Metroid Prime Trilogy: Collector's Edition [Wii]

Retro Studios' Metroid Prime Trilogy is one of the greatest videogame sets that money can buy. And really, is it any surprise? We're talking about three titles which scored 9.5 or better, usually garnered straight 10s in the categories of presentation and gameplay, and are generally viewed by Nintendo supporters as some of the best interactive experiences available today. So when you slap them all together in a collector's edition box, add in some welcomed new features, make some tweaks here and some refinements there, and cram it all onto a single Wii disc alongside an art booklet, do I really need to spend words and time telling you that it's just as good as you think it is? Just in case you answered yes -- well then, it's just as good as you think it is.

I've spent the better part of a decade shamelessly drooling all over these games so I'll just redirect you to our reviews of Metroid Prime 1 and 2 for GameCube and Corruption for Wii, where you'll find ridiculously in-depth analyses. What you need to know for the purposes of this review is that the Metroid Prime series takes the very essence of the classic 2D titles starring space bounty hunter Samus Aran and transitions it to the third-dimension. All of the acclaimed adventure-heavy gameplay mechanics that defined those titles now define these ones, which come to life by way of a stylish first-person perspective complemented by various visors that the heroine dons.

Without diluting Nintendo's pioneering work on Super Mario 64 -- a title that dragged the publisher's famous plumber kicking and screaming into 3D -- Retro's accomplishment with the Prime franchise is every bit as notable, if not more so. Nintendo revolutionized the platformer with Mario 64, but from a development standpoint, the title at least kept a third-person perspective, which no doubt made the transition more intuitive. Retro, on the other hand, had to completely re-craft the fundamentals of the Metroid series in order to make them fit in the first-person view. That it succeeded so brilliantly is a remarkable show of skill.

Prime successfully revitalized the franchise on home consoles, where it had gone neglected too long. The original game was a work of genius -- with Resident Evil, it has earned the highest IGN review score of any GameCube game during the entire life cycle of the system; 9.8 if you're wondering. The stunning and polished first-person adventure set the mood for the sequels to follow, thrusting you into the role of Aran and challenging you to explore an isolated planet, solve environmental puzzles using her multitude of gadgets (from the morphball to bombs and missiles), shoot down enemies, navigate platform-heavy obstacle courses, fight bosses and more. With tight controls and insanely clever level designs mashed together in one believable world, it was incredibly fun and satisfying.

Echoes was the series' Majora's Mask in that it had a darker tone that became evident from the very beginning, as Aran fought her own comrades in battle, all of whom had just risen from the dead. It was also the most difficult of all three Prime games, due in part to the project's always-present dark world, a sometimes-frustrating purplish dimension that housed creepy Ing characters. Some of the game's boss battles were of the kind that makes gamers throw their controllers and curse out lout. But I'll be damned if it wasn't an entertaining romp through and through, even with some design inconsistencies.