Space bugs are boring.
In "Metroid Prime 2: Echoes," the objective is to explore - deep, gravelly voice here - the decaying planet of Aether, a world ravaged by civil war between the forces of light and dark.
This means the character runs around intricately designed environments, some brightly lit with greens and browns, others darkly bathed in black and purple, and shoots at different kinds of bug monsters who have presumably nothing better to do than sit in waiting for heavily armored space marines.
How do they spend the other 364 days a year?
This first-person shooter game is different from "Doom 3" or "Halo 2." It's much more ponderous. A lot of time is spent scanning dead bodies or plant life or locked doors, looking for clues to get from one stage to the next.
The overgrown cockroaches and caterpillars don't attack in waves. For the most part, they pop up randomly to interrupt the character's detailed log making.
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It's even less interesting than it sounds. Other big-money video game releases in the last two months - "Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas," "Halo 2" and "Metal Gear Solid 3" - have shown games can reward a participant's interest with storylines and characters that make for an overall rewarding experience. They have the graphics and game play needed to stick with a title, but they also arouse, at least to a small degree, the player's emotions. There are climaxes to their stories or aha-type moments that bring to mind a trip to the movies.
"Metroid" has no real characters. There's just you, your evil twin, and a whole lot of space bugs.
The game is all roaming and blasting. When Samus walks into one of the dozens of boss battles in the game, she is suddenly dodging and shooting - button mashing for you - until the encounter finally comes to its merciful conclusion.
When you do pick up pieces of the game's storyline - how the indigenous moths were overwhelmed by cranky spiders when their planet was suddenly split into light and dark dimensions - they're flaccid tidbits that inspire little motivation to continue.
There's another inexcusable reason the battles are so humdrum. Whereas the PS2 and Xbox guys seem to understand a shooter game plays best when both thumbs are directing your character - one points while the other moves - the Gamecube developers employ a simplistic targeting system that forces you to hold down one of the trigger buttons if you want to look up or down.
Practice definitely helps here, but it's still maddening to lose your target on a bad guy and then be killed because you couldn't get a lock back in time to resume blasting.
The bright spot here is the graphics, which are gorgeous. It's a trip to start playing this game for the first time when the environments and effects have a fresh feel to them. The baddies may be boring and dumb, but they still look awesome.
And as you move through the game, you transport back and forth between the planet's light and dark dimensions. The difference is remarkable, even though you're still running through the exact same layouts.
There are various weapons you'll pick up, which look cool but still blast the same way, and four special visors that change the way you look around areas in sometimes beautiful ways. You'll also have to switch into "morphball" mode repeatedly, which varies up the gameplay and adds some puzzle elements.
But even all the options don't make the experience any more exciting.
It's interesting to note how much more infuriating it is to be killed in "Metroid" than other games. It is so frustrating to have worked so hard to get to a point and then have to go back and try again. Not because you wanted to see what's next, but because you don't want to play any of these boring game stretches more than once.
Do yourself a favor and skip "Metroid Prime 2." There are much better games you could be spending your time with.
"Metroid
Prime 2:
Echoes"
Review
Grade: D
