E3: Metroid Prime Hunters DS

[Great Rumbler]

Metroid Prime: Hunters, in development at NST (although Retro may be involved, as their logo graces the title screen), has seen a lot of changes since both the 2004 Electronics Entertainment Expo and the release of the “First Hunt” demo. By now, most gamers know the basic idea. Samus will square off against some of the best bounty hunters in the galaxy. Nintendo has stated that Hunters will focus heavily on Samus’s offensive capabilities, meaning there will probably be little to no exploration in the game.

The E3 2005 demo includes three modes. Bounty Mode is the Hunters version of capture the flag. Hunter Battle is a classic style deathmatch, and System Hack is a variation on king of the hill.

The System Hack mode, which is similar to Halo 2’s “Territories” game, sets up an arena similar to a game of king of the hill. The difference is that there are three "hills", which are really data access points that must be hacked, which takes several seconds during which you are quite vulnerable. Players must step into and control an area of the map. Once they have done this, they start accumulating points. After controlling one "hill", it’s possible to grab the other two, thus increasing the rate at which points rack up. The winner is the player with the most points at the end of the match.

The other bounty hunters all have their own special abilities, including special morph forms. First there is Noxus, who can transform into a spinning top with a blade arm attack. Spire can change into a spike covered ball capable of damaging others and climbing walls. However, unlike Samus’s spider-ball from the Metroid Prime series, Spire’s ball is more like the spider-ball from Metroid 2 in that it can climb any wall. Kanden morphs into a larva and has the ability to drop tail segments that will home in on his foes. Nintendo promises that three more bounty hunters will be revealed later. It’s pretty safe to assume that some of them will have to be unlocked in the final version of the game.

As far as looks go, Hunters has improved quite a bit since the First Hunt demo released with the Nintendo DS. The framerate has improved and there are tons of particle effects now. The team at NST has been focusing on these improvements quite a bit. A four player game will have tons of projectiles, bombs, explosions, and characters flying all over the place. Samus’s 3D model has received a makeover and looks much better now. The game’s new levels and characters are also more colorful than the First Hunt demo would lead players to believe. Regarding the interface, the touch screen now looks more like a visor, though gameplay is still displayed on the upper screen. There is also a “Headshot!” callout on screen that pops up when you pop off an opponent's head.

Hunters also adds new weapons to the Metroid universe. One of them lobs balls of magma. Another can be charged to freeze opponents, but it is different from the Ice Beam in Metroid Prime. A third weapon behaves like a shotgun. Each bounty hunter has an affinity for a certain weapons in the game, and will play better when using that weapon. Also, each bounty hunter starts with a different default weapon. The default weapon has unlimited ammunition, but universal ammo pickups are used to refill other armaments. The charge function acts like a secondary fire for each weapon. For example, missiles are homing by default, but they can be charged up to become (non-homing) super missiles. The final version of the game will include more weapons and levels. Some of these levels are designed for liberal use of the morph forms.

Currently, Metroid Prime: Hunters supports four players over a local wireless connection, and does not offer an online mode. However, the game’s AI bots are devilishly intelligent. When Hunters is finished, it will have lots of options to customize the multiplayer matches. Players will be able to set variables such as time and kill limits. There’s no word yet on whether or not the game will keep detailed statistics.

More on the single player modes will be revealed later. Unfortunately, it’s looking like the game's single player will be little more than arena battles against AI opponents, but NST may come out and surprise us with something more in the vein of Retro's Metroid Prime adventures.

They really should add a fully-online mode, as that would be very fun.

Planet Gamecube

[OB1]

Those new characters look really cool, gameplay-wise.

But no real SP game? Eh... I'll pass.

[Dark Jaguar]

Hmm...

I'll have to play it myself before I make up my mind... Wait, I sorta already have, but... hmm... I'll need to play the final version...

[EdenMaster]

Never could get the hang of the controls.

[lazyfatbum]

In the demo version, if you put aiming to the stylus and walking on the d-pad it felt exactly like PD. I played 2 player like that and it was really fun

[OB1]

If you use your right index finger for the touch screen (by putting the little stylus nub thingy around your finger), the controls are actually pretty good. But playing it for extended periods of time is a whole other matter...

[A Black Falcon]

Multiplayer only FPS? Odd... that works fine for online games, but not nearly as well for offline ones... oh well, still looks great.

[Great Rumbler]

The E3 demo is only set up for four-player wireless gameplay, but PGC has learned that the single-player mode of Hunters is well into development and is going to be more faithful to the series than you might think. The adventure spans several planets and has some of the exploration and upgrading elements of past Metroid games, but it's also infused with the bounty hunting theme that is prevalent in the multiplayer mode.

The story is essentially about Samus competing among other bounty hunters to retrieve a set of artifacts, which are scattered among the different planets. You travel among planets with your ship, although the player can't control it directly. Each planet is its own unique world to be explored, though it's unclear whether the level design will follow the pattern of the GameCube's Prime games. Instead of mutated native species for bosses, you'll face off against one of the rival bounty hunters already being seen in the multiplayer mode. If Samus wins, she'll win one of the artifacts. If she loses, the game continues on, but the other bounty hunter will take the artifact and flee to another planet, so Samus will have to track him down and defeat him for good.

As for upgrading, there probably won't be new movement upgrades in the tradition of the series, but there are a total of eight weapons to be found, and it seems that once you find them, they are in your inventory permanently. So the weapon upgrades do seem to work as usual in that respect. A big difference, however, is that Samus can only carry two weapons (plus her trusty power beam and missiles) at a time, and the rest are stored on her ship. Different areas and enemies will call for particular weapons, so there is some strategy and perhaps puzzle-solving involved in choosing the right weapons for the job. You can return to the ship to switch out weapons, of course.

Metroid Prime Hunters is still being billed as a multiplayer-centric title by Nintendo, but this new information should give hope to Metroid fans looking for a fix on the DS.

http://www.planetgamecube.com/previews.c...ile&id=304