Full Tilt

Sydney Morning Herald

Saturday January 28, 2006

Eliot Fish

Metroid's armour-clad heroine returns for more pinball action, writes Eliot Fish.

Metroid Prime Pinball

Nintendo DS $69.95 ***

Since its debut in 1986 on the NES system, the Metroid games have developed a dedicated following among the Nintendo faithful. For some, it's a more important licence than the portly plumber himself. But unlike Mario, Metroid has never been branded on a variety of spin-off material - no Metroid Tennis, Metroid Golf or Metroid Party, for instance. Metroid Prime Pinball is an anomaly.

The idea for this game probably sprang from the concept that Metroid's armour-clad heroine, Samus, has the bizarre ability to withdraw into a "morph ball" and roll through air ducts and crawl spaces. In Metroid Prime Pinball, you can take great delight in knocking Samus's spheroid form around tables that are designed as if they were miniature levels within the Metroid universe.

The game cleverly utilises the Nintendo DS's two screens to provide an appropriate vertical format for play, with no scrolling or zooming. Flipper control is as simple as using your index fingers on the two shoulder buttons, and the ball physics are spot on, so importantly it "feels" like the real thing.

It's impressive the way the Metroid style permeates the whole game. The graphics are crisp, well-animated and detailed, while the sound effects and music are straight out of Metroid Prime on GameCube. Combat mini-games and the challenge to collect various artefacts help to give the pinball a satisfying arcade action edge. Metroid fans will flip.

The game's weakness is its limited selection of levels - there are only two main tables, with another four that are more like boss battles with a pinball theme.

The game comes with a bonus Rumble Pak to give you the sensation a ball is really thumping around the screen, while a multiplayer mode can support up to eight players in a wireless multiball challenge.

Endgame: It's a new tilt on the Mertoid licence from Nintendo, but the gamble has paid off.

Go! Sudoku

PSP $49.95 ***

The puzzle phenomenon that is sudoku really needs no introduction. The million-dollar question is what can you do with a PSP that you can't do with a pencil?

Taking your PSP on the train or a long car ride can mean instant entertainment to fill those dull moments, and puzzle games that you can solve within a short period of time perfectly suit that portability. Go! Sudoku delivers a pick-up-and-play challenge for lovers of that now infamous Japanese brain tease.

The presentation is nice but nothing too flashy - this is very much a pure version of sudoku, without a video game gimmick in sight. Well, almost. The only real change is the inclusion of a clock to track how long it takes you to complete each puzzle. The incentive is to then improve your times across the tiers of difficulty, from "easy" through to "fiendish".

Entering the numbers without a pen is painless: you simply tap the shoulder button

to cycle through the numbers from one to nine, and then scroll a cursor around the grid to your desired location and drop it in. Mistakes are easily erased.

Options also include pass sudoku (multiplayer sudoku on one PSP, with each player allowed to input one number per turn) and wireless sudoku (for a 2-4 player time challenge), along with a colourful tutorial.

Go! Sudoku may be addictive but because of the repetitious nature of the puzzles, you might wonder why it's worth forking out $50. One benefit is that you have a supply of 1000 puzzles at your fingertips, so addicts will never go wanting. Additional puzzle packs can be downloaded to your PSP from www.yourpsp.com.au.

Endgame: Go! Sudoku is go-anywhere sudoku for the obsessed only. The mildly interested should stick to the paper version. EF

© 2006 Sydney Morning Herald

Back to News Index | Back to Home