By Kevin "Berserker" Hall

Many gamers' minds were set at ease when Metroid Prime delivered a first person action experience worthy of the name Metroid. Later Metroid Prime 2: Echoes carried the first person action experience even further. The series now ends with the last installment, entitled Metroid Prime 3: Corruption. Like all great game trilogies, this one goes out with a bang.

Metroid Prime 3 is far more story driven than the previous Prime's, much to my liking. The gameplay has a few more cutscenes to offer but the cutscenes never get in the way of the action or exploring. To set everything up for you storywise, three bounty hunters besides Samus are sent to planets around the solar to stop the Phazon corruption of those worlds. Eventurally something goes wrong with all contacts and Samus is immediately sent in to complete each of their tasks. This description is, of course, skipping the action packed intro however. The intro actually took me about 2 hours to complete!

The story has just the right amount of involvement to keep a player enthused while accomplishing objectives. Samus will usually be contacted each time an objective on a planet is complete and the voice at the other end will offer her advice on what to do next or inform her of any situation at hand and point out the next destination on her map.

Oh yes, I said "voice" there, as in voice acting. Corruption features a full voice over cast for every character with the exception of Samus - well she still grunts and yells a bit. The voices fit perfectly for each character and really help to make the gameplay and story more satisfying this time. The overall sound is basically like a standard Metroid Prime - it fits well and sounds very good with a surround sound setup.

Samus journeys to several different worlds in her spaceship and must stop the Phazon corruption of each world. Of course plenty of problems get in the way while attempting to put an end to the corruption leading to a full objective list for each new area. Samus starts out with many of her basic weapons - the morph ball, bombs, charge blast, space (double) jump. There is no need to track down every single item like before. Like all Metroids, she still has to backtrack to other locations (planets) in order to pick up an item that was previously inaccessible the first time through.

If you despised that portion in Metroid Prime 2: Echoes where Samus had to journey back to several areas to find previously invisible creatures like I did, then you'll feel relieved that there is nothing like that this time around. There are some items that she must recover later in the game to continue to the game's final portion but most of them are collected throughout the main journey. I only had to go out of my way to track down two of those nine items. No "Wind Waker triforce shard gathering"-type fetch quest this time - well, for the most part.

The action is still just as intense as the other Prime's, actually even more so than its predecessors. Boss fights are stellar as always. One boss in particular is one of the best I have seen in a Prime game - such variety in that battle! Normal enemies are more plentiful during this adventure as well. More enemy encounters are definitely welcome in a game with such enjoyable controls however.

Yes, as you might have expected, the controls keep the action running smoothly and allow for some instant precise aiming. Prime 3 still uses Z targeting to allow Samus to move around her foe, but this time she does not keep her arm cannon locked on to the target. While locked on to an enemy through Z targeting, the cursor can be moved freely, so you actually have to aim at your target this time instead of just worry about dodging. It helps to make the game a bit harder since you can't fully concentrate on dodging like the past Primes, but with pinpoint accuracy thanks to the Wii-mote it all works out in the end.

The controls in this game fully utilize the Wii-mote and nunchuk attachment. The entire menu of the game (main and pause) all require the use of the Wii-mote, which makes navigating them a cinch. There are many switches and levers that require the player to pull, twist, or pump using the Wii-mote. None of these are overdone at all - they are all placed at just the right spots throughout the game and offer variety when needed.

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