In the near twenty years that Samus Aran has been demonstrating amazing flexibility, agility, and a take-no-crap attitude, she's encountered all kinds of different monsters. The worst one of all, however, is a monstrous release delay. The Metroid Prime: Hunters demo came pre-packaged with every DS sold at launch. Nearly a year after the system's launch, Hunters is still being tweaked behind the scenes by developers Nintendo Software Technology (NST) Corp. We recently got hands-on time with a build of it at Nintendo's Redmond headquarters.

Storyline-wise, the plot sounds rather similar to Prime. An ancient race disappeared several millennia prior, and suddenly, their star system is stirring with clues in regard to artifacts left behind and the ultimate power that accompanies them. The message attracts bounty hunters from all over the galaxy to hunt them down. The Galactic Federation calls upon Samus Aran to strap on the helmet and protect the articles from falling into the wrong hands. The entire game becomes a race to find the artifacts and protect them from the six new bounty hunter characters, including Noxus, Spire, and Kanden. Each has their own reasons for hunting the keys to ultimate power, some noble, some not so much.


Further details regarding the single-player experience will be released in the future. Ironically, most of the information regarding the game falls in the realm of multiplayer, although the demo provided was the same shown at the Penny Arcade Expo held in August. NST mentioned during a briefing that part of the delay in the title has been due to their desire to heighten the tension in the game's environments to equal the suspense that has made the console versions such beloved best-sellers.

Visually, the title looks fairly similar to the version most people played with their DS demos, at least that I noticed. Graphics looks slightly toned down from the GameCube renditions of Metroid Prime, although they certainly capture the feel of the series. There are some issues of "chugginess" that were noticeable, especially when blasting doors and crossing through them. It wasn't something that happened while passing through every door, but it occurred enough to be notable. Hopefully, the NST Team will be able to fix some of these issues before release -- with a target date of mid-to-late March, it shouldn't be a problem.