Metroid Prime Pinball

"Pinball? O_o"

Metroid Prime Pinball was released on October 24th, 2005, with skeptical looks. Not many people grasped the concept that Samus was a pinball in herself. When I saw this game for 10 bucks at my local Gamestop, and the fact that I only had 13 bucks in my pocket, I decided to get it.

Gameplay- 7

This game has pretty addictive gameplay with one major flaw. You can't save your progress in this game. You can save your high scores, but you cannot save your progress. Although that might be, you can easily beat this game in one sitting, by collecting the 12 artifacts.

Each pinball table in this game is based one of the many areas in Metroid Prime. Some of these stages include Phendrana Drifts, Phazon Mines, and Space Pirate Frigate. As many of you may already know, Pinball is played with a slanted table, forcing a metal ball ( or in this case, Samus's morph ball) downwards via the power of gravity. Near the bottom of the table is two flippers. You have to used these to prevent the ball from going in between them. Most of the time, when you start a new table, a magnetic force field is placed between the flippers, blocking the ball's access to the abyss below. This wears off over time, though, so don't get used to it.

You can collect an artifact by doing a variety of things. You can defeat enemies before time runs out, you can get a certain milestone of points, etc, etc. After you complete a certain objective, you switch tables. The first two tables that you can choose have a fairly simple boss at the head of the table. You can beat this monster by running into it a certain amount of times. After you kill it, you get an artifact.

Another key element to this game is health. The only time you really have to worry about this is when you are facing a boss. When you get hit by a boss's attack, you lose a bar of health. You have eight bars. If you lose all of your bars, Samus's morph ball explodes.


Graphics- 8

The graphics in this game are suprisingly impressive. They are clear and detailed, opposed to the pixelated sprites I thought would be there in a game I bought for 10 bucks. When Samus emerges from her morph ball in Turret Mode, it is an excellent sprite and lives up to the ds's quality. The enemies have also very good graphical qualities, which is the total opposite of what I expected.

Music/Sound- 7

The music in this game are great; they are slightly remixed versions of themes from the original Metroid Prime. The boss's music transforms an abandoned snow cap area to an intense, heated battle. The music is excellent and well programmed

The reason I gave this particular statistic a 7 is because of the bad sound quality. When you injure the giant rock monster that resides in the icy snow cap region, you hear a pathetic groan. When you hit him multiple times in a small amount of time, it gets VERY annoying. The sound of the omega pirate's phazon shockwave sounds like nails against a chalkboard, not a giant blue explosion.

Controls: 10

The controls in this game are basic, yet effective. Unlike previous pinball games I have played before, you can use L and R for the flippers AND use the regular A and control pad buttons too. Those are the only buttons you use for this game ( other than menu commands ), So thats why I gave it a 10.

Overall 7/10

This is a fun game, but it's rather short length and the whole "not being able to save incident" is why I gave it a 7.

Rent or Buy?

If you see this game for under 15 bucks, and / or are a die hard metroid fan, I recommend this to you.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 09/14/07

Game Release: Metroid Prime Pinball (w/Rumble Pak) (US, 10/24/05)