Ah Samus, how I’ve loved you so. Though I couldn’t figure you out when you were in your infancy stage, I respect and admire your work now. And though this new game seems a step back graphically and the controls seem a bit twitchy, I’ll still give you the benefit of the doubt and have hope...because in many ways you are that infant again I just can't easily understand.

As anyone who has played the Metroid Prime series knows, it is an FPS instead of the old school side scrolling adventure game. When I saw the video for Metroid during the Nintendo press conference I was seriously grinning ear to ear at the mere thought of an FPS Metroid that you control. Well, the dream has become a reality, and like most dreams, they are always better left off to the imagination, but perhaps I'm being too harsh, because I certainly have been off before on things that I initially didn't like, and it is important to remember that this isn't the finished product.

It hurts me to say this but Metroid Prime: Corruption controlled horribly during my brief play time, but that could go away (and probably will) with time after this new invention settles into my life. I've certainly had to adjust to new tech before. The problem I have is with contrast. In Wii Sports you are encouraged to go crazy with your swings, but in Metroid you are supposed to do subtle movements. Now, when I game, and things get heated, I get crazy and I jump around the place and yell at the television. Well, you can’t do that in this game because if you move too much you will jerk your view in that direction, which means you totally overshoot everything between, and when Space Pirates are bearing down on you, that means you might be facing death quicker than you want.

The controls are remedied somewhat by the lock-on feature, but you have to be near that enemy before you can lock-on to them, which of course means you need slow and steady movements. A battle with one or two creatures isn’t a problem, but when my time came it was me against a battalion of Space Pirates. I handled things fairly well to begin with, but that was because they didn’t move that much and liked to try and hide behind crates. After they were dispatched, then came the shield pirates.

Now, the shield pirates have…duh…a shield. To get that shield away from them you have to lock-on with your grapple beam by flicking the “chuk” at them to throw it out, and then after it is connected, you then pull back on the analog stick to rip it away from them. After the shield is gone you can then blast away. Also, the missile function was attached to the down direction of the D-pad, which means it wasn’t exactly the easiest place to reach to.

After the shields are down, here comes the guys who show off the problems…those stupid flying pirates. They swooped, they shot, and they killed me. Why? Because with an enemy that fast you have to be able to track them quickly…not moving slowly in various directions. I can’t tell you how many times I tried to catch up to one flying when my point of view never wanted to settle with them.

The graphics weren’t all that hot either…they looked worse than the Gamecube games - that is unacceptable (but remember what I said, it is a preview build, so things will probably change for the better given this is Nintendo we are talking about). Metroid Prime: Corruptions shows promise, but boy was it hard to really like her adventure on the Wii based on my game time with her, which given was only about six minutes. Perhaps it is one of those things you have to adjust to, but all I know I left less than impressed with the twitchy controls.