Australia gets Galaxy 2 and Other M this summer, what the-

[Ecks]

I rather like that Other M is focusing on some of Samus' more physical talents (like kicking pirates in the face) as it fleshes out the fact that she's not just some cyborg with a gun-arm and a bitchin' suit. She's a superhuman athlete with a gun-arm and a bitchin suit.

Also, I have to say that (minus certain parts of Prime 3) I rather enjoyed the direction Retro took with the Prime series, and I think I like the idea of melding 2d AND FPS action into one. The problem is going to be, as several others have put it, how they pull off the writing, dialogue, and story progression.

Plot in Metroid has always (barring Fusion and the more linear parts of Zero Mission, for those of you who did not sequence break the hell out of that game) been a background thing. You have a general idea of what's going on at all times, where you need to go, what powerups you need to get there, etc. Fusion was annoying because it was fucking gated from the start. You had to take orders from a goddamn computer EVERY TIME you entered a new sector through the front door. For those of you with the patience to shinespark your way to the bonus cutscene where Adam goes How the Hell did you do that?, you had to backtrack all the way back to that area and go through it again ANYWAY. I actually LIKED Fusion as a game (mainly for the SA-X sequences, those fucking had my heart racing), but the linearity was terrible.