Somehow, Corruption is both the best and worst of the Metroid Prime series. It’s the best looking, it has the smoothest difficulty curve, and yes: it has the best controls.

It proves once again that when controls are tweaked with the Wii in mind rather than crowbarred onto the remote that it’s a very capable control system. I couldn’t imagine playing Halo on the Wii remote but at the same time I couldn’t imagine playing Metroid Prime on a 360 controller. It has its place, and that’s fine.

My main complaint is that it’s continued the shift away from what makes a Metroid that was started in Metroid Prime 2 and Hunters, and this one really suffers the most from it. This series is about isolation on a hostile planet, whereas Corruption has an opening that infamously echoes that of the first Halo to an almost plagiaristic extent, and most of the planets will have you running into fellow bounty hunters and receiving communications from the Federation. I’m not the only one to have also noted that these aspects aren’t particularly well done either, making them especially alienating for fans.

Still, these issues are with the story, which is thankfully a largely secondary distraction. The good stuff is just as good, and the token gimmick (the titular corruption of the phazon variety) is better than the annoying Dark Aether guff in Metroid Prime 2. It’s a great sci-fi adventure and, if Retro can get over the temptation to lean too much on the story, leaves me keen to see what they can do with their obvious talent and the best first-person shooting controls on a console.