Aether vs. Dark Aether

Author's Rating:

Pros: The graphics and Sound are superb

Cons: Movement. Game gets boring sometimes.

The Bottom Line: 
The game is pretty neat and simple for players new to action shooters.

Author's Review
Metroid Prime 2: Echoes


Storyline:
You take the role of a female character named Samus. You have been sent to this uncharted planet called Aether to recover whats left of a crew that had been hunting a space pirate ship.

Upon entering Aether you find that the atmosphere is very unstable and your ship gets severely damaged.
Since your ship is damaged you have no choice but to adventure around while it fixes itself. Your main objective was to recover any survivors, but you find that there's some very strange activity going on in and around this planet Aether.
You come across some crew men every now and then and you have to scan their journal to read their log notes and find out what happened and what is going on in this planet. At some point you encounter the main enemy known as the Inge. These are spider-like creatures from a dark realm known as Dark Aether. Apparently there is a war going on here between Aether and Dark Aether over the energy balance between the 2 dimensions. Should one side get all the energy, the other planet will cease to exist.
So now it is your job to help the residents of this planet called the Luminoth by traveling back and forth to Dark Aether in order to gain entrance to the Dark Temples and steal back Aethers light energy source.

Graphics:
The graphics are so life-like. I haven't played many action games, but I have to say that among all the games I've played, this one has some of the smoothest realistic graphics I have seen. No major blurs or blunderings in transitions at all. Everything is smooth and near perfect. You have to play the game in order to see it.
I give a big thumbs up for the way particle effects are displayed.

Sound Effects:
The sound remains about the same throughout the game. There is no real variety. Every door when opening has the same sound. Bombs have the same sound, no matter what distance you are from them.
Boss battles and movie cut scenes seem to have the same sound. All of your cannon shots have the same sound. Variety is lacking and i think this is what contributes to the game being boring once you've gotten pretty far in it.

GamePlay:
The game-play is pretty tough, but there are hints to guide you if after 15 minutes it becomes obvious you don't have a clue where you're going. You do not have a great deal of freedom to adventure in the beginning. The temples are designed in a way where you have to be 'guided' in order to get anywhere.
As you gain more items you get the freedom to explore more without having to do a certain task first.

Movement:
Movement in regular mode is horrible. You will find times where you are viewing straight into a door, but when you try to walk through the door, it just won't let you. Movement in morph ball mode is very simple though. I get the idea that maybe the wall detection is the same for morph mode and walk mode. Walk mode movement is very annoying. Screw attack movement isn't so pretty either. Its a nice feature, but still annoying as well.
There are no special camera modes or anything that allows you to change your camera view. This is my biggest peeve with this game, because at times I want to view from maybe a top down or side angle so I can possibly align my character so I can get into a door or other area.
Movement of baddies is just as bad, but it is all fluent. Another annoyance I found was hit detection. monsters didn't need to be close to you to effectively hit you with their attacks. Some of them would just go into attack motion and be very far from you, but still get a hit on you for some costly damage.

Baddies & Characters:
There is a large variety of monsters in each segment of the game. Each temple has creatures that suit its terrain and environment. The monsters have a great AI (Artificial Intelligence) that makes the game very competitive. You will die often if you don't think fast or scan to figure out weaknesses.

Questing:
You have to quest through different temples to unlock pathways, find different upgrades and techniques that will help with your mission. Don't expect quests to go easy. The temples are big and each one you will have to learn eventually in order to complete and obtain much needed items.
In each temple you will encounter 2 or more bosses and need to find several weapons that will allow you to access different areas either by jumping, shooting, or scanning. Without the right equipment you'll be lost fast.


Overall you will spend a lot of time on this game. According to the time log I spent 75 hours to beat this game at 94% completion level. It is the first action shooter (shoot em up?) game I have played and I think its pretty nice, though it does get boring after a while.