Metroid Prime 2: Echoes

I haven\'t been keeping up with Metroid Prime 2 so I decided to go hunting for some news.  Thought I\'d share it here as well.

Retro Studios, producers of the wildly popular Metroid Prime, take Samus Aran on a terrifying journey.

Galactic Federation Trooper Squad Bravo is missing; their last transmission-- a distress call from a rogue planet called Aether, located in the Dasha region.

Enter legendary bounty hunter Samus Aran. Her mission: Locate the Federation troopers and render assistance. But what begins as a search and rescue mission becomes an intense, haunting sojourn to save a species from total genocide in a world caught in the maelstrom between dimensions of light and darkness.

Light Aether is the domain of the Luminoth, gentle beings with a unique and highly developed civilization. But when a great cataclysm tore the fabric of space and time, the Ing Horde were unleashed from Dark Aether, a dimensional echo of Light Aether. Now the Luminoth are under siege. The Ing send armies into Light Aether, absorb its lands into the clutches of Dark Aether, and possess the Luminoth\'s warriors. Only the Luminoth\'s four gigantic energy generators keep the Light World from collapsing. If the Ing seize control of the generators, the Light World will be extinguished forever. Samus embarks on her mission to defeat the Ing and restore peace to Aether.

But, as Samus will soon learn, an ominous shadow lurks in the darkness, a shadow which stealthily hunts the hunter...

>>>Official Metroid Prime 2 Echoes Site<<<

Features:

• New Beam Weapons: The Dark Beam and the Light Beam wield powerful ordinance to crush the Ing, solve puzzles, and open doors
• New Suits: As Samus traverses the depths of Light and Dark Aether she can don powerful new suits to protect her against the planets myriad enemies.
• Screw Attack: The famous attack from Metroid games of the past makes its triumphant debut on the Nintendo GameCube
• Power Ups: The space jump and the grapple beam are just some of the power-ups you\'ll find
• Multiplayer Metroid: For the first time in the history of the franchise, up to four players can battle each other as they search for weapons, grapple across ceilings and turn into Morph Balls to make their escape

Release Date: November 15th, 2004

more coming...

Samus\' Arsenal

The Dark Visor
Planet Aether is in constant flux between two dimensions and many of the objects and beings on the world are in flux with it. In Echoes, the Luminoth seek Aran\'s help to eliminate the Ing Horde, an evil race that infests the Dark World. The beings gives Samus the Dark Visor, which improves her visibility in a number of ways. First, she can see better in the dark. Second, she can spot creatures and objects that would otherwise remain invisible to her. And in addition, the visor enables the bounty hunter to lock onto objects that would otherwise be unattainable.

The Echoes Visor
Believe it or not, only a month before Prime 2\'s release date details about the anticipated Echoes Visor are still scarce. Retro Studios has said that it wants gamers to discover this one on their own. However, we do know that the visor, pictured above, enables Samus to actually see sound waves and use that motion to her benefit. In motion, the Echoes Visor looks gorgeous.

The Scan Visor
Returning from the original Prime is Aran\'s Scan Visor, which enables the heroine to literally scan and obtain information on objects and enemies. Scanning throughout Echoes, as in the first game, reveals not only integral information about puzzles and enemies, such as how a particular foe might be killed, but also valuable story information. In Echoes, the Scan Visor has seen some notable changes an improvements. From a visual standpoint, it\'s largely the same, except that scanned objects now appear on each side of the visor in full polygonal 3D, as opposed to the concept-art images displayed in the original. Also, the Scan Visor now highlights which objects and enemies have been scanned in a different color from those that haven\'t, which should make the entire process of scanning a whole lot more intuitive.

The Power Beam
Aran\'s Power Beam has long been a staple of the Metroid franchise and it returns in Echoes with identical functionality. Samus begins the game with the Power Beam. The weapon is able to fire off fast, effective bursts of energy at foes. It can also be charged for a massive blast that is capable of knocking down structures and exploding objects such as crates. While the Power Beam is a respective multi-purpose weapon, it does not inflict as much damage on certain enemies as the Light and Dark Beams do for reasons that we\'ll explain below.


The Light Beam
New to the Prime universe is the Light Beam. Developed by the Luminoth as something of a super weapon to fight off the Ing, the Light Beam not only inflicts damage upon creatures in the worlds, it also has a profound impact on the environments themselves. The Light Beam is especially damaging against Dark World creatures. A couple blasts from the gun will put more hurt on an Ing attacker than several times the amount from the Power Beam. The Light Beam can also be used to remove certain world doors, which will disappear when shot with the gun. On top of everything else, the Light Beam brings life. It will, according to previous reports from Retro Studios, help grow certain life forms such as trees, which makes it an integral tool for solving some map puzzles. The Light Beam can be shot in rapid bursts or charged up for a multi-burst shot, which is seen in the right-side screen above. Players will need to be careful to conserve ammo with the Light Beam or they will -- unlike the Power Beam -- quickly run out.

The Dark Beam
The opposite of the Light Beam, the Dark Beam is a powerful weapon that\'s far more useful when fighting against creatures from the Light World. The weapon is allegedly able bring ruin to some entities and creatures, just as the Light Beam brings life. So there may be points in Echoes where players will be called to use the Dark Beam to actually suck the life from plants or foes in order to remove obstacles. The Dark Beam regularly shoots forward globs of dangerous dark matter, but it can also be charged to hurl a massive amount of the deadly stuff, which will actually cling to and kill the bodies of unsuspecting enemies. Like the Light Beam, this weapon will run short of ammunition of players are not conservative with their shooting.

Seeker Missiles
Using the Power Beam, Samus will now be able to target multiple enemies at once and send off a stream of powerful missiles to take them down. Please observe in the screenshots below.

>>>Link<<<

Visit the link for pics!

Metroid Prime 2 Echoes Interview
October 12, 2004

IGN: The graphics in Echoes, though beautiful, don\'t appear dramatically improved over the first game. What\'s the story on this?

Walker: Our engineers, our designers, our artists are in no way satisfied with the normal approach. They really re-used nothing from Prime and made everything from scratch: new sound models, new weapon effects and new gun models. Everything is new.

IGN: How would you say the cinematic aspects have been improved over the Prime?

Kelbaugh: What is it, 20 times more?

Walker: There\'s just a ton of cinematics.Prime 2 is more story driven than Prime. There are not 20 more times of cinematics but there\'s definitely three times more and of drastically higher quality.

Kelbaugh: That\'s one thing we really targeted this time around. We wanted to be immersive in the storytelling aspect and we wanted a much better representation cinematically. It\'s been quite a challenge.

IGN: With so much added cinematically, would you say Prime 2 is much longer game than Prime?

Walker: Play experience is going to be comparable to the original Prime. Having said that, the play experience is denser; there\'s more going on. There\'s more to engage the player. It\'s better spaced.

IGN: Will Prime 2 rely heavily on the light and dark beams, or will Samus gain other weapons such as the Ice Beam?

Kelbaugh:You\'ll have to wait and see.

Walker: [Laughs] The Dark and Light Beams are not the only new things we\'re introducing.

Kelbaugh: We paid a lot of attention to what the Light Beam does in the Dark World and why. And also what the Dark Beam does in the Light World and why. All of the assets adhere to that fundamental overview of the game.

IGN: Are there any hints you can give us as to what we might expect?

Walker: (Laughs] Uh, Mark?

Pacini: (On speaker.) Yes?

Walker: This gentleman is looking for a hint on weapons and what we\'re introducing in addition to the Dark and Light Beams. Anything you want to throw out?

Pacini: Oh, come on man!

Kelbaugh: [Laughing] You\'re just going to have to play it.

Walker: Here\'s something I will call out: I haven\'t seen any games that have come out in the last few months, but the weapon effects [in Prime 2]... I can\'t recall a game that has such spectacular effects. You\'ll want to sit there and shoot a wall just to see these effects, they are that cool.

Kelbaugh: The artwork is stellar.

IGN: Sounds awesome. Is there anything you can tell us about the Dark Visor?

Pacini: All of Samus\' gear was given to her by the Luminoth, who have been creating these pieces of equipment to fight a war against the Ing. Everything they\'ve created helps them fight this war against the Ing. So, everything is geared to make them more protected or more powerful when they go into the Dark World. The Dark Visor is an item Samus gets from the Luminoth to see interdimensional objects when the two worlds [light and dark] were split apart many years ago and the Ing were created and Dark Aethar was created.

A copy of Aethar was made but not all of the objects were copied. So this Dark Visor helps you find these items that aren\'t quite right and seem out of place. The Dark Visor will also help you see invisible creatures and see in the dark better. Also, you\'ll be able to target different objects you wouldn\'t think you could target. It has many uses and fits into the dark/light theme in terms of game mechanics.


IGN: Is there anything you could tell us about the Echoes Visor?

Kelbaugh: It\'s in the game [laughs]. We have to save something for your readers!

IGN: This is probably the same kind of question. Will Samus be able to fly her ship in the game?

Kelbaugh: In-game flying... that\'s been restricted to cinematics.

IGN: Other than the ability to exist in the Dark World, what other abilities does Samus\' new Dark Suit enable her to do?

Walker: That\'s really the primary use of the Dark Suit: to allow Samus\' to navigate the Dark World with reduced damage.

IGN: Can we expect the same number of Morph Ball-based puzzles in Echoes as in Prime 2?

Pacini: There\'s actually quite a bit more. We really liked how the Morph Ball worked in the first game and really did some searching on what to carry over and what to add. We really wanted to show that stuff in [Echoes] because we thought it was really fun. It\'s a distinct feature of Metroid Prime and we really want to play that up. It strikes a good balance in the game; there won\'t be an over abundance of puzzles.

IGN: Cool. Could you give us an example? Maybe your favorite puzzle in the game?

Pacini: Well, I\'m a Spider Ball type of guy myself. There\'s a particular puzzle in one of the worlds that probably takes around 10 minutes to solve, just navigating with the Spider Ball. The thing we\'re doing in this game that we didn\'t do in the first game is Morph Ball boss-battles. It\'s really exciting and puts a twist on what we\'re trying to do.

IGN: Will Metroids play a big role in the game this time around?

Pacini: It was a conscious effort from Retro and Nintendo to downplay the space pirates and Metroids in this particular game. They\'re still in there and they still play a role, but we made a decision to make the story revolve around the Ing and Luminoth. But we thought it was still important for them to fit into the story well and serve a particular purpose.

IGN: Will Dark Samus present a constant threat or will she only pop up during key moments in the game?

Kelbaugh: I think that\'s a fair assessment. It was really critical for us to place her at a very impactful pace and where she\'d be very influential to the storyline. We\'re really excited about using her. This is the first time you\'ll see her with any kind of influence and we didn\'t want to overuse that. But you\'ll definitely feel her and see her quite often.

IGN: Is there a chance players will control Dark Samus during the course of the game?

Kelbaugh: That\'s a good question. You\'re going to have to wait and see.

IGN: Will the game feature unlockables?

Kelbaugh: Yes.

IGN: Any hints as to what they may be?

Kelbaugh: Uh, they\'re more Easter Eggs.

IGN: How many arenas will be available in Multiplayer?

Kelbaugh: More than two [laughs].

IGN: We saw the new Annihilator weapon during the presentation yesterday. Will there be any weapons specific to multiplayer?

Walker: There are some Morph Ball expansions, like the Death Ball for instance.

Kelbaugh: One thing we tried really hard not to do was just throw in a deathmatch. We wanted to stay true to the hardcore Metroid player. There\'s a lot of Morph Ball use and Grapple Beam use; you\'ll know you\'re playing a Metroid game.

Walker: Even the visor can become a weapon in multiplayer.

IGN: One last question: After Echoes, what\'s next for Retro? Will it jump over to Nintendo Revolution development?

Kelbaugh: We\'re devoting every possible resource to getting this game finished. We\'ll see where the road takes us afterward. We\'re looking forward to a long career with Nintendo; we love those guys. We actually feel like a department. I\'m sure there are some big things ahead for us.

>>>IGN Link<<<

Not alot of new information but good stuff none the less.

Official Box Art

Can.. can I get a condom over here?

Multiplayer Hands-On

August 23, 2004 - Though Mario Tennis was the only new Nintendo title on display at last week\'s GC-Games Convention in Germany, we couldn\'t resist the temptation to once again get our paws on Metroid Prime 2\'s multiplayer mode. It wasn\'t easy. Chalk it up to the quality of the software or to a special character trait found only in the Nintendo fan base, but some players at the show would hog games for such long periods of time, we saw ourselves physically age while waiting for them to finish. Luckily, repeated pen poking of one player soon yielded success and we finally got ourselves an empty slot.

Though the final game is likely to offer more variety, the multiplayer menu in the demo offered two play modes: Death Match and Bounty Mode. Death Match is a straightforward timed versus mode where up to four players go head-to-head to get the most kills, whereas Bounty Mode is a Super Smash Bros. Melee-style coin mode that\'s all about collecting cash. In the latter, players do not necessarily shoot to kill. The point is to blast opposing players to make them drop coins that range from 1 to 10 in value. Whoever collected the most coins when the timer runs out, wins.
The demo only offered one single playable level: Sidehopper Station. Though unfamiliar in name to Metroid fans, the station is visually similar to the one found at the beginning of the original Metroid Prime. That means lots of gray and orange corridors, windows that look out into open space, hi-tech equipment and even an outdoors area with asteroids flying above. Graphically, the map looks almost on par with the single-player stage featured in the predecessor and runs nice and smooth even in four-player splitscreen mode. There is one catch, however. In order to keep the game running smoothly, the multiplayer mode in the demo didn\'t feature any of that spiffy dynamic lighting you\'ll see in the single-player missions of Metroid Prime 2 Echoes. That may be a disappointment to graphics tarts like Casamassina, but we\'ll take a smooth running multiplayer mode over pretty muzzle flashes anytime.

With the exception of the different scoring system, gameplay in both modes is identical. Up to four players (playing as differently colored versions of series hero Samus Aran) run around the station, using the L trigger to lock on to opponents, and blasting away with A. Sounds a bit too easy, doesn\'t it? After all, what first-person shooter lets you lock on to an enemy and just blast away… Luckily, that doesn\'t exactly tell the whole story. Because of the developer\'s insistence on using a lock-on camera system over a traditional FPS freelook system in the single-player game, Metroid Prime 2 Echoes multiplayer also doesn\'t follow in the footsteps of Quake variety shooters. Though we haven\'t seen the other battle arenas yet, we imagine that all of the stages in the game involve a mixture of open rooms and narrow tunnels designed for rolling around in ball form. That\'s right, you can hit X at any time to morph into ball form and navigate the level at high speeds.



There are several things that happen when you\'re in ball form. For one, any lock your opponent had on your will break, so the only way he can hit you is to manually aim via the R button. Secondly, the radar of the player in ball form turns off as you no longer have access to Samus\'s scan visor. Naturally, you can\'t use your beam weapons either -- but you of course still have your trusty bombs. To facilitate a quick escape, players can also use the speed ball function. Press and hold A, then let go and the Samus ball will boost temporarily, leaving your opponent in the dust. But there is of course more to the ball form than simple escape maneuvers. Sidehopper Station featured several ball cannons that, when entered in ball form, shoot Samus high up into vents otherwise not accessible to the combatants. This allows players to take quick shortcuts to surprise their enemies or pick up valuable power-ups that are hidden in the vents. There is even a ball cannon that fires Samus from one end of the station all the way to the other.

There are also at least two power-ups that make rolling around in ball form worthwhile. The first is the Power Bomb. Find and grab this bad boy, and you can leave an explosive Easter egg for your pursuers that blows them straight to hell. We managed to trick our unknown opponent at the convention into following into a small corridor, only to drop a PB around the corner and raking in another kill. The other ball power-up we were able to try out is the Death Ball. Pick it up and the Samus ball will temporarily grow some vicious spikes. Chase down your enemies quickly and roll over them for an instant kill. Naturally, appearance of this power-up results in everyone scrambling to get out of the way. We already found one fairly save spot to hide from it, though: use the grapple to hang from the ceiling.

Speaking of which, players using the grappling beam to traverse gaps or simply hang around now have the ability to shoot their gun with the other arm. This is pretty handy when trying to shake a trailing player, or to keep on blasting while following another across the room.
When playing in standard Samus form, it\'s all about locking on and strafing. As in the original game, locked-on players automatically circle-strafe around the targeted enemy. The only difference in Metroid Prime 2 Echoes is that opposing players will do the same. Furthermore, Samus has all her double-jump abilities, so she can evade enemy fire upwards or by speed boosting to the left or right (an ability our human opponents at the expo apparently didn\'t know about, which resulted in more than one flawless victory.). The kill animation is a bit quicker than in single-player. When you nail an opponent, his visor view starts to get all noisy, until it finally turns off completely (while you can see Samus keel over on your own screen).

In addition to her standard blaster (both standard shot and powered shot), Samus can also use the Light and Dark rays that play such a pivotal role in the single-player storyline, as well as her trademark missiles. The latter have an automatic homing function built in and can be powered up as well. Hold the Y button down and then release and Samus will unleash a barrage of missiles at once. Of course, ammo isn\'t unlimited, so players have to be constantly on their toes and find weapons and power-up caches.



From what we\'ve seen so far, power-ups are standard fare. You\'ve got an invisibility pick-up that makes Samus translucent (this may work in the heat of battle with four players, but when playing two-player split-screen it\'s pretty easy to tell where the other player is just by looking at his screen), invulnerability, and massive damage. But thanks to the ability to morph into ball form and zoom through the stage at high speeds, the action proved to be surprisingly fun. We\'ve be lying if we said that we didn\'t prefer online deathmatches with hide-and-seek style missions like in Pandora Tomorrow (Xbox/PS2 versions) or team-based full-screen play with more than four, but as far as split-screen multiplayer goes, Echoes seems to be on the right track. The tight demo level design and the lock-on/radar balancing makes for some intense action, but in the face of games like Mario Party or Mario Tennis, we\'ll have to defer judgment on whether MP2 will be the one game to consume most of our multiplayer hours later this year.

Here\'s hoping the battle maps and gameplay is as varied as the wonderful single-player experience Retro managed to conjure up with the first Metroid Prime game. If not -- well, then there\'s always the promising solo adventure featuring a Zelda-style light and dark world. Either way, we\'re anxiously awaiting Metroid Prime 2 Echoes\' November release. If you\'re with us, add the game to your wishlist.

-- Peer Schneider

>>>Link<<<

[Living-In-Clip]

Can\'t believe I am about to say this.


It actually looks fairly decent.

Originally posted by Living-In-Clip
Can\'t believe I am about to say this.


It actually looks fairly decent.

:eek:......:eek:

ok... now WHO the hell are you...and what have you done with the REAL LIC .

P.S.

This one looks very shagadelic...

and whats more us BRITS get it before the YANKS ....

 WOOT .

Cant wait for this, I loved the first one and if L.I.C says it looks decent, this may be the best game of all time.

1up reviews Metroid Prime Echoes
>>>Link<<<

Originally posted by Living-In-Clip
Can\'t believe I am about to say this.


It actually looks fairly decent.

I didnt just hear that.

Dont tell me im alone in disliking the NGC Metroids now. .

Really though, i havent done too much research on this one but after the first gamecube one, ive juse been too turned off to bother.

Metroid Prime kicked ass. This will definatly not be a dissapointment.

thought the demo sucked monkey balls, but then again I hated Metroid Prime with an utter passion.

Originally posted by Lord Nicon
Dont tell me im alone in disliking the NGC Metroids now. .

Really though, i havent done too much research on this one but after the first gamecube one, ive juse been too turned off to bother.

I agree. I bought the first one as a n00b to the series, but couldn\'t be bothered to finish. It was just too boring for me.

The screenshots of this one are pretty, but they look boring to me, too. I\'ve been spent on first-person-shooters (and their spin-off, adventurey genres ) since N64.

They just all seem so generic to me. Geist is the only one that\'s had something to interest me lately. I wonder if I\'ll pick that up when it\'s out...

-Dan

>>>Gamespot reviews Metroid Prime Echoes<<<

9.1