And so Metroid Week comes to an end. For those of you who picked it up, how far along are you now? How are the controls treating you? The difficulty? For us, exploring has really been the only thing we've had a little trouble with -- sometimes it takes a bit to find what we're looking for -- but we haven't found anything difficult otherwise. This is both good and bad.
For those who don't have it yet, did you see anything this week that colored your opinion of the title? If nothing else, at least you get to read everyone's reviews first.
Continuing our romp through the Metroid series's boxart history, we're ending today with a look at covers from Samus's prime installments on both handhelds and consoles. We've also thrown in the packaging designs from the NES Classics releases which we neglected to include yesterday, though none of you noticed. As for music pairings, the boxarts past the post break go best with The Commodores's "Three Times a Lady." Seriously, try it.
This is it. This is why odd little events like Metroid week are so great. Not only do we get to wallow in all things Metroid, but as the week winds down, we get to celebrate with a great little song and video from Uncle Monsterface about one of gaming's biggest revelations. Let's take a little trip back in time -- and behind the break -- to see what it's all about.
We're willing to go on record stating the Metroid Prime 3: Corruption is about the best thing we've slipped into our Wii so far. Wii Sports was a great introduction to the console, and certainly made great use of the motion controls, but we have to go with the richer, fuller experience the latest Metroid has to offer.
In fact, now that we've seen something so fantastic, our standards are likely to be a little higher. Are we alone in this? Fun is fun, certainly, so we'll still love anything that's a good time, but for anything that claims an epic experience, Corruption is setting the bar pretty high.
You know how much we love to discuss boxart here at Wii Fanboy, so it seemed obvious to us that we should take a look back at past Metroid covers during our commemorative week. We've gathered up all the packaging art we could find from Samus's tenderfoot days on the NES to her later outings on the Game Boy Advance, and have posted them all past the post break for you to scroll through. Feel free to queue up Kenny Rogers's "Through The Years" for maximum enjoyment.
Welcome to our weekly feature, Virtually Overlooked, wherein we talk about games that aren't on the Virtual Console yet, but should be. Call it aretro-speculative.
Metroid Week leaves us in kind of a tight spot in terms of Virtually Overlooked content. We at the Virtually Overlooked Research Center want to be team players, but it's hard to imagine a less obscure franchise than Metroid. Samus Aran is often mentioned in the same breath as Mario and Link, and, unlike those two extremely well-known characters, she has no terrible CD-I game to her credit.
We suppose we could talk about Metroid II and Metroid Fusion, the two main-series Metroid games not on the VC, but that seems kind of obvious. Instead, here's a Sega Master System game that is one of the earliest post-Metroid Metroidvania games.
Things in the Metroid universe can be pretty scary. When you roll (sometimes literally) as Samus Aran, you roll through danger, but such is the life of a bounty hunter. But hey, it doesn't all have to be sinister and piratey; even all things Metroid can be turned into something cute; as they say, where there's a will, there is Lego. Isn't that how that old saying goes?
Flickr user graznador has a whole set of Metroid-inspired Lego scenes that will surely solicit a squeal from even the hardest of hearts among you. Who can resist Lego Samus? Not us, that's for sure.
Are you playing Metroid? If so, then by now, there's surely something you like about the game. We want to know what you think the very best part of the game is so far ... and if you have complaints, we want to hear those, too. Overall, we've found the controls to be amazingly smooth (though the way the actions were mapped to A and B at first seemed backwards) and easy to adapt to for lengthy play sessions. Our only complaint thus far feels like a nitpick: what's up with the doors? Sometimes we've already turned away when they decide to open. Maybe we're just impatient. It hasn't stopped us from getting our game on with ferocity, however.
The culture of gaming (and especially comics) is chock full of hypothetical battles, often ending in heated geek debate. And this browser game is no different. But, seeing as how we're celebrating something here this week, we felt compelled to share this game with you.
The controls aren't the best and you actually control Mega Man the entire time, but it's still got enemies and areas from the original Metroid title.
The game released yesterday. You picked it up. We picked it up. Everyone is happy.
But, without stating any spoilers, we'd like to know how far along you are. How many hours have you put into the game already? How much fun have you had with it so far?
One of the best things about conventions of any kind is seeing all of the people dressing up as their favorite characters from games and manga. And considering PAX just came to a close and what week this is, we figured we could post some of our internet finds on cosplaying Samus Arans. So, for some of the best (and worst) costumes, head past the break.
The whole Metroid series has had incredible music, from the booming Crateria theme in Super Metroid to the chant-techno of the Metroid Prime title screen. But even if Super Metroid is the height of the series in terms of gameplay (it totally is), the mind-blowingly excellent Metroid music peaked in 1986 with Hirokazu "Hip" Tanaka's soundtrack.
Even on extremely simple sound hardware, the Metroid soundtrack holds up extremely well today. The title music is atmospheric and gloomy; the main Brinstar theme evokes an adventurous feeling. Tanaka's use of the NES sound chip's sounds as instruments exceeds the normal beepiness, and seems to be the most listenable NES soundtrack even to people who hate 8-bit music (speculating here, because we love chiptunes.) It's no surprise that the melodies from Metroid tunes found their way into Prime.
Stemage's Metroid Metal is a fantastic interpretation of the Metroid soundtrack (and now Super Metroid) done with blazing guitars. It's an amazingly rocking tribute to Tanaka's masterpiece, and definitely merits a listen. But for our money, the best way to rock out to Metroid tunes is to download an NSF player and listen to the real thing, either ripped from the NES cartridge or the Famicom Disk System. Because of the FDS's superior sound hardware, that version actually sounds better.
Not long ago, we asked you if you were picking up Metroid Prime 3: Corruption; this was not long after the clarification came down about the lack of online multiplayer, and a lot of feathers were ruffled. But a month has passed, we've seen more from the game, and the hype train has left the station. If you were planning on simply renting or borrowing the latest Metroid -- or even skipping it altogether! -- have you changed your mind? If you were already planning on picking up the game, are you getting it today, or waiting a while?
When we were thinking about content to post during Metroid Week, old commercials immediately sprang to mind. From the old NES commercials that declared we were playing with power to funky Japanese ads that have a live action, cosplaying Samus, we knew that you readers would get a kick out of it. So, head on past the break and get an eye full of some commercials starring our favorite bounty hunter.
Prior to "Metroid month" (and perhaps even after), some people were complaining that Nintendo wasn't spending enough time or money hyping and advertisingMP3: Corruption. Of course, after that, Nintendo showed up with the videos and commercials -- but was it enough? Do you feel that the latest Metroid received the attention that it deserves? Will it sell well? The title has made a fair showing on Amazon so far, which is not bad, considering that Bioshock's release and Halo 3 preorders are competing for the shooting spotlight.
Our thoughts were best summed up in this recent Penny Arcade news post: most of the people muttering about a lack of hype on Metroid not only knew about the game, but whether or not they would buy it. But hey, we're only one opinion in a sea of Nintendo fans. What's yours?
And so Metroid Week comes to an end. For those of you who picked it up, how far along are you now? How are the controls treating you? The difficulty? For us, exploring has really been the only thing we've had a little trouble with -- sometimes it takes a bit to find what we're looking for -- but we haven't found anything difficult otherwise. This is both good and bad.
Not long ago, we 
Prior to 
