![]() This quasi-cartographic focus can in turn help to theorize more broadly a way of decoding game objects and spaces (at least in the puzzle/action-adventure game genre ) which would serve two purposes: first, to improve design practices and second, to articulate how games are uniquely situated as a medium to model contemporary life. The final section will draw parallels between successful imperative storytelling and the processes of cognitive mapping that are felt to be integral to subjectivity in theories of postmodernism. I will go on to explain the successes of the Metroid series in the second section, and to analyze the problems associated with Other M in the third section, in both cases using an imperative storytelling approach. In the first section, I will situate this analysis with certain recent examinations of “narrativity” and space in games, specifically those outlined by Marie-Laure Ryan and Steffen Walz in particular, I will use a theory of “imperative storytelling” as an interpretative framework that, working within these and other examinations, can be particularly instructive for the analysis of certain video game genres. Understanding how that system’s affordances are constructed in different Metroid installments is central to understanding how each game approaches storytelling. Metroid ’s mapping system, this paper will argue, is the key. But if Metroid: Other M appeared to stumble on the narrative level, an analysis of why – and in what specific ways – it did so might better help us to understand why earlier Metroid games were seen as great successes. Many fans saw this as a betrayal of the character, especially since Samus – in earlier games an autonomous bounty hunter – was now taking orders from a patronizing new character, Adam Malkovich. More significantly, the player-avatar protagonist, Samus Aran, was made to speak for the first time since her appearance in the original Metroid (Nintendo R&D1, 1986). Other M diverged from the first-person gameplay that had distinguished the Metroid series for much of the 2000s, returning to the third-person perspective of earlier games with a more “arcade” feel. When Metroid: Other M (Team Ninja, 2010) was released on the Nintendo Wii, it got mixed reactions from fans and critics. In America, it sold 173,000 units in September, though “less than half a million” by November of the same year, which was far below what Nintendo was anticipating.A revised version of this was published in Games and Culture in January 2017. It sold 50,000 copies in two weeks in Japan and was the third-best-selling game the week of its release. But the plot and the characterization have people split, with more people hating it than liking it.Ĭommercially, the game was either a raging success or a limp flop, depending on your region. ![]() And a lot of people would agree: it looks very pretty (especially for a Wii game) and the music is very good and all that jazz. Critics praised the graphics, music, atmosphere, controls, and just the whole general feel of the game. All we knew about Samus, as a character, up to that point, was that she liked to leave exotic planets by blowing them up.Ĭritical reception of the game was extremely polar after the game came out. We were promised an engaging storyline taking us further into Samus as a character ground that had never been tread before. The game looked gorgeous, the audio was great, and the gameplay looked…different, but doable. Metroid: Other M was first announced at E3 2009, to much hype and high expectations. The guy actually has a pretty extensive repertoire for Nintendo games. He also supervised each of the Metroid Prime games. It was developed, published, and written by a long-haired Japanese hippy named Yoshio Sakamoto, a man who also directed every Metroid game excluding the original NES game (I incorrectly state that he had in the first video) and Metroid II: Return of Samus. It was the first Japan-made Metroid game since Zero Mission, and was developed by a group calling themselves “Project M”, consisting of members from Nintendo, Team Ninja (Dead or Alive, Ninja Gaiden), and D-Rockets (cutscenes). That’s right! Metroid: Other M was released for the Nintendo Wii in North America on August 31st, 2010.
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