The DS's "killer" app. Heh heh.

Ever since I got my DS (Christmas 2004) I've been sporadically playing my copy of Metroid Prime Hunters: First Hunt that came with it. As I was playing it, I thought things like "Whoa, this is cool" and "When is the real thing going to come out?" I kept track of the release date of the final version of MP:H, through all the delays (where they added new hunters, WiFi, and other things). Now that it's out, I have to say that this is the premier action game for the DS and a must-have if you're a fan of FPSes.

Graphics: 10/10

The graphics in the game truly push the DS to its limit (safety not guaranteed). The game is rendered in full 3d, with little to no lag (even during online play) and beautiful environments (Alinos and Arcterra, not so much the two space stations in the game). Sometimes the game will break into FMV sequences (similar to the intro movie to the game) which are on par with Dreamcast graphics at the very least, but seem more like the PS2's, which is amazing considering the technical limitations of the DS. There are also little touches, like how Samus' morph ball reflects light. All in all amazing for this system.

Sound: 9/10

The menu and ingame music are reminiscent of past Metroids; they have a "space" feel to them and fit this game like a glove. The music will speed up at critical points, such as when you enter into a fight with a Hunter. The gunshots sound fine and alt-form attacks do as well. Nothing really to complain about.

Gameplay Overall: 10/10

Single player: 7/10

They did a good job replicating past Metroid Primes with the general exploration feel of the single player adventure, although you are slightly more shepherded around by corridors in this game. The story itself isn't too complicated, and has a nice twist at the end. (Of course, you have to use your scan visor to scan objects in the game to figure out the story, but you should be doing that anyway in order to get 100% completion. In each level, you have to acquire three Alimbic Artifacts to open the Stronghold Portal, which will open the door to the boss and allow you to fight him for an Octolith (important to the story). There are three major gripes that I have with single player mode:

1. You fight the same two bosses four times each. Either the developers got lazy or they didn't have enough space left to put more bosses in; in every single level, you'll either be fighting a totem pole or a ball with tentacles, and they don't get that much harder between fights.

2. Backtracking = ugh. There are only four planets and you'll visit each of them twice. Basically, the second time through you'll have new weapons that give you access to doors you couldn't open the first time around, but it still feels kind of tacky.

3. In past Metroid games, you would have to escape from a place at the end of the level sometimes before the space station (or planet) blew up. You didn't know when it was coming, and the effects would always be consistent with that of a space station blowing up: walls falling in, pillars blocking doorways, etc. It always made things very tense when you had to escape (the first level of the original Metroid Prime is awesome in that it has one of the best escape sequences ever, but that's a different game). Apparently in this game, the developers thought it would be a good idea to have you escape from every. single. level. in. the. game. And you don't even get a payoff at the end; no cool cutscene of Samus flying her spaceship away from the station or planet as it explodes, just a lame one second cutscene of her flying her spaceship away from a totally motionless planet that apparently forgot about how it was going to blow up two minutes ago. I guess it makes sense because you need to go back to the planets afterwards... but then they shouldn't have put the escape sequences in in the first place.

The single player does have its redeeming moments, and those mainly come in the form of the scripted and unscripted Hunter duels. Hunters will be waiting for you at prescripted positions your first time through the planets, and their duels are tense (Sylux's especially; he screws up your vision with his Shock Coil, runs around laying bombs in his alternate form, then goes into the center area and calls in his ship for backup (!)). After that, they will meet you at random points, but the battles are almost as tense as the first time around. Overall it's a decent effort at a single player, especially for a game where much of the focus revolves around the multiplayer.

Multiplayer: 10/10

How multiplayer works: Standard FPS type games. Players go around and can pick up health and various weapons and ammo. However, each character has a unique affinity weapon (acquired by picking up an affinity orb) and a unique alt form (a smaller and faster version of themselves with a special attack (but can't use guns, unless you're playing as Weavel)).

Offline: Absolutely perfect. Playing with friends locally is a blast and there are enough game modes (7: Battle, Survival, Prime Hunter, Nodes, CTF, Defender, and Bounty) to keep you going for a long time. Plus, they even included bots, which will be familiar to those that have played a decent splitscreen shooter for consoles in the last ten years or so. You can hone your skills against the bots offline, and you can even throw in a couple of bots if your match against friends feels empty. Really nothing to complain about here.

Online: Mostly the same as offline, except with a couple of new additions (and some deletions). First of all, if you are playing in a game with someone on your friends list, you can use the DS's built-in microphone to chat with them (lobbys only though, no in-game VoIP: boo). This is a nice first step forward towards what I hope will eventually become an Xbox Live type of experience, though hopefully without the annoying 10-year-olds who seem to think that swearing is the "cool thing to do." One bad thing about online is that you can't pick the game mode unless you are playing with friends. Battle (ordinary deathmatch) is the only mode you can play, and you can only play it under default settings (first to 7 kills, 7 minute timer, no teams, medium damage, etc.) While it really doesn't detract from the overall experience, it would have been nice to have been able to play all the modes all the time. The major complaint I have about the online system is the lack of a true lobby system. The game works like Mario Kart in that it will attempt to match you up with players who are either close to your rank or just whoever joins (depending on what you want it to do). However, there is no way to join a specific game unless your friend or rival creates it, and there are an abundance of error codes while trying to find matches (Error Code 850-something will kick you out of the "find match" screen back onto the main wifi screen, while error code 87001 will kick you out of wifi entirely and force you to restart your DS in order to access the wifi service again). Fortunately, these only happen in lobbies; unfortunately, they make it nearly impossible to ever get three or four players in a match, which is a bummer. A cool new feature that was missing from Mario Kart is the ability to add rivals; when you meet someone online, and you have some good matches with them and want to add them as a friend, but can't because you don't know their friend code, you can select "add rival" and they will become one of your rivals; thus, you can play them at a later date if you so wish. Ingame online, there are three types of players who you'll run up against:

- Noobs: The ones who just run around in their biped form all the time. You'll beat them every time, 7 - 0, maybe even 7 - -1 or something along those lines.

- Equal skill level: These are the ones you add to your rivals list. Unfortunately, they don't exist.

- Pros: Run into someone with four or five stars and chances are you'll get slaughtered. They know all the arenas, know where the weapons are, and can use their character to its fullest.

Fortunately, online has something for everybody; once you learn how to use a particular character, you'll probably do fairly well. I myself use Trace (the sniper character) and have racked up two stars, nearly three, with a record of 44-13 at the time of this review. And I don't nearly consider myself a "pro."

Characters are fairly balanced; discussions of who the "cheapest," "best," or "worst" character is have every character's name mentioned at least once by somebody. There's really nothing to complain about in the ingame experience, except for the occasional lagger or disconnector (it is impossible to hit a lagger with your weapon, and a disconnector is just annoying).

Replay Value: 9/10

You could go through the single player again if you missed the 100% (if you do get 100% you get a shiny icon on your Hunter's License, which is your ingame ID badge). The meat of this game lies in the multiplayer, with the offline bot capabilities and the online component, which has seemingly endless replay value. You won't get tired of this one quickly.

Buy or Rent?

$35. Buy it. I don't think I need to say any more; this is better than almost all of the recently released console games, and it's portable to boot.