I Sing the Metroid Eclectic

Metroid Prime is one of those old Gamecube games that I never played — until now. It's maddening, maybe the hardest game ever for an old coot with carpal tunnel syndrome. My daughter, who's beaten Okami and played most of Zelda's various incarnations a few megadozen times, really doesn't like it. She says it's a "guy game," by which she means she hates the first person visor perspective, the shoot 'em up, the boring boss thrill kills, the faintly ridiculous fan service scans over a female form encased in full body armor^†, the cryptic or maybe even lacking plot line.... So far as she's concerned, MP is a simple first person shooter for boys, period.

There's not that much adventure in it, either, and the ambience is really claustrophobic, and the occasional wap! of green bug gore over the visor is purdy cherce. After you get to Chozo Ruins, maybe, I dunno — it may be setting its hooks. Hmmm. Still, for my part, the dim orange graphics seem a bit dated — and the game tends to freeze at inconvenient places^‡ (but so did Majora's Mask). Metroid has a whole franchise, including a pinball version for DS Lite, fairly easy.

‡_{The infamous "Elevator to Chozo Ruins" freeze up glitch. I have the first version, evidently.}
†_{Yup. Gold-plated crotch shots.}