Wii Round 2: Metroid Prime 3

This week Digital Gamer will highlight the next generation of Wii games that really start to show off what Nintendo's little box can do.

The third entry in the Metroid Prime saga sees Samus getting corrupted by Dark Samus with Phazon. This leads to having the ability to tap into her newfound power, becoming incredibly fast and powerful. However this power comes at a price: it slowly drains her life force as it corrupts her.

For a game series that had less focus on shooting and more on platforming, it's a bit of a surprise to see more attention to combat. This is mainly because of the ingenious new control scheme. Point to somewhere with the Wii remote and Samus will look there, then push the B trigger to shoot. It's hard to imagine FPS any other way. Also, while the Wii Remote controls the right hand, the nun chuck controls the left. Open doors, grapple enemies (with the improved grapple beam), and even lock the camera. Yes, even with the free movement of the gun you can still lock the camera onto enemies and tons of other things.

Those familiar with the previous prime games will remember needing to switch to different beams. In Corruption all the beans are layered, not unlike the 2D Metroids. The different visors have also been revamped. Gone is the X-ray, Echo, Infrared, and Dark visors. New only three remain: Combat, Scan and one to control her ship. It hasn't been revealed all that you can do with the ship but, I do know that it can be summoned to save your progress and check on your corruption level.

Voice acting has never been a big thing in any Metroid game. Characters barely spoke at all and when they did it was all in pages of text. Prime 2 did have voice acting here and there but, it was too far and few between. However, thanks to more disk space and a much deeper plot, Prime 3 has tons and tons of VO. Samus, however, is still mute.

With all the casual games on the the Wii, it's nice to know that Nintendo hasn't forgotten the gamers who have been there from the start.