Pacini spoke to Kotaku a couple of weeks ago from his office in Austin, Texas where it was briefly snowing. Pacini works on secret projects these days for his game development company Armature, a start-up formed by him and fellow former colleagues from Nintendo-owned Retro Studios. His known work is the Metroid Prime Trilogy, developed by Retro and a team from Nintendo's Japan offices and released on the Nintendo GameCube and Wii from 2002 through 2007.

Aramture's work remained secret in 2009, but the company's fortunes and return of the Metroid Prime series to the public eye with the Wii release of series compilation Metroid Prime: Trilogy allowed Pacini some professional and personal intersections with the gaming mainstream.

One of the bigger surprises for Pacini in 2009 was an ABC News story that aired online through ABCNews.com in October. In it, IGN's Michael Thomsen, who described the classic Orson Welles movie Citizen Kane's "symbiotic partner in the world of video games" to be that Metroid Prime trilogy Pacini worked on. "Orson Welles was using cinematography to express something very personal and human," Thomsen explained in the piece. "It wasn't just functional anymore. It was actually tied to a specific meaning about people aging, people dying, people not living up to their full potential. " The Prime games' presentation of a sole human warrior Samus Aran exploring dark and lonely worlds makes it a similarly exceptional work in its medium, the ABC piece argued. The game and the movie both dwell deeply into their protagonists' exploration for truth buried in the past.

While the Metroid Prime games are among the best-reviewed video games ever made, Pacini was surprised by the comparison. He wasn't interviewed for the ABC piece. It was sent to him by a friend. "I found out about it like everyone else did. Somebody sent an e-mail out saying, 'Look at this.' It was a WTF sort of thing… I honestly had a similar reaction to everyone else. It's flattering, and it's great, but I didn't get the comparison at all."

Pacini considers the Prime trilogy's achievement differently and in the context of both gaming's past and that of the formerly 2D pre-Prime Metroid series. "If I could say anything about Prime in terms of what I would think it would mean, I think we pushed the first-person genre a little bit and I think we were able to redefine a franchise in a positive light, bringing a game from 2D to 3D that wasn't expected. And thankfully it turned out OK."

As for that "Citizen Kane of Games" title, Pacini said he thinks that's the kind of thing that works for non-gamers. "For me, when I talk about games with my friends, we never compare games to movies," he said. "We compare games to games… I think if you're trying to describe games to someone who doesn't play, then movies are the perfect analogy. You say, 'Hey, it's like Terminator' or whatever and they get it. That comparison works more for people who don't speak the language of games." He's never heard a game developer say they hoped to make a Citizen Kane of video games.

Metroid Prime returned to Pacini's life in another way this year with the late summer release of the Wii compilation disc Metroid Prime Trilogy from Pacini's former co-workers at Retro and Nintendo. Fans often celebrate the opportunity to have a few favorite games in one package. But for a creator like Pacini that happiness was tempered by a bit of a sting.

"We thought it was awesome to see the games played with the Wii controls and, hopefully, have people pick it up who hadn't played it before. But it was also almost sad looking at this one box. This is eight years of my life in one box. ... I was really proud of my role that I played in it and the people I met and got to work with all those years. And then everything gets summed up in this little box."

The experience got Pacini thinking about years. Echoing something that BioShock lead creator Ken Levine said on a panel I co-hosted earlier this year, Pacini said that Trilogy compilation got him thinking about the amount of years he has left and the amount of games he has in them. "It's very eye-opening and at this point in my career, I really want to make sure that everything I work on is cool or important to me, because I don't have that many left in me. "

That said, Pacini can't talk about the games that he does have left in him, which is too bad for those who would like to know what the lead designer of three of gaming's best reviewed games is up to next. It sounds like part of the reason Armature's work remains secret is because Pacini, who loves the creative side of game development, has had to recently be more involved in the business side of things. He said he welcomed the opportunity to learn a new side of the industry, but that in 2009, the lessons were not that pleasant.

Working on the business side of things, he explained, exposed him to the state of the industry in '09. For those who have missed Kotaku's many stories about lay-offs and lowered sales, the news here is that that state is not good. " The industry got real shook up," Pacini said, referring to the many lay-offs. "There's a lot of things happening in terms of how projects get green-lit now. I hope you like games that are Blank of Blank 3 or Blank of Blank 7, because that's all that's going to be coming out for years. If it's not an established franchise or something that's sold already, publishers are a lot less likely to spend money on it and, I think, rightfully so since everyone is cutting back."

Here's what Pacini sees in his crystal ball: "I think 2010 is going to be awesome for games but 2011 is going to kind of suck. In 2011, you're going to see the results of what happened in 2009. You're going to see a lot of sequels, a lot of me-too products as a lot of cutbacks. Publishers are squeezing the number of new [intellectual properties] they're doing per year to a very small number."

Armature does have a future, Pacini happily notes. He seemed eager to elaborate more. But he can't. So leave it at that and cross your fingers that if gaming can be any better in the future, Mark Pacini will have something to do with it — even if he's no Orson Welles.

[Story images are from the Wii's Metroid Prime Trilogy]

Nintendo's Kensuke Tanabe, overseer of all things Metroid, tells the UK's Official Nintendo Magazine that the company is "always planning to make new games in the Metroid Prime series." And while Metroid: Other M is penciled in for a Wii release next year, the Prime series may return to the Nintendo DS for future iterations.

Tanabe says he "we cannot deny the possibility of realizing it on DS or DSi."

That backs up statements Tanabe made to Kotaku earlier this year. The Metroid producer said during an e-mail interview that Nintendo "will keep considering multiplayer for the Prime series," a feature included in 2006's Metroid Prime Hunters for the Nintendo DS.

Metroid Prime Still Has A Future [ONM UK]

(For context, you need to know that Nintendo-owned Retro Studios, with involvement from Nintendo Kyoto-based producer Kensuke Tanabe, developed and released Metroid Prime in 2002 as well as two sequels in 2004 and 2007. The original Prime is one of the best-reviewed video games of all time. All three games were re-released on a compilation disc called Metroid Prime Trilogy this past summer. Retro has released no other video games. I asked this question as part of an e-mail interview with the makers of the games. Most of the interview ran in this Metroid Prime Trilogy post.)

Kotaku: Metroid Prime: Trilogy is only the second release from Retro since 2004. More significantly, Retro has released just one new game in five years. Why is that? And when can people expect to hear more about whatever Retro has next?

Michael Kelbaugh, president of Retro Studios: "To be fair, there's been a number of releases from Retro Studios since 2004. Metroid Prime 2 was launched worldwide in 2004 and 2005. Metroid Prime 3 was launched in late 2007 in the U.S. and Europe, 2008 in Japan, and the current launch of Metroid Prime: Trilogy, worldwide in 2009. Efforts and resources involved supporting NTSC, PAL and Japanese launches are considerable. That's been a busy schedule and it's kept us very engaged."

Bryan Walker, Retro's senior director of development: "As Michael noted, we've actually had a number of high-profile releases over the past several years. However, we're very fortunate to be a Nintendo developer. As such, we're not forced to release a game prematurely just to make a quarterly report look better. Quality is the first and foremost consideration in everything we do. Of course, we work very hard, and efficiency is always a goal, but every effort is made to ensure our fans take home a game that can stand alongside Nintendo's very best.

"We're also a rather small team, by current industry standards. We tend to focus only on one project at a time. The Trilogy project was a bit unusual for us, in that we had just a handful of people focusing on that while the majority of the studio was getting our next project off the ground. We may in the future grow to tackle multiple projects simultaneously, but only if our standard of quality can be maintained."

Nintendo producer Kensuke Tanabe: "Actually, localization requires much more time and workforce than you can imagine… Especially for the Prime series, it took more than the usual process of localization, as we had very long texts and worked even on features or parameters. Considering those conditions, how much have we and Retro worked in these five years? Please let me calculate:

"We have worked on six versions: North American, European and Japanese versions of Prime 2 and 3 … two versions of Prime 1 and 2 for Wii, which were released only in Japan … and the North American and European versions of Trilogy. We have worked on 10 different versions! Along with them, we had also worked on a demo on Wii, which was showcased at the Tokyo Game Show. Now you have a different impression, don't you?

"And the new title of Retro is of course, under development. Hopefully we can address some information in the next year."

Retro's rate of output is not that different from that of some other top-tier studios that have specialized in first-person games. Since the 2004 release of Halo 2, Bungie Studios has released Halo 3 (2007) and Halo 3: ODST (2009) and is currently working on the 2010 Halo: Reach. Valve's Half-Life team has released Half-Life 2 (2004) and two expansions in 2006 and 2007, with a third expected no sooner than next year. Retro's pace puts it behind Bungie but a little ahead of Valve.

Some studios take a while, but until Retro puts out a game that gets panned, it will hard to quibble with their pace. And, if you do, be careful. Kensuke Tanabe appears to be ready to prove you wrong.

Our interview was conducted over e-mail, with questions sent to Nintendo a few weeks ago and responded to by members of the Nintendo-owned Retro Studios in Austin, Texas as well as by the game's Japan-based producer, Kensuke Tanabe. The team had just finished the development of Metroid Prime Trilogy, a compilation of the two GameCube Metroid Prime games, the pioneering 2002 and 2004 first-person adventure gamesin the 23-year-old Metroid series, as well as their 2007 Wii sequel, Metroid Prime 3: Corruption.

The veteran Tanabe was the one who hinted at the future of Metroid Prime — a series that seemed to have concluded with the release of 2007's Corruption. Responding to a Kotaku question about whether the Metroid series has the potential for multiplayer popularity equal to GoldenEye's or Halo's, Tanabe said, "As all I take part in is the Prime series, I am not capable of commenting on the whole Metroid series. But we will keep considering multiplayer for the Prime series. For instance, I think I can come up with some unique ideas using the Morph Ball, which is a specific skill of Samus."

That can of response will make a Metroid fan do a double-take. Tanabe's open consideration for more modes to a series thought by many fans had concluded is a tantalizing comment. Unfortunately, it is also a vague one, and one that Kotaku was unable to clarify due to the e-mail nature of the interview.

But as cagey as Tanabe was with that answer, he and Retro were generously specific in response to other Metroid inquiries.

Take jumping, for example.

How did Retro Studios manage to make — with the creation of 2002's Metroid Prime — arguably the first first-person video game with decent platform-jumping?

"One of the first considerations we had in developing the player package was how to make platforming approachable to the player," Retro's senior designer Mike Wikan told Kotaku over e-mail. "We experimented with many ideas, including having the camera pitch down a little after the jump apex, fields of view, standardized platform sizes and jump heights as well as player gravity to strike the right balance of approachability and positive tension. Once we locked those basic things down, we were able to build the rest of the game around it."

Tanabe explained even more tricks the team used to make platforming in Prime a pleasure: "As Mike just mentioned, we have discussed very, very carefully about the feature of jumping. We decided not to create jumps so high that Samus can only barely reach [them] or long valleys that Samus could jump, or to design footholds larger than our specific basis. At any rate, we solidified these standards by discussing with Retro about including an additional layer of safety, even in areas where we felt when playing the game ourselves that the jumps were doable. "

Platforming worked in Prime, allowing Retro's series to present, in first-person 3D, a version of the leaping actions that heroine Samus Aran performed in the original 2D Metroid games. Bit by bit, other staples of the 2D games made it into the Prime games, including Samus' mid-air attack-acrobatics known as the Screw Attack, which was implemented in Metroid Prime 2: Echoes. One of the only 2D Metroid power-ups that didn't make it into Prime was the Speed Boost, a super-charged running ability that would allow Samus to dash through walls, exploding through dirt and rock-filled caves as if they were empty hallways. It's a cool ability that went missing.

"The Speed Boost was something we were interested in trying early on," Wikan told Kotkau, "But we found that limitations imposed by the scale of our environments — as well as the first-person player viewpoint — made that system less appealing. We discussed the possibility of developing something in third person that might work, but in the end determined that time spent developing that system would take away from so many other things we felt might be better explored."

The Speed Boost wasn't the team's only experiment with series features that was tricky to implement. The developers told Kotaku that they had considered making Samus' ship a more prominent aspect in Prime. The third game, which begins with the player, as Samus, piloting her vessel, was originally going to take that concept further. "Early in development of Metroid Prime 3: Corruption we played with the notion of making the ship a whole system of similar impact to the game as, say, the Morph Ball," Wikan said. "After discussions with [Tanabe's Nintendo development group in Japan] SPD and more thought on Retro's part, we felt that, while the ship was going to be an important part of the game (with the utilization of the command visor), it might take too much of the focus away from Samus and her struggle against the Space Pirates and Dark Samus."

Tanabe elaborated on this one too: "At the time we launched the Prime 3 project, we at Nintendo proposed that Retro plan a game system where the game takes place centered on the space ship, and they gave us ideas accordingly. On the other hand, we and Retro had agreed not to develop another game mode like a shooter in the space ship, which would take us a significant amount of work, as large as making another game title. With many discussions we reached the conclusion that we need a brand new system for this final chapter of the trilogy, and decided to use Hyper Mode utilizing Phazon as a pillar of the game play."

The developers of the Prime games had some unusual priorities. They were developing first-person games that many people would call first-person shooters. But, noted Wikan, "in those games our primary consideration was player movement and jumping in the environment so that they could more easily explore it. Shooting was a very important, though secondary, consideration." He noted that Retro is still proud of the original target-lock-on control scheme that didn't allow players to aim freely. It was featured in the original GameCube editions of the first two Prime games. The Wii release of Trilogy does away with those controls, in favor of the point-and-shot system of Metroid Prime 3: Corruption. Tanabe said the original scheme was ideal for the GameCube controller and that the Corruption and Trilogy method best suits the Wii Remote and Nunchuk.

The Metroid series will continue with 2010's Metroid: Other M, a Nintendo and Tecmo joitn project which involves one of Metroid's original creators, Yoshio Sakamoto, but neither Tanabe nor Retro. Despite their lack of involvement in this next game, the Prime creators spoke proudly of what they added to the series. "The expansion into fully three-dimensional exploration was obviously the most important element," Wikan said, "But it also added a great deal of character and depth to many of the creatures and themes explored in early Metroid games through the Scan Visor system. The Space Pirates, for instance, were given a great deal of character as well as a more unified intent in the series. In addition, the Metroid Prime series explored a great deal of new territory regarding the Federation and the Metroid universe as a whole, with the inclusion of new races like the Luminoth and the Ing. "

Wikan would like to see more of Metroid Prime 3's Galactic Federation and the Space Pirates in future Metroid projects and is hopeful that the visor system and enhanced grapple beam will "live on as well."

As for the Prime team's future, Retro has been working on a new mystery game. While the studio still focuses on a single project at a time, it was able to create Trilogy on the side with just a "handful of people," according to the studio's senior director of development, Bryan Walker. Retro isn't offering hints about what the next game will be. Said Tanabe, "Hopefully we can address some information in the next year."

See for yourself in the above comparison, uploaded yesterday by YouTube user ThunderChaosStudios. The cleanup didn't affect the rating process at all. All three games in the trilogy were originally rated teen, and so is the trilogy. One wonders why someone went to the trouble of eliminating the only(?) swear word in the game, one you hear on television daily.

I've contacted a Nintendo public relations rep for comment. If we hear back, we'll update the post here.

Metroid Prime: Corruptions Admiral Dane Drops the Curse Word [GoNintendo via Joystiq]

The unlocks screen for this compilation of the three Metroid Prime games released across the GameCube and Wii doesn't appear to offer anything that the series hasn't offered before. I couldn't find a way to unlock, say a new trailer for Metroid Other M or a documentary about the long lost Metroid Dread. Such things not only don't seem to be on this disc; perhaps they don't exist.

But what is on the disc, in addition to the three games, is some unlockable content that recalls some important history. As you see in the shot above, Trilogy adopts the currency-based unlock system introduced in Metroid Prime 3: Corruption. The system involves the player earning credits for completing various activities while playing the games and then cashing them in on the unlocks (In an innovative twist I haven't seen other games try since Corruption, you can send your credits to other players so they can use them.)

What I found interesting about Trilogy's unlock menu is how it offers a bit of history.

One unlockable offered is the ability to get Samus to wear a special Fusion Suit in the first Metroid Prime. While credits may be needed for that in Trilogy, the incentive was activated in the original 2002 release of the first Prime only when players connected a GameCube with a Game Boy Advance that contained a copy of Metroid Fusion. That was part of Nintendo's push for "connectivity," a linkage of games from handheld device to home console that for years was the publisher's answer to its limited support of online play. Connectivity is what Nintendo wanted to promote during the GameCube era, possibly hoping that linking the hot-selling GBA to the tepid-selling GameCube would lift the latter's fortunes. Seven years later, connectivity is dabbled with on Sony platforms, the DS seldom connects to the Wii, the Fusion suit is now a fake-money-based unlockable and Nintendo's thriving without emphasizing connectivity.

There are no unlockable, as far as I could tell, associated with 2004's Metroid Prime 2: Echoes. I don't recall the original having any. Instead, it offered split-screen multiplayer, which is available in Trilogy as well. That's another sign of what Nintendo was experimenting with and what, given the lack of multiplayer in Metroid Prime 3, what it abandoned.

For the third game, the 2007 Wii edition Corruption, there are a batch of unlockables. One of them puts a Mii bobblehead in Samus' spaceship. That was one of the first implementations on the Wii of a Mii in a game that wasn't rendered in the cheerful Wii Sports/Play/Fit style. It is an implementation that is now slowly but surely cropping up over on the Xbox 360 with the integration of Avatars into all kinds of games, but Nintendo has kept its Miis out of other games that have more of the T-rated adventure/action style.

Also unlockable from Corruption is a screenshot tool. I never understood why Nintendo kept this feature so hidden. Why force players to excel at a game before allowing them to snap a screenshot of it, manipulate he shot in the Wii's photo channel and then send it to a friend? I remember beating Corruption, snapping a shot of my victory and sending it to my brother-in-law, victoriously. That's back when Nintendo seemed to be experimenting more with integrating some of the Wii channels to its games, something I haven't seen much more of since 2007.

There are unlockable character art sets and dioramas unlockable in Trilogy as well.

Maybe, if we're lucky, there are more deeply hidden treasures. But the ones that are evident from the start in Trilogy, while not offering anything new, present a suitably archival take on some of the developments at Nintendo in the past nine years.

Yoshio Sakamoto, Nintendo's long-time developer of 2D Metroids, and Yousuke Hayashi, head of Tecmo's Team Ninja, wouldn't tell me and Brian Crecente how Metroid Other M controls.

They wouldn't clarify how much of a 2D or 3D game Other M is.

Those fundamentals were kept secret during our E3 interview with the two men leading the collaboration between Nintendo, Ninja Gaiden development studio Team Ninja and a cut-scene production team led by a Team Ninja collaborator named Mr. Kitaura. That group, dubbed Project M, is creating the 2010 Wii exclusive Metroid Other M that closed Nintendo's E3 2009 press conference.

And while we did squeeze out of them that the game wouldn't support MotionPlus or the Wii Balance Board (they knew that was a joke question), Sakamoto and Hayashi were more eager to promote two aspects that Nintendo doesn't often use to sell its games: stylishness and story.

"Our goal is to provide the most interesting gameplay and deliver the most cool Metroid ever," Sakamoto said. It should be noted that Sakamoto has one of the most impressive resumes in the industry, so his desire to top past Metroids is a desire to top his own work. Back in the 80s, he did character design for the original Metroid. He directed or supervised most of the games in that series. He also did game design for Nintendo Entertainment System cult classic Kid Icarus and has produced most of the WarioWare games that followed the first of that series.

A legacy of Metroid development isn't all it takes to make Other M. In 2006, for all of Sakamoto's credentials, he found that his team of 2D-Metroid developers needed help to develop an idea he had for a Wii Metroid game. He wanted to make a game using 3D graphics.

Retro, the Nintendo-owned, Texas-based team responsible for the well-reviewed 3D Metroid Prime games, two of which were out by then, was, curiously, not an option. "Retro has their own approach toward Metroid games," Sakamoto said. "They had their own producer. Their approach to Metroid games has traditionally been the FPA — first person adventure — but my concept was kind of different than that and I was looking for a team that could bring my idea to life."

Enter Team Ninja, which, Hayashi said, "is very fond of Samus as a character. We've all got huge soft spots for her." Hayashi, a Team Ninja veteran whose youthful looks could let him pass for the almost-50 Sakamoto's son, most recently directed the well-regarded Ninja Gaiden: Dragon Sword on the Nintendo DS.

Interviews about Mario and Zelda games with Nintendo developers typically focus on gameply, but story and character were what Sakamoto wanted to emphasize, noting how the game fits into the timeline between the Super Nintendo's Super Metroid and the Game Boy Advance's Metroid Fusion: "With Fusion, that game was very story-driven. In that game, I believe I was able to explain Samus as a character, as a person, not just somebody in armor. And I was not only explain Samus but the characters around her… with Super Metroid I showed, through her relationship with the baby Metroid, some of her maternal instincts. Between those two stories I feel I was able to explain Samus as a person. But because Metroid equals Samus, I'd like to develop her character further, as a soldier, as a human, also as a woman. That's what they're hoping to do with Other M."

The two developers described the new project as one targeted right at Metroid fans. When I asked if there would be anything in the game for the Wii's expanded audience — say, for my mom — Hayashi said: "When Mr. Sakamoto approached me and my team with the game concept, it was definitely something I and my team felt would be a new challenge for them. Our take on this whole thing is we see the possibility to explore new territory within the Wii system. So we're hoping to create something that will appeal not just to fans of the series but to new users as well." Still, that lack of Balance Board support makes it clear that this Metroid game is unlikely to be going the casual-game route.

"Our goal in developing Other M," said Sakamoto, "Is to deliver the kind of Metroid that all fans want to play."

Morph ball and ice beam? Of course.

New abilities? Yes.

Progressions of the character's powers? That's the goal. Said Hayashi: "Metroid has definitely been one of those games where as the player progresses through the story you can really feel yourself powering up. You can really feel Samus evolving in terms of her abilities. I'd like to maintain that essence of the Metroid series. In addition, just the feel of the game, by being in there, the emotional experience for the player is something I feel responsible to maintain true to."

It's clear, though, that there will be a twist. The Project M team, Sakamoto said: "Will create a new Metroid unlike anything ever experienced before."

And when they're done, he wants them to work together again.

Metroid Other M is slated for release next year. Later this summer, Nintendo will release a Wii compilation of Retro's Metroid work, entitled Metroid Prime Trilogy.

This might come as a blow to Metroid fans who were really looking forward to a fourth game; however, Nintendo of America makes the point that not everybody who owns a Wii owned the GameCube. They consider this a chance for everybody to get on the same Metroid page at the cost of only one game as opposed to having to shell out for Corruption and the Wii-released Prime and Echoes. And before you start flinging cans of soda and empty chip bags at your computer screen, the control scheme is actually pretty fun.

Oh, and there's multiplayer, too.

What Is It?
Metroid Prime was released for the Wii in Japan this March, while Metroid Prime 2 will be out later this year, both with new Wii controls replacing the original GameCube ones. Rather than simply porting those titles, however, Nintendo has decided to do American audiences one better by combining the Wii-released games with Metroid Prime: Corruption for a compilation release.

What We Saw
I visited Nintendo's offices to play through the very beginning of Echoes just to see how the Wii controls stacked up and then dove into four-person deathmatch multiplayer.

How Far Along Is It?
Metroid Trilogy is due out August 24, so I'd say fairly final.

What Should Change?
Nothing New, Really: Don't get me wrong – the control scheme certainly makes Prime and Echoes feel different. But there isn't any new content added to any of the games, which could be a real bummer to people who already shelled out and played through all three games.

Not A Seamless Experience: When you load up Metroid Trilogy, you can access all three games from a hub individually. You don't have to beat Prime to unlock Echoes or finish Echoes to play Corruption and what you do in one game doesn't have an impact in what you do in other games. You could even play like 20% of Echoes and then double back to Prime whenever you got bored. It's convenient, I suppose, but I think it makes the plot feel disjointed. Or, you know, unimportant since they're not trying to preserve continuity.

What Should Say The Same?
The Wii Controls: They feel good, they play well and they cut back on some of the menu selection and scan point operation tedium. For example, to select the scanner, all you have to do is hold down the minus button to pull up a heads-up display. From there, you just point at the item you want to select it and then point that item at whatever you want to scan – very painless and very quick, which is going to make it easier to absorb what story there is through scan points.

The Multiplayer: The multiplayer from Echoes is back and immediately accessible from the hub with no gameplay prerequisites. It's a little sad that it's local-only four-way-split-screen, but there is something to be said for having four people flailing around with Wii Remotes trying to shoot each other or drop bombs and bounce to safety while in ball form. Also, you can totally screen-watch to see who just picked up invincibility and thereby avoid making a tactical error in attacking them.

Myriad Tweaks: Trilogy supports 16:9 widescreen. They've added bloom lighting to all three games. Doors open faster. Loading times are faster. Samus can now do that ball-form jump where she drops a bomb and – with a well-timed Wii Remote flick – get extra air when it goes off in all three games. It might not seem like any one of these things really matters, but altogether, the tweaks go a long way toward making the games feel good and play well.

Tweaked, But Not Too Much: Nintendo says the tweaks to the control scheme don't compromise the difficulty in the game and that they've preserved the puzzle element in all the games. I believe them, because Samus' ball-form jump from Corruption could in theory wreck some jumping puzzles from Prime and Echoes. But during my hands-on time with Echoes, I didn't feel like anything had gotten easier. It just got prettier; and while that made it a little less frustrating in difficult jumping sections, it wasn't less challenging.

Collectibles Give Old Hands Stuff To Do: Throughout all three games, you can pick up different colored badges to buy collectibles like a Mii bobble head for Samus' dashboard in her ship or unlock the game's original soundtrack.

Final Thoughts
I'm pleased with Metroid Trilogy. I like multiplayer and I like getting three games for the price of one. I wish that Nintendo were using this time to make a sequel instead of remake some classics. But at least they're doing them well. And if nothing else, I can easily delude myself into thinking that Trilogy is just a way for Nintendo to clear its throat braving a Metroid Prime 4.

Pacini worries that the current model of game development is becoming far too unwieldy, and believes that a more distributed, less centralized system — similar in some ways to that of the film industry — could become the norm.

"The model in which games are made — with a staff of people upwards of 100 people a lot of the time — is kind of outdated now," he says.

"It costs so much money to maintain that staff. What do you do with that staff when the game is done? You get these mass layoffs. You don't hear that when a movie's over. Everybody who was on the movie is gone — but there was no mass layoff, it's just that everybody was a contractor just for that project.

"I think in the future, a lot of game development will move towards that," Pacini continues. "Contractors now are being used more efficiently than they've ever been on game projects, and it's become a more valid way to staff up your project. Rather than being looked down upon as a company that doesn't want to hire somebody, it's more fiscally responsible of the company to hire contractors, not to staff up and have a mass layoff at the end."

They point out that development costs are going up, up, up, and the business model the industry is founded on isn't helping matters; will we start seeing a shift in the way games are developed? Armature has already staked their claim on a "lean, rapid prototype development that doesn't get bogged down in the ways traditional development often does" and reliance on a 'distributed' development team.

Armature Founders On 'Unsustainable' Biz, Plans [Gamasutra]

Armature Studio, located in Austin, Texas, is headed by Mark Pacini, Todd Keller and Jack Mathews, the former Game Director, Art Director and Principal Technology Engineer of the Nintendo franchise.

In a recent interview with Kotaku, Pacini said that the trio formed the new company some time in April and signed their exclusive publishing deal with EA two to three months later.

"EA approached us with this really interesting business model of creating a small studio that is only comprised of industry veterans," Pacini said. "The goal is to create new IP with a very, very small team and to produce a game without having to grow that team."

Pacini said he and the others at Armature are excited to finally be working on games for the Playstation 3 and Xbox 360 and not just the Wii and DS.

"From my stand point, I've never worked on any other console," he said. "I've always made games for Nintendo. I'm reinvigorated. I'm really excited about what other opportunities are out there. How can we use Xbox Live? How can we use the power of the PS3?"

"I think it really opens it up," he said. "I'm not saying it was by any means restrictive working for Nintendo. We had this palette to work on, the Wii and the DS, but now we have everything."

"That's just really, really exciting."

Retro Studios was founded in Austin, Texas in 1998. In 2000, Nintendo gave the studio the license to the Metroid franchise to help recreate the game for the Gamecube. In 2002 the developer relased Metroid Prime. In 2004 they released Metroid Prime 2: Echoes and last year released Metroid Prime 3: Corruption for the Wii.

Under their current contract with Electronic Arts, Armature wouldn't be able to develop a Metroid Prime game for Nintendo. Not that that means they've lost interest in the franchise they helped revive.

"Personally, I would love to work on another Metroid game," said Keller. "I have been in love with Metroid for years. We had a chance to recreate a game that was created way back when. That was awesome."

The deal with Electronic Arts is an experiment of sorts, Pacini said. Under the agreement, the studio will report to EA General Manager Lou Castle as part of EA's secretive Blueprint Division. Castle is acting Executive Producer of the Armature Studio games. Instead of operating like typical game development studios, the core team at Armature Studio will work on game prototypes. Once a game is ready for development a bulk of that work would be shifted to an external team or another studio, while the Armature people would follow the project as directors.

"We would still be very hands on," Pacini said.

While studios have tried versions of this in the past, none have tried to keep a central core of directors on to supervise the projects, Pacini said.

"We are interested to see how it goes past the prototype stage," he said. "Our studio is the grand experiment. It’s kind of a really different take on how to make these larger scale games."

Armature and EA hopes that this new approach to game development could cut down on the risk a bit and allow developers and publishers to take greater risks.

"It’s really reasonable to go out on a limb and take a risk that we kinda think might be cool," Pacini said. "That’s the sort of environment we are trying to set up. That’s what we are about as a studio."

Pacini and Keller declined to say what specifically their new studio is currently working on with Electronic Arts, but said, at least initially, they want to stick to the types of games the group are comfortable with.

"We all have very different background: Action, adventures and shooters," Keller said. "We have already started (on some games) for sure. We are working every day. We are in the preliminary stages.

"EA has been very very supportive of all of our efforts."

Armature Studio is looking to hire several key staff by the end of the year, Pacini said. They will be at the Austin Game Developers Conference later this week, he added.

Metroid Prime 3 in true 3D [Nintendo Everything]

Pacini was quoted last summer that the Retro Studios team would be taking a break from all things Metroid, but may not have had any idea how permanent it would be for some. There have been no announcements about the Nintendo-owned, Austin-based studio's next project, but wherever the recently departed wind up maybe they'll get to put some guns on some cars.

Key Metroid Prime Staff Leave Retro Studios [Shacknews]

He leaves behind a wife and two daughters. Mark Haigh-Hutchinson was 43.

Famed Industry Veteran, Retro Studios Programmer Dies [IGN]

From the original Metroid Prime to Echoes to Corruption, some great internal-only moments are revealed. That first hands-on with the Nintendo "Revolution"? I'd have been giddy, too.

Gamasutra has a fantastic write up of the session, which fans of Metroid shouldn't miss.

MIGS 2007: Retro Studios On The Journey Of Metroid Prime [Gamasutra]

Wii
— Wii Fit(TM): This experience builds on the active-play phenomenon
started by Wii Sports(TM). It comes packed with the pressure-sensitive
Wii Balance Board (name not final) that measures users' actions in fun
aerobic, toning and balance activities. Wii Fit also promotes
communication about health among family members, as everyone can review
one another's progress on a new channel on the Wii Menu. Coming in the
first half of 2008.
— Mario Kart(R) Wii (name not final): Nintendo's classic racing franchise
goes online. It launches with the Wii Wheel(TM) (name not final), a
steering wheel housing for the Wii Remote that lets veterans and
newcomers compete together. Launches globally in early 2008.
— Super Mario Galaxy(TM): This amazing achievement by legendary Nintendo
game designer Shigeru Miyamoto inspires awe with its amazing sense of
gravity and fun replayability. Launches Nov. 12.
— Wii Zapper(TM) (name not final): This unit houses both a Wii Remote and
a Nunchuk(TM) and comes packaged with Nintendo software to show off its
applications. Third-party developers have multiple games in the
pipeline that will use this dynamic new interface. Launches 2007.
— Check Mii Out Channel (name not final): This free Wii channel builds on
the phenomenon of people creating fun Mii(TM) caricatures. Now people
can show off Miis they have created either on their own or for
Nintendo-suggested competitions. Coming in 2007.
— Super Smash Bros.(R) Brawl: New characters, new moves and new arenas
highlight this highly anticipated game, which launches Dec. 3.
— Metroid(R) Prime 3: Corruption: The precision aim of the Wii Remote and
Nunchuk make this one of the best-controlled first-person games ever.
Launches Aug. 27.
— Third-Party Support: Wii has nearly 100 titles in the works from every
major publisher.

Nintendo DS
— Brain Age(TM) 2: More Training in Minutes a Day!: This brain-training
game offers more than a dozen new brain-stimulating activities that
challenge the mind. Launches Aug. 20.
— The Legend of Zelda(R): Phantom Hourglass: This first Zelda game for
Nintendo DS can be played with the stylus and sets a new standard for
the graphics capabilities and immersive play of this system. In Japan,
the game launched in late June and is selling well to both avid and
casual gamers, including female players. Launches Oct. 1.
— Flash Focus(TM): Vision Training in Minutes a Day: This program is
designed to help users sharpen their "Focus Power" through a series of
fun activities and sports challenges that test hand-eye coordination,
reaction time and peripheral vision. Launches Oct. 15.
— Third-Party Support: DS has more than 140 titles in the works from
every major publisher.

Factor 5 head honcho Julian Eggebrecht tells interviewer Brandon Sheffield of the company's plans to revisit the Commodore 64 and SNES classic, taking the concept into the third dimension.

We've been concepting quite a bit internally. That's another universe creation thing. I was looking at Metroid Prime's reinventing of a franchise that had been out there for quite awhile, and we're facing the same thing with Turrican.

Eggebrecht's comparisons to Metroid Prime personally get me excited for another Turrican game, but I'm sure there are many of you who might feel quite the opposite. Michael McWhertor

Eggebrecht: Factor 5 Working On Turrican Concepts [Gamasutra]

Dust off that box covered with Animal Crossing stickers, it's time to remember at the top ten games you loved (in my case) a year ago. But for all of you out there in Kotaku-land who already sold your box to buy something newer and shinier, this should make you reconsider picking one up at the next garage sale you crash.

I've already been inspired to find that infectious Mario Sunshine soundtrack. Kim Phu

Screw Attack's Gamecube Farewell [Gametrailers]

Alex over at First 4 Figures sent word that they've just signed a three year deal with Nintendo to make toys and action figures based off Metroid properties. As usual, these toys look a lot better than the rubber-headed He-Man homoeroticism dolls we played with as kids.

Figures being developed include Varia Suit Samus (Metroid Prime,Light Suit Samus and Dark Suit Samus from Metroid Prime 2, Just Plain Samus, and Kanden, Sylux, Noxus, Spire, Weavel and Trace from Metroid Prime: Hunters. No bikini Samus though — a blow to every Metroid fan's crotch.

Metroid Prime Toys at First 4 Figures

Via Academic Gamers comes a piece written by Rice student Amanda Phillips on Metroid Prime. "Behind the Visor" looks at the use of in-game texts that detail the lore behind Metroid Prime as the principle storytelling agents in Prime. These texts are numbered and scanned into a log book while the player adventures in Prime. They are optional, however, so much of Prime's backstory and narrative isn't forced on players, it's a narrative you have to seek out, scan, record and then read.

Metroid Article Online [Academic Gamers]
Behind the Visor [Amanda Phillips]