DVD, Smallville S2 (Visitor) (2)
Traditional 'Smallville' on the face of it, at least at first, and I had the impression this was going to be a weaker episode of the season. But that was probably the result of not really liking the story in the past, and perhaps that lessened my expectations, because this time I found it to be quite a lovely instalment that threw up various ideas, was beautifully shot, well acted, and kept me guessing all the way through whether Cyrus was an alien or not. It starts with a spot of bullying in class, that's the main reason it seems classic 'Smallville,' but instead of Cyrus turning out to be a vengeful psychopath with murderous tendencies, and whom Clark has to deal with, it's quickly apparent that he's not on the list of meteor freaks that have required intervention. In fact it soon becomes apparent that Cyrus could actually be a fellow Kryptonian. Now I didn't think that was likely, but I did wonder if he might be from another planet - hey, if Clark can drop on Earth and grow up a farm boy, why couldn't a similar thing have happened to Cyrus? Obviously Clark finds it hard to believe, but you soon realise he wants to, he wants a connection to the newly discovered world he was from, which Dr. Swann (who gets a mention), had informed him about in only the previous episode. I like that he has various people to talk to him about the situation from various degrees of understanding: his parents are one angle, Pete is another - he knows the secret, too, and he's someone Clark can discuss things with who isn't in authority over him and can talk man to man.
If only there had been more scenes for Pete like the one he gets in this one. It's not that it's anything special, but it does illustrate the point of having him be there as a confidant. Chloe is next in line, she's part of the gang, but not on the inside, so doesn't know Clark's point of view, and then there's Lana and perhaps Lex, who are on the periphery and have the good or the bad side when it comes to Clark. The good, in that Lana was slyly hoping Clark would offer to stable her horse at the Kent Farm, the bad, in Lex showing girlfriend Dr. Bryce his secret room that contains the car that smashed into Clark and various pieces of evidence about him and his family. That's another fascinating situation being developed: Helen clearly seems to want to be around Lex, unlike a lot of people, but at the same time she's garnered Martha's trust for not giving her boy away after the strange blood sample he'd given. Jonathan doesn't trust her, yet Martha, whether through the difficulties and changes in herself from pregnancy, goes against his wishes and confides in Helen, and it's putting the doctor in a very delicate position: two opposites both trusting her and being willing to invest that trust. I have the feeling she turns out to be a spy for Lionel (who doesn't appear again this time), so it may not be genuine affection for Lex, but even if she were working for the other Luthor, she's still at a kind of opposite ends of the spectrum at the same time.
It was these little character developments that were popping up in the episode that enamoured me with the episode, but it was also the story of Cyrus, this outsider who believes he is from another planet where his real parents are waiting for him, the traditional wish of the orphan, and just the idea that he and Clark could in some way be connected is a huge thing at this point in the series when it was so much more realistic and you didn't have all kinds of Kryptonians popping up, which got ridiculous. It was a small, personal story, and yes, there is another of those weird non-meteor rock powers, like Ryan had: Cyrus can heal, but it's not, seemingly from the meteor rocks, unless he was outside when they fell, which is how Clark explains him being able to draw the ship that brought him. It doesn't really need explanation I suppose, it's more important that he uses the healing and is put in a position where he could have refused to save the nasty bully that had caused so much grief. He chooses to set aside his own compelling desire to be at the top of his tower where he believes he will have that one chance to rejoin his kind, in order to sacrifice it all to save the life of someone that doesn't deserve it. It's an inspiring moment, worthy of the kind of quality inspiration that 'Star Trek' used to do so well before it became mere shoot-'em-up fantasy in recent years, and I respected it and enjoyed the episode so much more because it was able to successfully conclude the episode.
I even loved the moment Clark pulls the tower back upright and the vehicle trying to topple it is pulled along, too. It was a simple, but great use of his powers. When the lads surrounded him and Cyrus at school you really want him to go all 'Karate Kid' and beat up the four or five of them, however many were there, but you also know that's not the right thing to do, not because violence breeds violence, or that he couldn't explain his being able to do that, but because Clark is a man of peace and it wouldn't fit with his character - even in the hallway when the bully jibes at him or mocks Cyrus, the ordinary reaction, especially if you were big and tough as we know he is, would be to give the bully a piece of his mind, a tongue-lashing, if not an actual physical assault to make him think twice, and I feel like if the series had been made today that's what the audience would demand, but that's not the right course and I really admired his restraint in all things. I feel like TV and film has turned a corner in the years since (maybe even during), the series, with anti-heroes more and more popular, and evil getting an upper hand over other evil more desired than true heroism: not being baited, not giving in to revenge, doing good even to those that do evil to you, it's practically Biblical in its message here.
For all those reasons I really took to this episode, it seemed especially well presented, I don't know whether it was the direction or just that sense of beauty in so many shots, gorgeous lighting and an impression of goodness even in the landscape. I noticed that whenever Cyrus was there and things seemed so uncertain, the camera would be a lot more jittery, bobbing around to emphasise the mood in stark opposition to other serene images in the episode. And the way Lex just turns up at places and has that slightly sarcastic smile or tone, it really went back to Season 1 in him seeming like an unknown quantity: is he after the Kents, is he a good guy, is he serious in what he says to Helen…? It could be that with lowered expectations it stood out more, or that I hadn't watched something as uplifting for a few weeks, but whatever the reason it did work for me this time and I was completely wrong to dismiss it before. Sometimes you need a gentle, positive story, and this had no violent death or major issues, it was about identity and the give and take of secrets and trust. Even though it almost ends with Helen put in that difficult position, having said there should be no locked doors between her and Lex, at the same time she's keeping deep, dark secrets from him, it still took the time to end more positively with Lana and Clark in the barn looking at the stars. It may still be uncertain, since she confesses if Cyrus had really been an alien she'd have been unsettled, but it's not an all-out horror at the concept, so maybe Clark should have opened up at that point, the perfect opportunity?
***
Tuesday, 14 December 2021
Metroid Prime 3: Corruption
Wii, Metroid Prime 3: Corruption (2007) game
'More of the same' isn't a bad deal when it comes to high quality titles like the 'Metroid Prime' series on GameCube, but at the same time this third and final instalment in the trilogy was on a new console so you can't help but feel it should have tried to break a little new ground, create greater immersion or do something that would surprise. In reality, while it does try to inject some unique gameplay elements in the control scheme, it boils down to gimmickry and was a game I'd much rather have been able to play through with a 'Cube controller rather than the awkward Wiimote and Nunchuk. I don't know whether it was the fact I was using a third party control handset and sensor bar, or whether this was the experience for other players at the time, but I had the same issues I experienced with other games on the Wii, most relevantly 'Red Steel.' It seems the setup simply wasn't suited to first person shooters, but then it also didn't seem suitable for 3D platformers as I found with 'Mario Galaxy' - perhaps the Wii wasn't suited to traditional gaming styles in general? Not that the controls take too much away from the experience, it's still got the typical lonely, empty, and creepy settings, the progression with areas and abilities slowly being shared out in the usual dungeoneering that shares more with the 'Zelda' series than FPS'.
At the same time there is no doubt that the occasionally imprecise control method and strain placed on wrists in long play is a detriment to an otherwise enjoyable game to the extent that I almost took off a star in the rating for it. The immersion of interacting with the environment was there, but it was also few and far between, almost an afterthought to justify it being on this particular console. There were times it could be a real pain, too. Again, I may put it down to third party accessories, I've not used an official control setup on the console, so I can't say, but there was one moment in particular that I needed to do several physical actions in tandem with an ally to be able to activate something: pull this out, twist it, push it back in. But I found that while the Wii would recognise the turning motion to great effect, pushing in and out of the screen was hit or miss, often miss, so that was incredibly frustrating, though I eventually muddled through. You're also given your ship in a much more hands-on way, where you use it to solve puzzles, sit in it to travel to destinations and generally have the feeling it is your ship. It would have been nice to be able to actually fly it to various planets, perform some space combat and use the various controls that seem to have no practical use. Maybe it would have taken too much away from the exploring desolate environments so I can see why it wasn't implemented, but it's the kind of greater immersion a new game on a new console could have done with.
The game is very much like a stripped down 'Zelda,' as with the previous 'Prime' games before it: there aren't any side quests, other than the collecting of the power cells (though it turns out this is essential to final progression), there are few characters to talk to, it's mostly you going about your business of shooting, scanning and puzzling: a dungeon here, then onto the next one, no over-worlds, no shops, just pure exploration. I must say it took me a while to get into, mainly for the controls, which are fiddly with the placement of buttons (you have to keep flipping between normal view and your other visors, mainly the scan visor, by pressing '1,' which is slightly awkward). But there's a good sense of story being told in log entries you find along the way, the impression of doom and desolation is strong, and like most games of this ilk, it's the moments when you've unlocked maps and locations, backtracking to use a new ability to get to collectables such as missile expansions, life extending energy tanks, or power cells, that enhance the experience.
Once you've been to the Chozo Observatory and been given the locations of all pickups on the maps it does take away something from the challenge in the sense that it's very easy to see where to go, and this is certainly the easiest game in the series - I never even got stuck once! It's good that you have reminders of what you need to do and where to go to do it whenever you fire up the game, or if you've been wandering around for a while, and the ability to mark rooms on the map for future reference was helpful, but it does all make everything so much easier. At the same time it was wise to remove the frustration of wandering around hoping to find something you're not even sure is there, to the extent that when you don't have that option in the last proper level, the Pirate Homeworld, it is disconcerting to have no guide, forced to rely entirely on your eyes. And even with the mapped collectables you still have to solve the puzzles in each area to get at the pickups, going there is only part of the work.
I stupidly failed to scan the first power suit upgrade I came across, walking into it and picking up before I realised, which meant I could never get 100%. I could have simply restarted as I was only a little way in, but I foolishly kept going, even though from then on I scanned at every opportunity, despite knowing I couldn't get full marks. In the end, however, the game didn't appear to acknowledge the scanning - it didn't grade me on how much I'd scanned. Because I knew I'd missed at least one thing it can't be included in the percentage of the game as a whole or I wouldn't have been awarded the 100% completion I achieved, so does that mean it didn't have any bearing? The scanning is a very big part of the series and shows that there's an element of skill in how you keep track of what may need scanning - going back to previous areas, always keeping the scan visor up if you can (I made it a habit to have it on before stepping through a door so as not to be caught out by anything fast moving - similarly, you have to take risks by scanning enemies and bosses at different stages of their defeat so as not to miss scans), showing that despite the relative ease of the game, if you miss something it's gone for good, as once you've operated on things they change and need to be scanned again in their new state. The downside is that you don't always get the full sense of the visual wonder they were trying to achieve because the scan visor dims your display to show up scannable items more clearly.
Otherwise, while not any jump up from the 'Cube's visuals, it's still good looking. The music is a touch generic, the puzzles aren't exactly taxing, and the enemies aren't too tough either, apart from some of the big bosses which can take time to deal with, though it can also be partly down to the controls making things harder than they need to be at times. The variable speeds of doors opening can be a source of frustration, but I think that's another oddity carried over from the previous games. I'm not quite sure why they do that, whether it's to inject a greater sense of unease when you need to exit a room quickly to escape something, or anticipation when you're about to enter a new location, I don't know. To me it can get annoying and I wasn't sure if it was affected by where you hit the door in accuracy or distance or if you had no effect on it either way and it was completely random. Other annoyances were I never won any of the green tokens you need to unlock certain parts of the bonus content of storyboards and the like, so how are you supposed to get those? (I subsequently learned they only come from Friend Codes online!). And also, it offered me the chance not to save after the final battle, which I did, meaning my file is now inaccessible and has to be overwritten! The option to go back into a file should always be there without sacrificing the 'complete' finality of completion - I would have backed up the save file on SD card if I'd thought about it...
I would say this is a game well worth playing, whether you'd completed the first two, as I had, or not, it stands alone, especially as it is a continuation in style. The highest tribute I can give it is to say it made me want to play the original 'Metroid Prime' again just to see how it all began, and enjoy more precise control, which is always a compliment to a new game in a series. I don't know if further games have continued Samus Aran's story on subsequent consoles (the story ends with a shot of Samus flying off into space, then a mysterious 'X'-shaped craft powers up stealthily to follow…), not having kept up with the Nintendo production line, but I would love to play a version on the Switch with the latest graphics, sound and immersion in the environment to see what they could achieve now. Saying that, it's really not the visuals that are the best thing about the games, it's the involvement of the player and sense of progression and achievement that stand out. On a negative note I do find the 'sci-fi' trappings occasionally irritating as it's very magical and 'videogamey' in the manner in which things don't really make physical or technological sense (and follows the typical gaming pattern of the final level being a weird alien land that's more difficult, linear, and ends with a big boss fight that goes on for a while), I'd prefer to see a much more 'realistic' approach as sometimes shown in the great puzzles of gears and mechanics rather than a magical fantasy style, but perhaps that would make it less accessible. As it is, this was a rewarding experience that I could imagine playing through again in future (a higher difficulty mode was unlocked on completion), and is one of the better games I've experienced on the Wii. I was thinking for much of the time it doesn't quite show the system could cope with all genres as well as its predecessors, but it won me over before the end when I realised I kept wanting to get back to it!
****
'More of the same' isn't a bad deal when it comes to high quality titles like the 'Metroid Prime' series on GameCube, but at the same time this third and final instalment in the trilogy was on a new console so you can't help but feel it should have tried to break a little new ground, create greater immersion or do something that would surprise. In reality, while it does try to inject some unique gameplay elements in the control scheme, it boils down to gimmickry and was a game I'd much rather have been able to play through with a 'Cube controller rather than the awkward Wiimote and Nunchuk. I don't know whether it was the fact I was using a third party control handset and sensor bar, or whether this was the experience for other players at the time, but I had the same issues I experienced with other games on the Wii, most relevantly 'Red Steel.' It seems the setup simply wasn't suited to first person shooters, but then it also didn't seem suitable for 3D platformers as I found with 'Mario Galaxy' - perhaps the Wii wasn't suited to traditional gaming styles in general? Not that the controls take too much away from the experience, it's still got the typical lonely, empty, and creepy settings, the progression with areas and abilities slowly being shared out in the usual dungeoneering that shares more with the 'Zelda' series than FPS'.
At the same time there is no doubt that the occasionally imprecise control method and strain placed on wrists in long play is a detriment to an otherwise enjoyable game to the extent that I almost took off a star in the rating for it. The immersion of interacting with the environment was there, but it was also few and far between, almost an afterthought to justify it being on this particular console. There were times it could be a real pain, too. Again, I may put it down to third party accessories, I've not used an official control setup on the console, so I can't say, but there was one moment in particular that I needed to do several physical actions in tandem with an ally to be able to activate something: pull this out, twist it, push it back in. But I found that while the Wii would recognise the turning motion to great effect, pushing in and out of the screen was hit or miss, often miss, so that was incredibly frustrating, though I eventually muddled through. You're also given your ship in a much more hands-on way, where you use it to solve puzzles, sit in it to travel to destinations and generally have the feeling it is your ship. It would have been nice to be able to actually fly it to various planets, perform some space combat and use the various controls that seem to have no practical use. Maybe it would have taken too much away from the exploring desolate environments so I can see why it wasn't implemented, but it's the kind of greater immersion a new game on a new console could have done with.
The game is very much like a stripped down 'Zelda,' as with the previous 'Prime' games before it: there aren't any side quests, other than the collecting of the power cells (though it turns out this is essential to final progression), there are few characters to talk to, it's mostly you going about your business of shooting, scanning and puzzling: a dungeon here, then onto the next one, no over-worlds, no shops, just pure exploration. I must say it took me a while to get into, mainly for the controls, which are fiddly with the placement of buttons (you have to keep flipping between normal view and your other visors, mainly the scan visor, by pressing '1,' which is slightly awkward). But there's a good sense of story being told in log entries you find along the way, the impression of doom and desolation is strong, and like most games of this ilk, it's the moments when you've unlocked maps and locations, backtracking to use a new ability to get to collectables such as missile expansions, life extending energy tanks, or power cells, that enhance the experience.
Once you've been to the Chozo Observatory and been given the locations of all pickups on the maps it does take away something from the challenge in the sense that it's very easy to see where to go, and this is certainly the easiest game in the series - I never even got stuck once! It's good that you have reminders of what you need to do and where to go to do it whenever you fire up the game, or if you've been wandering around for a while, and the ability to mark rooms on the map for future reference was helpful, but it does all make everything so much easier. At the same time it was wise to remove the frustration of wandering around hoping to find something you're not even sure is there, to the extent that when you don't have that option in the last proper level, the Pirate Homeworld, it is disconcerting to have no guide, forced to rely entirely on your eyes. And even with the mapped collectables you still have to solve the puzzles in each area to get at the pickups, going there is only part of the work.
I stupidly failed to scan the first power suit upgrade I came across, walking into it and picking up before I realised, which meant I could never get 100%. I could have simply restarted as I was only a little way in, but I foolishly kept going, even though from then on I scanned at every opportunity, despite knowing I couldn't get full marks. In the end, however, the game didn't appear to acknowledge the scanning - it didn't grade me on how much I'd scanned. Because I knew I'd missed at least one thing it can't be included in the percentage of the game as a whole or I wouldn't have been awarded the 100% completion I achieved, so does that mean it didn't have any bearing? The scanning is a very big part of the series and shows that there's an element of skill in how you keep track of what may need scanning - going back to previous areas, always keeping the scan visor up if you can (I made it a habit to have it on before stepping through a door so as not to be caught out by anything fast moving - similarly, you have to take risks by scanning enemies and bosses at different stages of their defeat so as not to miss scans), showing that despite the relative ease of the game, if you miss something it's gone for good, as once you've operated on things they change and need to be scanned again in their new state. The downside is that you don't always get the full sense of the visual wonder they were trying to achieve because the scan visor dims your display to show up scannable items more clearly.
Otherwise, while not any jump up from the 'Cube's visuals, it's still good looking. The music is a touch generic, the puzzles aren't exactly taxing, and the enemies aren't too tough either, apart from some of the big bosses which can take time to deal with, though it can also be partly down to the controls making things harder than they need to be at times. The variable speeds of doors opening can be a source of frustration, but I think that's another oddity carried over from the previous games. I'm not quite sure why they do that, whether it's to inject a greater sense of unease when you need to exit a room quickly to escape something, or anticipation when you're about to enter a new location, I don't know. To me it can get annoying and I wasn't sure if it was affected by where you hit the door in accuracy or distance or if you had no effect on it either way and it was completely random. Other annoyances were I never won any of the green tokens you need to unlock certain parts of the bonus content of storyboards and the like, so how are you supposed to get those? (I subsequently learned they only come from Friend Codes online!). And also, it offered me the chance not to save after the final battle, which I did, meaning my file is now inaccessible and has to be overwritten! The option to go back into a file should always be there without sacrificing the 'complete' finality of completion - I would have backed up the save file on SD card if I'd thought about it...
I would say this is a game well worth playing, whether you'd completed the first two, as I had, or not, it stands alone, especially as it is a continuation in style. The highest tribute I can give it is to say it made me want to play the original 'Metroid Prime' again just to see how it all began, and enjoy more precise control, which is always a compliment to a new game in a series. I don't know if further games have continued Samus Aran's story on subsequent consoles (the story ends with a shot of Samus flying off into space, then a mysterious 'X'-shaped craft powers up stealthily to follow…), not having kept up with the Nintendo production line, but I would love to play a version on the Switch with the latest graphics, sound and immersion in the environment to see what they could achieve now. Saying that, it's really not the visuals that are the best thing about the games, it's the involvement of the player and sense of progression and achievement that stand out. On a negative note I do find the 'sci-fi' trappings occasionally irritating as it's very magical and 'videogamey' in the manner in which things don't really make physical or technological sense (and follows the typical gaming pattern of the final level being a weird alien land that's more difficult, linear, and ends with a big boss fight that goes on for a while), I'd prefer to see a much more 'realistic' approach as sometimes shown in the great puzzles of gears and mechanics rather than a magical fantasy style, but perhaps that would make it less accessible. As it is, this was a rewarding experience that I could imagine playing through again in future (a higher difficulty mode was unlocked on completion), and is one of the better games I've experienced on the Wii. I was thinking for much of the time it doesn't quite show the system could cope with all genres as well as its predecessors, but it won me over before the end when I realised I kept wanting to get back to it!
****
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