better way to handle the powerup issue?

I would have prefered any of the following:
1) Just reuse the whole idea where you get your powers drained by some event/enemy in the beginning. Its been done before but as long as the rest of the plot is solid nobody will care.
2) Samus got the Hyper gun at the end of super metroid which was insanely powerful. Maybe after the end of the game this gun burned out all of her powerups. Maybe it destroyed the functions of her suit and she had to repair it / get a new one. In this case I wouldn't even mention it up front, it could be in a note or something thats easily missable. Players would ask why she doesn't have her powerups from the last game and this would be a nice little piece of trivia for gamefaqs forum nerds to talk about.
3) Or just make her start out without her powerups and just not explain it at all. Its more of a gameplay issue than a story issue and could easily just be ignored rather then having to find a way to shoehorn the issue into the story and create a completely retarded scenario where samus walks into a hostile environment without protection just because her boyfriend hasn't said its ok. When I played Xenosaga episode 2 I didn't ask why my characters were all level 1 again and didn't have all of their powerful attacks from the first game.
4) Maybe you start with the plasma beam but its the weakest gun in this game. Upgrade further from that. You would still need an explanation for bombs and missiles and such.

Does this also mean that you get all of your major powerups on a linear path? What about finding secret items? Is it setup so that if you find a secret room then he will call you and tell you its ok to use the wave beam now?

I've been considering getting this game and this review has been very helpful. It sounds like the story was pretty awful but I might have to try it anyway for educational purposes.

 

[FightThePower]

You know usually I feel like you're too harsh to what is probably an alright game, even when you justify your points entirely well. This reviews marks one of the few times the game is literally as bad as you say it is. I wasted £40 on this shit pile of a game so it was incredibly satisfying to watch you agree with every single thing I picked up on when playing it.

"...the bloated cancerous mass of the story's atrocity overshadows everything else". Best way to describe this game ever.

 

[Firia]

I'm curious to know if anyone has heard how this game was received by japan.

 

[Uberman5000]

No one thinks much of this game, including myself. As it should be.

Hopefully now Nintendo will knock off the bullcrap of letting Team Ninja develop a game that goes against their innate need to make the female characters 90% tits and 10% kicking.

 

[Crono Maniac]

Let's see... Yahtzee hates it, Spoony hates it, Socksmakepeoplesexy.net hates it...

Well, Moviebob likes it. At least someone's on my side.