If asked to list the all-time greatest games of the 8-bit era, your response would undoubtedly include The Legend of Zelda, Super Mario Bros. and Castlevania. Of course, if you're a gamer worth your salt you'd also include the classic adventure game Metroid, one of the most influential games of its time. Released in 1986, the original Metroid was a sprawling science-fiction adventure that placed you in the boots of female bounty hunter Samus Aran. Your goal was to hunt down the parasitic Metroids and the leader of the nefarious space pirates, Mother Brain. Metroid was the definitive action-adventure game for its time, and its Super NES sequel, Super Metroid, is widely considered to be the pinnacle of the side-scrolling action genre. With such a stellar resume to its credit, it's curious that the gaming world has gone without a new Metroid game for over eight years. Samus has made a few cameo appearances here and there (most notably in the Super Smash Bros. games), but a new Metroid adventure has been sorely missing from the gaming landscape for too long.

Until now. The Metroid dearth officially ended on November 18, 2002 with the long-anticipated release of not one, but two new Metroid titles: Metroid Fusion for the GameBoy Advance and Metroid Prime for the GameCube. Although it is highly unusual to see the release of two high-profile games of the same series on the same day, Nintendo has pulled this sort of stunt before with its two Legend of Zelda titles for the GameBoy Color, Oracle of Ages and Oracle of Seasons. Metroid fans will undoubtedly purchase both games out of sheer delirium, as well as for the connection bonuses that are unlocked when both games are linked with the GC-GBA Link cable. Of course, the good news is that the wait has been well worth it, as both games are of such a fantastically high quality that Metroid fans should be satisfied for a very long time. This review covers Metroid Prime, but be sure to check out my review of Metroid Fusion as well.

Metroid Prime for the GameCube takes the venerable side-scrolling series into the third dimension for the first time. While a few classic franchises have made this all-important leap with grace and aplomb (Super Mario 64), many have struggled to retain their identity and appeal in 3D (Castlevania 64). This alone raises the stakes for Metroid Prime, but developer Retro Studios has gone even further with their controversial decision to turn Prime into a first-person shooter (FPS) rather than the standard third-person action game. Can Metroid work in 3D? And more importantly, can it work as an FPS? You could forgive my skepticism, and that of many other game players, based on the directions that Nintendo had taken their other top-name franchises, Mario and Zelda. But Retro Studios has escaped the clutches of Nintendo's first-party GameCube malaise to make Metroid Prime an outstanding game and a worthy heir to the Metroid name. In a word, it's superlative.

Metroid Prime places you in the helmet (literally) of bounty hunter Samus Aran for her longest and most complex adventure yet. Though the game and manual aren't exactly clear, Prime appears to take place in between the first and second Metroid games. Some have suggested it occurs between the third and fourth games, but I can't tell one way or the other and to be honest, I'm not sure most people are even going to care. It's Metroid. In 3D. Satisfied? The game begins with Samus following a distress signal to a derelict space cruiser in orbit above Tallon IV. After a brief tutorial you begin to explore the cruiser, and after fighting a few skirmishes the auto-destruct mechanisms are triggered. Time to escape! The old flee-the-exploding-installation part of the game is fairly extensive and could take you up to six whole minutes to complete, especially if you're struggling with the controls. It sure is exciting, though! After that you'll land on the surface of Tallon IV to continue your investigation.

The game is played from a first-person perspective, but the play mechanics differ quite a bit from most other console shooters. Movement and turning is handled entirely with the left analog stick, and you have to press the R button to look above or below you. This means you can't look and move at the same time, a standard feature of nearly every FPS game. But after playing Prime for an hour or two you'll begin to realize that the setup works fairly well. Pressing L near an enemy will put you in lock-on mode, in which your cross-hairs will stay fixed on an enemy as it moves around. This makes all but the toughest of enemies very easy to kill, and allows you to circle-strafe around them and dodge their attacks. Samus fires her beam weapon with the A button (hold down to charge) and jumps with the B button. Playing Metroid Prime will feel a little weird at first, especially if you've been enjoying Halo, Red Faction II or Timesplitters 2 recently. But despite the drawbacks everything works remarkably well with a bit of practice, from aiming and shooting to platform jumping and puzzle solving.

The yellow C-stick, which might have been used for free-look, is instead assigned to switching between the weapons on Samus' cannon arm. Pressing in any of four directions will select from Samus' four beam weapons (power, wave, ice and plasma) once they're available. The Y button fires standard missiles and the X button sends you into Morph Ball mode, complete with third-person perspective. Additionally, beam-missile combos can be acquired that combine your beam weapons with your missile reserve, allowing you to unleash some devastating (and cool-looking) attacks. The flamethrower attack looks particularly awesome, and these attacks finally provide you with a reason to find all those missile tank upgrades. Controlling Samus in Morph Ball mode is a lot of fun, especially when you acquire the Boost Ball upgrade that lets you scoot along at high speed. You'll be amazed at how well Retro was able to integrate Morph Ball puzzles into the layout of each area, but I'll talk about that further down.

The directional pad is used to switch between Samus' helmet visors, which, aside from looking extremely cool, are used extensively throughout the entire game. You can see the fringes of her helmet along the edges of the screen, as well as a cool heads-up display on the shield of her visor. (The opacity of both can be tweaked to your liking, thankfully.) Her initial visor is the Combat Visor, which displays information concerning energy, missile reserves, enemy positions and map location. Later on you'll acquire the Thermal Visor and X-Ray Visor, which let you see in the infrared and x-ray spectra, respectively. The Thermal Visor is used mainly in low-light environments and to sniff out hidden power conduits, while the X-Ray Visor allows you to see through breakable walls and find hidden platforms. Both produce very cool visual effects with no impact on performance, and it must be said that no other game has come this close to producing the in-the-helmet feel. Your visor will even get fogged up when you walk past a steam pipe and will get coated with gunk when aliens explode too close to you. It's really cool.

In addition to the Combat Visor, Samus begins her quest with one other visor, the Scan Visor. Turning this visor on reveals a number of orange and red "scan points" that are otherwise invisible. Holding down the L button lets you scan these points and decipher its contents. Some of these contain story-related information while others will activate doors and platforms. Scanning enemies will often reveal their weak points, and this is crucial to do during boss encounters. Important information will be downloaded to your log book for safe keeping, which you must fill out completely to unlock one of the bonus image galleries. Scanning objects in the environment like this is a very logical thing to do and it makes you wonder why no one else has thought to do it before now. Samus will glean bits and pieces of the overall story by deciphering date from space pirate computers, and this auxiliary information makes the game much more engrossing than it might be otherwise. This tends to slow the flow of the game down just a bit, but sets a comfortable pace for the game that most people will likely enjoy.

Even though it is in glorious 3D, Metroid Prime still employs all of the classic puzzle elements for which its predecessors are famous. This is no small feat, as Metroid just might have been the most complex game to translate into three dimensions. There are six expansive areas on Tallon IV tied together by long vertical access shafts, just like the good ol' days. Puzzles involving the Morph Ball, Space Jump and Grappling Beam are all well-thought-out and integrated into the environment to such a great extent that you'll stop thinking of them as discrete elements. There are even a smattering of subtle half-pipe puzzles that require you to use the Boost Ball upgrade in creative fashion. Secret passages are a little easier to find in Prime, as they are often revealed by a scan point that details how to get around them. (For instance, obstacles made of Bendezium can only be destroyed with Power Bombs.) These are perhaps the most well-designed 3D environments to date, a fact you'll come to appreciate after only a few hours of game time. While much of each level is linear in nature, there is still a lot of room for you to explore to your hearts' content, and there are no "forced" events like there are in Metroid Fusion.

The top-notch level design is complemented by incredible visuals, as Metroid Prime is clearly the best-looking GameCube title to date. Just about everything is excellent, from the lighting and particle effects to modeling and animation. The impressive game engine runs at an unwavering 60 frames per second and even supports progressive-scan displays. Samus's reflective battle armor looks fantastic, and she sports some pretty cool animations. The environments are the real star of the game, as they look so organic and natural that you don't even realize that there are platforms to jump on and walls to bomb. Because the game is broken up into bite-sized rooms, Retro Studios was able to pack each one full of interesting terrain and minute details, like broken pipes shooting off steam or a school of fish encased in a wall of ice. There is very little repetition between rooms as well, which is very impressive considering the scope of the game. And of course the visor effects, which I've already mentioned, look awesome. The only real negative I can point out is that the textures tend to smear pretty badly when you look at them closely, a problem which plagues most console FPS games. You probably won't care all that much though, as the game looks absolutely beautiful otherwise.

The one area where the game doesn't keep pace is the audio, which is disappointingly weak for such a high-profile next-generation title. The musical compositions themselves are fairly decent, and fans will surely recognized the re-worked Norfair theme that plays in the Magmoor Caverns, as well as the tranced-up version of the main title theme. The music generally recedes into the background quite well and helps set the tone for each area. The problem is that much of the music doesn't sound much better than a typical SNES game and has a decidedly MIDI-ish quality to it, which is completely unacceptable for a game released in 2002. Sound effects are similarly weak and muffled; explosions in particular are unconvincing and lacking in bass response. The game supports Dolby Pro Logic II, but this is a complete waste considering that many AV receivers (including my robust Sony model) don't support this rather obscure sound format. Your average Joe Schlub might not care, but audiophiles will likely be disappointed in the audio performance they get out of Metroid Prime.

Retro Studios has done a fantastic job of bringing the Metroid universe to life on the GameCube, and the game is fun and engaging throughout. I did have a handful of problems with the game starting with the control. I greatly prefer the freedom that dual-analog control affords in a first-person shooter, and I found the control in Metroid Prime to be a bit restrictive by comparison. The lock-on mechanics work well for small enemies and groups clustered in tight corridors, but they become quite cumbersome when fighting multiple enemies in a wide open space. (Battles against multiple Beam Troopers just aren't any fun.) And once you're locked on you're almost guaranteed not to miss your target, all but eliminating the thrill you'd get from defeating a tough foe with manual aim. The lock-on system is absolutely necessary in the games many boss battles as it's the only way to dodge their attacks. The only problem here is that most of the boss battles are rather easy, but the last three are monstrously difficult and quite frustrating. The developers could have provided a smoother learning curve leading up to these boss battles; I smashed my controller up pretty badly fighting Meta Ridley. The game succeeds in spite of these drawbacks, but they're worth mentioning all the same.

Audio issues and control quirks aside, Metroid Prime is an excellent game that has finally convinced me that my GameCube purchase wasn't a waste of cash. It's stellar visuals and superlative level design, coupled with fantastic puzzle integration, make this one of the most engaging games of the year. I'm still stunned at how well the Metroid gameplay has translated into a 3D first-person shooter and I think the vast majority of Metroid fans are really going to enjoy this game. And if you buy both new Metroid games, the unlockable NES Metroid will make you appreciate just how far games have progressed since 1986. Metroid Prime is hands-down the best game available for the GameCube and I recommend it highly to just about everyone. Don't miss this game.