After A While: Metroid Other M, Part 3

The 3D Where's Waldo Puzzles

While there were few that I could skip talking about, they are starting to get a bit more numerous. Throughout the game the camera will go into a first-person view of Samus and the player won't be able to exit out of this view until they locate and hold their cursor over a specific object for some time. They are essentially 3D Where's Waldo puzzles, as the segment title describes. While I can kind-of see the purpose of these scenes (more drama/make the player notice something small), I don't understand why they are there, especially when the rest of the game is a straight-forward action game. I can only assume this was a decision to make the game more like a traditional Metroid title (having the player pay attention to their surroundings), but it feels dis-genuine when it's forced upon the player.

Resident Confused

Up until this point, there have been some optional rooms that force the player to don tank controls a la Resident Evil. These rooms have mostly been what appear to be bathrooms that contain some upgrades like missile packs. Now, bear in mind these rooms are small; using the normal control set would not work well in these rooms, which justifies the control switch to the point where I'm willing to bite it and move on. However, when I get to the abandoned information center in what I believe to be Sector 1, the game forces the player to use the Resident Evil-esque controls. Now, as I said before I didn't mind this in the optional areas. However, I  do have some problems with it being used in the information center. Specifically, it just slows the pace of the game to a crawl for no real reason. It's not like the game has had a focus on heavy atmosphere, especially when I was doing back-flips about 5 minutes ago. Not only that, but the information center isn't an extremely compact area. It at least took me about 3-5 minutes to get to my final destination solely because of the controls.

The War I Took No Part In

After I'm done acting like a tank, the whole party of Galactic Federation troops ends up outside the information center being attacked by some normal enemies and a particularly nasty giant lizard-thing. After Samus takes the elevator down and ends up outside, she is attack by the lizard-thing from above and ends up trapped between the claws of it. This initiates a first-person view where Samus must repel the lizard-things stinger on its tail with some good, old-fashioned missiles. While the tail whipped around a bit ridiculously, one of the soldiers comes to my rescue by firing the giant laser weapon at the lizard, repelling it off of Samus. This is where I start to think that the battle really starts; I help my comrades defeat the normal horde of enemies while I personally beat the lizard to shit. However, this is not what happens. Instead the cutscene of the soldier saving me continues and he ends up shooting the lizard-thing again finally killing it. The rest of the Galactic Federation soldiers end up dealing with the normal enemies all by themselves with no external help. Other than somewhat detracting from Samus's character by being a bit helpless, this sequence also builds the player up to drop them. It really doesn't make the game look good.

Smashing In A Brick Wall Made Of Lava

After another 3D Where's Waldo puzzle, I'm ordered by Adam to investigate a curios oddity that I had discovered earlier. A little while ago I met a baby animal of some kind. Other than feeding off of the flesh of the enemies I killed, the animal seemed to be stalking me. I actually find this plot quite well done so far since it's mostly handled visually. But anyways, I'm ordered to follow the thing and end up going to a different sector, which just so happens to be the sector with lava. Of course, everything that's there is expected; lava, lava rocks, lava/flame-themed enemies, etc. So I continue on, assuming nothing will go wrong or surprise me. And then a giant lava-serpent of sorts comes out from under the lava and breaks the pathway which I was walking on, effectively swallowing me and making me instantly get a Game Over screen. For a second I assumed that I was having some sort of fever dream and decided to do the same thing and ended up getting the same result; one broken bridge and one game over screen. Now, after reloading from a checkpoint and just standing in the hallway, I notice the same lava-serpent jumping in the background. For a second I pondered about the action, and then came to the conclusion that was my cue as to not advance. And then I realized that was completely asinine. How was I supposed to guess that I would be in an instant Game-Over-screen situation based on that? While I didn't investigate any further, it was stupid and I stopped playing right there.