Space Oddity

Metroid: Other M
Hats off to Team Ninja because they have done the seemingly impossible: they have made the first truly terrible Metroid game.

No, it's not due to the purple prose or the interminable inner monologues (although they certainly don't help). It's due to the clunky controls, the auto-pilot gameplay, the absence of atmosphere, the generic environments, the cumbersome perspective shifts, the lack of discovery, and - although I shouldn't count this against the game- the audacity to position itself in the same narrative continuum as Super Metroid.

I can't decide what is more embarrassing: that Nintendo was bested by a couple of copycat Mormons or that professional video game critics' standards are so low that this game is currently resting with a 79 on Metacritic (particularly when compared to Inception's 74).

Grade: D-