Metroid Prime Hunters

[Julius Seeker]

I bought this game along with Tetris DS and Tales of Phantasia for GBA. I am thoroughly impressed with all titles (I am getting my ass kicked at multiplayer). Easily Metroid Prime Hunters is my game of choice. The single player is a whole lot better than the original Metroid Prime games, there's just so much more to it, and the control is a HELL of a lot better. It's just overall a lot more fun.

Getting a fun game that is also as deep as this game is is quite rare.

Easily this is already my favourite game on DS and one of my favourite games on any system (including GC, Xbox, PS2, PSX, N64...); it seems like they put A LOT into it as well, this game is by far the most polished and feature filled game on the system as well; there is just so much to do.

[Agent 57]

Gamestop didn't get their shipment in until 3PM today, so I just got back to work after making a quick run up there. Got my copies of MPH and Tetris too, along with Subsistence.

Won't be able to play any of them until late tonight, though (even though I actually have my DS with me today and as such am horribly tempted ).

[M'k'n'zy]

I want to get Tetris and Metroid Prime Hunters, but I dont have much in the way of money right about now, so I am giving priority to Suikoden V and Kingdom Hearts II

[Blotus]

Suikoden V had better be the shit. Everything I've read/seen so far looks great... too bad about the frequent loading, though.

[Agent 57]

Hey Seek...

(figured I should put this in here as opposed to the Tetris thread)

So what control scheme did you end up using? I tried a couple different configs, and ended up being most comfortable with right-handed stylus mode, using the thumb pad.

Also, I'm curious as to what you meant by "when to use the alt form/when to shoot", considering that Samus' alt form is practically useless for offensive purposes. I noticed in your info that you most often use one of the other hunters - couldn't recognize which one - and I wonder if they purposely nerfed Samus just so that everybody wouldn't be endlessly using her.

Either way, I've got to put some more time into the campaign - 10 minutes of fiddling around in the first level doesn't really do much to get one familiar with the controls!

[Julius Seeker]

Samus has some sort of lock-on ability, I am not sure, I forget now.

I use Kanden who has seeker bombs. Kanden turns into a worm-like thing and fires off bombs which seek out nearby targets and explode into them. I use the bi-ped (standing) mode to shoot at them when they are on a different level from me where my bombs can't reach them. I focus around shooting them out of their hiding places then. I find this is the most effective method for me since I am still not as good with the shooting controls as some of the people.

Nintendowifi.com has extensive stat tracking. I am up to rank 239 now =)

In order to see stats the DS has to be linked to the player account on Nintendo.wifi.com, it is not overly difficult to do.

[Julius Seeker]

Adventure Mode: Well, I am past the first boss (did that last night) and have since landed on the red planet. I must say, that in comparison to Prime, this game has a lot more forward moving, you move through the environments much more quickly than in the original game. It's a very big world. The worlds are beautiful, it makes me wonder what sort of Zelda game they will be able to pull off on the DS. Also, I don't think I have ever seen this much FMV video on any cartridge/card before, there are a lot of videos. Also, the music in the game is quite excellent, as are the sound effects. Most importantly, this is a game that is difficult to put down, I already know that I will play the single player Adventure Mode over again once I finish it the first time. No one knows what happens at the end yet, or what happens when completeing the game in a certain amount of time (other Metroid games have special endings, this one may have more).

[Julius Seeker]

UPDATE:

Well, I have defeated the second boss of the Adventure mode now (on the red planet) and now I have access to The Ice planet and another ship. Needless to say I checked out the Ice planet (I love Ice/winter stages in any game). The second boss required a little more skill than the first, I defeated him on my third attempt. A Hunter came in and killed me at some point and stole my Octolith (a major relic), I managed to get it back from him later on inside the caves of the red planet. Another Hunter ambushed me on the planets surface and we were fighting all over the place, it was actually quite a bit of fun.

In the multi-player, I have been improving, my win-rate is now 61%. I use a control sensitivity of 10 (out of 15, the default is 7) and it seems to work well for me. Sniping is a lot of fun in this game and it works quite well. Mainly I stick to my missiles though, and try to jump around staying on the high ground, switching to alternative form is easily the best way to escape when in danger (and I almost always do). My favourite kill was when I caught two Kanden's trying to blow each other up with seeker bombs, they were spinning around each other, I managed to get both of them with missiles from a safe distance. I won the game with 7 kills, no one else got more than 2 kills.

Current wifi stats (as displayed on nintendowifi website):

Overall Rank 533
Alt Kills 105
BiPed Kills 32
Games Won 20
Games Played 33
Disconnects 0
Win Rate 61%
Headshots 3
Shots Fired 2598
Time Played 0d 3h

[Agent 57]

Hey Seek, it's cool that you're telling everyone about how nifty MPH is, but can you try to be a little less spoilery? I only got as far as the first boss myself last night, and then spent the rest of the evening playing Two Thrones.

In actual MPH news, I think I've finally figured out how to play this game - physically, that is. After the first boss killed me, I figured out that if I rest the DS on my left thigh, I can concentrate on moving with my left hand instead of trying to move AND support the DS at the same time. And even though I'm left-handed, using the stylus in my right hand to control my aim is actually not that bad (thank goodness I learned how to use a mouse/joystick with my right hand).

I must say that I'm looking forward to the DS Lite now more than ever, considering that I won't be able to play MPH without sitting down until I get one.

[Julius Seeker]

Sorry about that =)

I tried to make the account as spoiler-free as possible, but sometimes I get a little too gung-ho =)

Anyways, the Hunter things won't necessarilly happen to you the exact same way they happened to me.

If I write more about the single player mode I'll keep it detail free. On the DS Lite, I am getting it for the same reason you are, the DS is not a very heavy system, but after holding it for an hour of play (much less time for most people, I would assume) the weight of it really causes hand cramping issues. The DS Lite is quite a bit lighter than the original model, it's also less than two months away. Not to mention it is a much more physically attractive system than the original DS, along with greater functionality.

[Agent 57]

Here's another question about online for ya, Seek - how many actual four-player games have you played in?

Granted, I've only played like 3 online games so far, but that's because that whenever I try to get a game set up, it'll search for 30 seconds, get my top two lights flashing, and then both of them will all of a sudden disappear. And if I try to "match my rank", fuhgeddaboudit - it sits there searching for at least two minutes before it does the flash in-flash out thing.

It used to happen to me a lot in Mario Kart, too...and, I just checked the nintendowifi boards and it seems to happen to a lot of other people as well.

Maybe I'll just give it a few days, let them get the servers straight, before I try getting back in on it...play the campaign instead and actually get halfway decent at the game before I head back online to get my butt kicked. Plus, I've been doing pretty good in 4-player online Tetris - maybe I should stick with that.

[Julius Seeker]

Probably about 30-40% of the time I end up with 4 player games. It seems to depend on the time you try to get on as well, sometimes it takes a few seconds (my last few games loaded up in about 2-3 seconds of searching), sometimes it takes several minutes and attempts. I have found that reseting the game entirely will always fix the issue (so far) when there is a error (which only happens during some times of the day, so it's probably a server thing).

Multiplayer Update: for the first time in a while I was defeated twice in a row, and by the same opponent. We played a total of four games with 3 of us involved. In the first game I lost by a single kill. The second game I won by quite a distance, I managed to get 7 kills while my opoonents had 3 and 1 respectively. In the next two games, I lost with 4 or 5 kills under my belt each game. The way I was defeated was I was hit with the freeze beam in close combat (where I usually go into my alternative form to hit the enemy with seeker bombs) and then pretty much killed execution style with missiles or some high powered blaster; this happened to me about 10-12 times in the last two games; otherwise I was killed by my opponents alternative form (I think he was playing Trace, I am not entirely sure). It was a good game, I managed to get a few more biped kills (by sniping from a distance) as opposed to my usual Alternative Form kills.

[Julius Seeker]

Wow, my rank has quickly slipped down past 3000 (was in the top 100 for a while). People are playing the hell out of the multiplayer in this game. Skill levels are also getting much higher than they were originally. I just got my ass handed to me in a 5-1 game, that's my worst defeat since I first started playing the game.

Overall Rank 3172
Alt Kills 150
BiPed Kills 42
Games Won 25
Games Played 44
Disconnects 0
Win Rate 57%
Headshots 3
Shots Fired 3495
Time Played 0d 4h

On the bright side, I did defeat AlexTG in a game (4-3) who ranks #10 overall. His stats:

Overall Rank 10
Alt Kills 559
BiPed Kills 1070
Games Won 182
Games Played 275
Disconnects 1
Win Rate 66%
Headshots 350
Shots Fired 33465
Time Played 1d 5h

[Blotus]

What's the control setup like? I can't imagine using the d-pad to move and the buttons or stylus to aim.

[Julius Seeker]

The stylus is vastly superior to the dual control pad (something I could never ever get used to in any game). It takes a little while to get used to, but once you have it down you can take out like 10 targets in under 3 seconds. It's unlike any control I have ever seen, it's all about reaction time after a while, whoever has the best reaction time is going to make the kill.

[Nev]

Cool avatar, Bovine.

[Julius Seeker]

OK, I TOTALLY got owned in an online game by a three star hunter. Played three games, the first one with 4 players, the next two just one on one. The one with four players ended very quickly with the guy playing Trace winning 7-0, I didn't get killed once, and made 2 kills. The second game he killed me essentially 12 times strait for a 7-0 and 5-0 game.

What did I learn? Cloaking + Sniping = deadly combo. I actually did almost get him a few times in the third game, but Trace can run and escape VERY quickly. I can just picture that guy sitting there now "BOOM! HEADSHOT!!!"

All in all, with this game, it's just SOOOO easy to aim around compared to previous FPS games. Aiming down to lower or higher levels and such was not really an option in console FPS's, it was all about firing on what is level with the orizon: IE, to the left or to the right, with very little focus on shooting upward or downward. In Hunters, keeping an eye above and below you seems natural.

Some of these scores are INSANE:

dark samus 1076 Points
the game 1304 Games Played
David Y 100% Win Rate
NS_Wobbles 758 Consecutive Wins
RAB DS 901 Consecutive Kills
Ice Dragon 8603 Alt Kills
Venator 15043 BiPed Kills
SLEEKYx16 10253 Headshots

[Julius Seeker]

Whoah, this game is only a few weeks old and there are people who have nearly 200 hours of online play already under their belts. This means they must be playing like 8-12 hours a day. Insanity!


Incidently, with my 6 hours of play I am barely within the top 10,000 =)

[M'k'n'zy]

I have it now, but god I suck. ^_^

[Julius Seeker]

I suck too compared to a lot of the people I fight. I would say I am better than 7/10 people though, and about 1/10 can kick my ass without taking a single death.

[Nev]

Do I have to go search for that Warcraft III Penny Arcade cartoon where it says "Searching for a group of burly men to fuck you in the ass"?

General rule of thumb...Internet gamers >> you. Unless you are just egregiously, egregiously skilled compared to everyone you've ever played on a local level - and I'm talking so egregiously skilled that you actually beat them five to ten seconds before the game even starts - there will be people out there who can thrash your ass, fold you in half, wrap you up in frilly pink wrapping paper and put a bright yellow ribbon on the whole package without so much as a pinky finger's worth of resistance from you, me, or anyone else. I'm not saying everyone will be able to do this, but my experience playing games online tends to say that about one in ten or so (which fits with Seek's figure) will be able to.

I haven't played MP:H, but I can't imagine that the general rule of thumb breaks down in any way for this particular game...

[Julius Seeker]

That rule does seem to apply in some cases since it appears that some guys are picking this game up for 40-60 hours a week on multiplayer alone. In my last game where I got my ass kicked, I got sniped with an imperialist right between the eyes by a guy flying through the air about 200 feet above me. He was a three star fighter with dozens of hours under his belt. I'll probably never be that good. Though I still defeat most people: including my first dozen games or so where I had NO idea what I was doing and lost almost all of them, I have a win rate of about 54% (note that second place or lower does not add anything to that rate, you have to get first).

[Agent 57]

You mean this one?



And I would change your general rule of thumb to this:

(internet gamers >> you) when (you = playing less than 5 hours/day) else (internet gamers ~= you)

However, I've also noticed that my online records even out to about 50% as well - I would expect that's the general experience for anyone who's not a supergamer and who stays with it for a little while beyond the n00b stage.

[Julius Seeker]

Now that there's three of us, we should pick a time a get a game going.

[Agent 57]

Now that there's three of us, we should pick a time a get a game going.

Oh great, that's just what I needed to hear. See Hunters anywhere in my sig?

You don't, because I haven't played it since a couple days after launch - been playing Phoenix Wright and 360 stuff instead. Still, I'll play the part of "cannon fodder" anyway.

[Julius Seeker]

It's cool, I have only played 5-6 hours online total since launch myself. But I have also played the single player a lot, though not much since exams started.

[M'k'n'zy]

I will be up for an ass kicking when I have time, but it might be a while, things are really hectic right now.

[Julius Seeker]

Alright, BATTLE REPORT:

Game 1: Seeker vs. Mac, regular battle mode: winner Seeker
Game 2: Seeker vs. Mac, Prime Hunter: winner Mac
Game 3: Agent vs. Seeker vs. Mac: Winner Seeker
Game 4: Agent vs. Seeker vs. Mac: Winner Seeker

Prime Hunters Mode works as follows: The first person to be the "Prime Hunter" for 2 minutes wins (or whatever time that is decided on by the players). A player becomes a Prime Hunter by killing the other player. A Prime Hunter cannot pick up any extra health scattered around the level, instead they need to kill another hunter to get extra health. If the Prime Hunter dies due to one of the other hunters killing him, then hunter who made the kill becomes the new Prime Hunter. If the Prime Hunter dies due to HP running out (as it gradually does) then the next person to make a kill becomes the Prime Hunter.

Battle Mode is simple: first person to make X-number of kills wins, or the person with the most number of kills in X-number of minutes.


Though I am not sure on the exact stats, in the first game I think Mac and Agent both had around 1 minute each, and I had 2 minutes. The second game I am not completely sure, I didn't pay close enough attention in the post game.

The end of the second game went as follows: I shot Mac in the head with the Imperialist from QUITE a distance while he was fighting with Agent =P And I managed to get the rest of the time needed for the win.

If you have a DS and do not have this game yet, GET IT, this is THE game for DS right now, nothing else compares =)

PS. The voice chat kicks ass. it works quite well.

[M'k'n'zy]

Voice chat works far better than I expected. The last game where you got me with the headshot was something like you at the 2 minutes, I was at like 1:36, and Agent was at like 1:12 or something. 3rd game was about as close.