E3 2004: Metroid Prime 2 Hands-On

We get to grips with Nintendo's biggest playable game of E3 to discover an incredible sequel.

Update: Video coverage added.

Retro Studios returns for Samus' second GameCube outing, and at E3, Metroid Prime 2 impressed. So what's the story?

Samus is on a mission on the planet Aether to locate and assist a group of federation troopers, but later she discovers the planet has been struck by a phazon meteor and ripped into two dimensions, dark and light. Space Pirates have been drawn to the energy emitted from Aether and have been conducting experiments on the two dimensions, as well as Metroid and Phazon experimentation.

Samus stealthily follows some Space Pirates through an activated portal and finds herself in the dark world, a pirate corpses littering the floor. In the dark world you will loose energy simply by standing still, so you need to use your light beam to shoot crystals, which in turn create balls of light, acting as safe zones for Samus.

Eventually you encounter Ing warriors, spider-like shape shifters made of dark energy who inhabit the dark world. You can take them out easily with your light beam, but if you're out of ammo the power beam will have to do.

Two new beams complement the light and dark worlds, unsurprisingly labeled the light and dark beams. Unlike previous Metroid games they both use light and dark energy which works like ammo and needs to be collected from crates and enemies like missiles or energy. Scanning has also been enhanced, and objects are now colour coded depending on what they are, for example critical mission objects show red, scanable objects and hostile creatures also show up different colors.

The art in Metroid Prime 2 is, once again, simply gorgeous. Samus' ship's landing gear now opens up and retracts to land on the surface, Space Pirates now actually look like Space Pirates and the Samus model has been completely remade and actually looks a whole world better than the previous model. There's also a few new lighting effects in there, and some new smoke trails from missiles and explosions. In the build I played the music was all from the original Metroid Prime.

At the end of the demo you encounter Dark Samus who I can only assume is Metroid Prime, a scan reveals Dark Samus is made of phazon. Dark Samus' attacks are easily avoided and she is easily taken down, but this is probably all set up for the E3 demo. The battle damage in the lab where this fight takes place is impressive, canisters explode, lights go out and hanging wires spark as Dark Samus begins to tear up the room with projectiles and beam attacks.

Multiplayer is a bit controversial. Retro says it put it in because of a huge demand, but I for one don't see how a Multiplayer mode can work in a Metroid game and after playing it extensively, it really isn't that great. There are two modes: Deathmatch and Bounty Mode, Deathmatch is your basic all on all killing spree where as Bounty Mode has you dropping coins whenever you get hit so the player with the most coins at the end of the match wins.

The arena in the demo is a space station, there are various beams and items littered around the station along with ball cannons which launch you to higher areas when you're in ball form. Especially for multiplayer Retro have also implemented shooting whilst grappling - a new camping spot is born. I really didn't find multiplayer too compelling - this is no GoldenEye, but then again it's not exactly Turok 2 either. It's basically as fun as locking onto someone and shooting them for a minute solid - supposedly going into ball form lets you avoid lock-ons but I didnt see any difference. There's obviously a lot of work going into the multiplayer mode so we'll see how it turns out.

Metroid Prime 2 was one of the more enjoyable games of the show and I'm looking forward to trying out all the new items, especially the screw attack. We're really happy to see the great art style and fantastic writing is still intact so we're anticipating a very solid sequel for the end of this year.

Andy Robinson
Staff Writer, Kikizo.com