Metroid Prime: Hunters [DS]

Samus finds herself sent to yet another serene planet. Aside from some local fauna, it's deserted. It's no vacation, but at least she's getting paid. Exploring around leisurely, the music suddenly tenses up. She has a feeling she's not alone, and readies a more advanced firearm. A creature not dissimilar to our heroine emerges from the shadows, inciting a fatal firefight. At the end, Samus finds her health fully depleted and one of her valuable octoliths stolen. What, you thought you were the only bounty hunter in the universe?

If you own a Nintendo DS, chances are you checked out the Metroid Prime Hunters demo. After all, it was included with millions of units since the platform's launch. Nearly a year and a half later, we finally get to play the finished product. Without a shadow of a doubt, it was worth the wait.

This is the first truly playable first-person shooter for a portable system. The technology of the DS has seemed like a crutch for the scant few FPS titles on it, but Hunters utilizes the console's capabilities to the fullest. The d-pad controls movement, and the L button fires. Your stylus and touch screen work like a mouse. Tap down, and that becomes your neutral position; where you slide controls the direction that Samus looks. To jump, you double-tap. It's a near-flawless scheme, with the only weakness being that you'll inadvertently jump at inopportune times. Does it take a while to get the hang of? Undoubtedly; but once you're feeling it, it couldn't be more intuitive.

Control is so good, in fact, that Nintendo did away with lock-on targeting. That's because they wanted a more action-centric experience, and that's what Metroid Prime Hunters delivers. In single-player, you'll still explore, platform-jump, and solve scan visor puzzles. However, shootouts happen much more often -- thanks in part to the new rival bounty hunters that show up when you least expect them.

The new characters are a bad bunch of bounty hunters. You'll face them often, and each conflict will have you on edge. They're equal to Samus in terms of power, and their AI is nothing to sneeze at. Each one has their own unique ball-type form that will catch you off guard. Even better, they're all playable in multiplayer. Hopefully this won't be the last time we get to play as them -- the next Smash Bros., perhaps?

Single-player is broken up into four separate worlds. You'll work through them and find the first four valuable octolith pieces (and race to return to your ship) relatively quickly, but you'll have barely scratched the surface. In trademark Metroid fashion, you need to gain new powers to open up more areas. The individual planets -- along with portals that bring you right to your ship -- limit the amount of annoying backtracking that plagued the GameCube games. Still, more save stations would've been nice; it's a portable game, after all, and time can be limited. But the level design is superb, and allows you to do all the things you love about Metroid.