The Metroid series has always been one of Nintendo’s major hardcore gaming pillars. It has followed the company from platform to platform, stopping off on the GBA for a few titles and really came into its own during the Prime saga on the GameCube. Prime was my first entry into the series, and it was perfect to introduce new players such as myself. Retro Studios understood our mindset and made the Prime series immersive and fun to play.

So, imagine the world’s surprise at last year’s E3 when Nintendo announced that Retro will be stepping aside for Team Ninja to take up the reigns for the next title in the series: Metroid Other M. It was the only hardcore title announced at that particular conference, but it split fans. Could Team Ninja really deliver something comparable to the epics Retro treated us to?

Well, I got to have a play on the game behind closed doors, and the answer is still not clear. We sat down on an obscure “minimalist” stool with no prior knowledge of the controls and a misplaced sensor bar. Once everything was fixed and we got comfortable, we settled in to what we assumed would be a slice of gaming excellence. What we got was far from it.

As shown by the game’s videos and screenshots across the web, Other M is back to third person with an awkward camera. For the most part, it controls fine, but the third person viewpoint doesn’t seem that conductive to the Metroid experience. Navigation is a touch annoying and the attempt at a mini-map doesn’t help with anything. If you try to go to a place you’re not supposed to go too early, nothing will happen and you will be left wondering what on Earth you have to do.

This isn’t helped by some weird menus and the scan ability being hidden behind some weird fiddly visor control system. Talking of the visor, it is technically not that difficult to use but complicates itself by overloading you with features. To use it, you have to move the Wii-mote so it faces the sensor bar and then you need to select what you want to do. It leaves you vulnerable as Samus anchors to the ground whenever you use the visor.

Frustratingly, you can now only fire missiles through using the visor and you will get attacked a fair bit as you fuss about the visor. Normal gun operations are fine in third-person, so it just makes the missile experience even more bizarre. Furthermore, there are some dull sections where you have to use missiles to blow up enemy spawning locations. If you don’t do it, they will carry on spawning when you try to kill them. It’s age old design and it just doesn’t seem as well thought out as Prime.

However, the melee system added a bit of depth to the combat. Dodging enemies and launching counter attacks not only looked cool, it played well. The morph ball segments were also good. In the demo we played, there wasn’t much ball action but it did serve as an entertaining distraction. There wasn’t any Prime-esque timing bomb awkwardness and it just felt right to roll around causing trouble.

In conclusion, there technically isn’t much wrong with Other M. It has everything you want from a Metroid game, but it’s weighted down with some atrocious fiddly elements that bring the experience down. The gameplay is too linear and the cutscenes add nothing to the game at all. The whole point of the Metroid series is for Samus to be all alone as she potters about trying to stop some evil folk by herself and it seems Nintendo has no idea what direction it wants to take this series any more. Metroid fans will probably be able to find something they like in here, as will a lot of other people, but it just doesn’t feel like the real McCoy.