If you were stoked by the rumor that the first two Metroid titles will be repackaged with Metroid Prime 3 for the Nintendo Wii, then we're sorry to burst your  bubble. Nintendo has just tagged the speculation as "purely rumour and speculation." More details after the jump.

Rumors regarding ruckus within Retro Studios may now be put to rest, since it has been confirmed that three key staff members are leaving. There's no need to worry, however, because Retro's still making games for Nintendo. Find details at the full article.

It's no secret that Retro Studios' Metroid Prime 3: Corruption is one of the most popular games on the Wii with it selling over 200,000 copies to date. How does a developer go about designing such a game, considering the hardware limitations of the Wii and at the same time maximizing its innovative control scheme?

Mark Pacini, the guy who directed the game, pointed out that developing the title had to start with a concept. He said that they set out to retain the Metroid feel of the game and at the same time "prove the controller". The biggest problem they had was not motion control, but on maximizing the limited number of buttons on it. Fortunately, they were playing around with the idea of a system where everything stacked:

We were already talking about a system where everything stacked: your beam, your missiles, the grapple beam — all the additional abilities you get for those weapons stack so you don't have to switch between beams, for instance. We definitely kept that in mind going forward because with limited buttons, we didn't want to make this game overly complicated.

With regards to hardware limitations however, Art director Todd Keller stepped in and said that it wasn't much of a problem. He noted that the Wii is a "a fairly decently powerful game system as far as polygons go." He then added that while the console didn't have much in terms of depth shaders, it can render really good color palates. That's not all though, if you were impressed by Metroid Prime, Keller stated that people will eventually be able to "do more stuff that will be way beyond that."

All in all, Retro studios did an amazing job with this game. If you own a Wii and want a good FPS for it, then this is one game you should pick-up. Both directors gave quite a few more details about the game in the full interview, click on our Read Link if you want to see it.

 

It looks like Metroid Prime 3: Corruption is one of the most highly anticipated titles on the Wii. A lot of players have been wondering how the game plays. More importantly, players have been asking where the series is going after this foray. Who better to answer these questions than the creative team themselves of Metroid Prime 3">Retro Studios.

Play Online was able to sit down and chat with Game Director Mark Pacini and President and Retro CEO Michael Kelvaugh. Together, they discussed parts of the game that weren't in the two demo levels. They said re-traversal will still be a major factor in the game.

Aside from that, they made a few changes regarding the said feature to further polish the game as compared to Metroid Prime 2. Kelvaugh gave a few facts regarding this.

One was that the re-traversal needs to make more sense. The other is the overall difficulty. So the challenge is how do we address that without dumbing down the experience? We made sure we revised the experience to make it more accessible without making it easier.

It was also established by the officials that this would be the final game in the Prime series but NOT the end of the Metroid series. You can think of it as an end of a chapter in the series, as Kelvaugh further clarified.

We knew from the beginning that this would be a three-part trilogy, and this would be the final Prime title. It was nice to know from the outset, in terms of planning the storyline and what have you. This is the end of the Metroid Prime storyline. There's no way Nintendo’s going to write it off and pull a Captain America on Samus. But we’re taking a break from the franchise.

So there you have it from the developers themselves. The Metroid Prime series has really changed and evolved since it first came out. Hopefully, this release will be the crowning jewel of the trilogy and deliver to fans everything they expected and more. If you want to read more on this, feel free to click on our read link.

 

Good news, bad news, fellow Brawl-ers. The good news is we've got a piping hot batch of Samus Aran screens from Metroid Prime 3: Corruption. And saying that they're drool-inducing might be a bit of an understatement - kind of like saying that Princess Peach is princess-like.

Now before you go all click-crazy on the thumbs below, we'd just like to say that some of these screens have appeared in Play magazine before. We posted a scan of that a few days ago. There's a whole bulk load of new screens though, and what was previously seen in the scan just seems to be the tip of the iceberg of the other ones.

Now for that bit of bad news. See, these screens were released via GamePro, who just also published a Q&A with Retro Studios CEO Michael Kelbaugh. In that interview, we've finally gotten solid confirmation that there wouldn't be any online multiplayer in Metroid 3. It's been rumored and speculated about for quite some time now, but today's the nail in the coffin.

GamePro: Will Metroid Prime 3 have any online modes?

Michael Kelbaugh: No. It's something we talked about early on, but we only have so many resources. We opted to devote those resources to making a better single-player experience.

My, my... these Metroid updates just keep rolling in today, aren't they? Especially after learning about the game being delayed. Don't be such a sap though. We smell those juicy Corruption screens in 3... 2... 1...

More screens behind the Full Article link below. For the rest of the interview, Morph Ball over to our Via link.

 

So far, anyway. Best Buy hints that Metroid Prime 3 has been pushed to Auld Lang Syne 2008 might be dubious, but this other clue to Samus Aran's Wii launch might be more believable, if it comes straight from Nintendo's own mouth. Or, in this case, Reggie Fils-Aime's interview with Newsweek's N'gai Croal.

"Where is Metroid? Metroid is not going to ship by June... And the fact with Metroid is we want to make sure that that game is perfect."

Which settles that. Sure, New Year's 2008 also falls in that time frame "after June," but hopefully in the drive to perfect Samus' first Wii outing, it won't take that long. Well, at least it will go well with the Zero Suit figurine, also on sale after June.

Sighted on the pages of Nintendo Power, the official mag of the company, is something very revealing about Metroid Prime 3: Corruption for Wii. The info-on-ink reads:

Metroid Prime 3: Corruption
Platform: Wii
Publisher: Nintendo
Developer: Retro Studios
Release: Winter 2007

Previously, MP3:C's release date was classified as TBA: 2007. But here's the confusing part. When you say "Winter 2007" does that mean next winter or the tail-end of this winter? If it's next winter then Metroid Prime 3 fans have a long wait ahead of them. But if the company is referring to January 2007, which is part of the season as some hopeful fans pointed out, then the wait is almost over.

Which is which? If the company was planning to release it in January, February or even March 2007, they would have said so. There's no point in being cryptic and coy when you got a solid release schedule. Besides Winter 2007 refers to next year's season not the later part of this season.

But look on the bright side. By the time Metroid Prime 3: Corruption becomes available, you would have mastered the technique of using the Wiimote.

Pre-Order:[Metroid Prime 3: Corruption]

During the NYC event, Kotaku was able to play with Samus on the Metroid Prime 3: Corruption demo, and the general impression? It's gonna be one helluva great first-person shooter with absolute control via the Wiimote and Nunchuk.

Well yeah, there were a few controller issues here and there, like there were times when the game lost the controller, but we're hoping it was because of the bluetooth overload at the event rather than defects in the game itself.

The MP3 demo at NYC showed a never-before-seen game level and from the environments and design, we will see that Retro Studios still hasn't lost their touch. The game's design features tunnel areas, interior spaceship scenes, spacecraft areas that would remind one of Prey, and other scenes where you drift between ships in space. The characters featured in the game include Samus, Dark Samus, the Galactic Federation and new bounty hunters. Here are more key info you might want to know:

Controls: Players will get to control Samus by moving with the Nunchuk controller and aiming with the pointer. Experience first-person control through the eyes of Samus as you wield the Wiimote. Samus will have power-ups like the Morph Ball and Grapple Beam, as well as tons of other surprise power-ups. By using the Wiimote and Nunchuk controllers, players will also get to explore alien landscapes, hunt for weapons and information, destroy the Phazon seeds, save the planets from corruption, and ultimately, take down Samus' mortal enemy - Dark Samus.

The full article awaits after the jump!

Preorder: [Metroid Prime 3: Corruption]

So maybe Metroid Prime 3: Corruption being pushed back to 2007 isn't a bad idea after all. A lot of people who have actually been able to play the demo say that there are some control issues with the game's responses to the Wiimote. And hopefully, by the time the game does come out, Retro Studios would have been able to fix some of these issues.

One complaint is that the controls are inconsistent, saying that the crosshairs move fast around the screen, but when you point them to the edge (to turn Samus around), the camera moves in a slower pace to catch up with the crosshair. It's not that obvious in the demo trailer, but we could imagine how much of a hassle this would be if you were actually playing the game.

It's a good thing the developers still retained the auto-lock targeting feature from the previous two games. This greatly reduces the whole "camera-crosshairs" chasing gig into something more tolerable and less-obvious than the demo.

Let's just hope that by the release date, Samus is ready for launch. Waiting, waiting, waiting... Sigh...

Metroid Prime 3: Corruption from Retro Studios is one of the more anticipated games for the Wii. So here's a YouTube video and two downloadable videos to show us why. In the YouTube video, you see Samus take a walk in space (or a dive through space). Then Samus goes on to do a lot of shooting to beat the bad guys. Note the Morph Ball technique; don't ask me to explain how a full-bodied woman can curl herself up into a ball that small.

But if you're looking for a video that does the game justice, go ahead and grab the 11-minute-long federation ship full walkthrough from IGN (see the download link below). It's where the YouTube video was taken from. There's also a short off-screen trailer if you're interested, but it's nothing compared to the long video (and it's off-screen, so you can hear all the people around the screen talking).

Before we get to the IGN downloads, let me just say something about the Wiimote's role in this game. For example, in the long video, Samus needs to place a power cell into a generator thing to restore the room's power. To do this, you push the Wiimote forward and rotate it, and Samus puts the power cell into the receptacle and rotates it to activate it. It's an added dimension and a hint of realism (just a hint) that might convince people who don't like FPS games to try this one.

And one last thing really off-topic thing (you might want to skip right to the download). You've noticed how so many web journals have overdone the puns and created new words that start with "Wii." So I'm jumping into the craziness and coining my own Wiiword: Wiimotate.

Download: [Metroid Prime 3 Federation Ship Walkthrough (11 min. 130 MB .MOV)]
Download: [Metroid Prime 3 Off-Screen Trailer]