Metroid WiiWare Preview

I woke up this morning and found a little bit of news on the GA Forums. Seems Nintendo and Retro have released the first WiiWare offering (well beyond Opera). So I went to the shopping channel, and sure enough in the new featured items in the upper left as well as in the WiiWare area, there’s a Metroid Prime: Corruption preview.

So I clicked on it and was happy to see it was free and relatively small … well actually the latter was a disappointment as I was hoping for a full on demo and didn’t think they could fit one in that size. Download only took me a minute and then I returned to the menu to start it up.

Sadly, there’s no demo. What’s there are two movies, the first of which is a collection of clips that at least to me had some new and very exciting footage. It got me pretty pumped for this game. The second is from the bridge fighting scene which I’ve seen a lot of. There are spaces for two other movies that are noted to become available on 8/13.

One little easter egg like feature is if you close the movie browser window by clicking on the upper right to minimize it you can use the wiimote to reveal some game art. Just point and hold down A to reveal it like a scratch off lottery ticket. There seems to be two different screens, but who knows, maybe there are more.

So we have an initial Wii Ware offering in the form of a game preview. It is a nice start. A demo would have been brilliant and a more promising first move. I also wish I received a notice about this item instead of having to find out on forums. Maybe I just haven’t received my message yet and the nice blue light that comes with it.

That being said I’m very excited for Metroid. It is one of the very few games I am really looking forward to playing on the Wii. The first movie in the preview very clearly communicates the new feel of the game. There is a little urgency to it, a bit of an epic encounter. I realize that this feel may be taking Metroid in a different direction in some ways, I mean she gets out of her ship and is briefed by a soldier. Personally, I think I might like it.