Planetary Radiation

Phendrana Drifts in Metroid Prime. The most beautiful game world I've ever seen.
[Source]

Metroid Prime is a trilogy of games developed by Nintendo. The player controls Samus Aran, a very well known bounty hunter employed by the Galactic Federation. During a routine mission, she encounters a distress signal and lands at its coordinates: a derelict space station. In flames and abandoned, the place is definitely in need of help. She encounters some dead and dying space pirates, who futilly shoot at her. Deeper in the ship, she encounters a beast called the Parasite Queen, who offers a bit more of a challenge but nothing she can't handle. After the beast is slain, the ship begins a critical meltdown, and Samus makes her escape, damaging her equipment on the way. She lands on a nearby planet after seeing her nemesis Ridley land there. The planet, Tallon IV, is a beautiful planet plagued by strange radiation after a large object collided on its surface. Throughout her journey she encounters areas both volcanic and frozen, the ruins of an ancient tribe, and mines created by the space pirates to harvest the radiation known as Phazon. At the end of her journey on Tallon IV, she encounters a fearsome monster and destroys it, inside the large comet.

The second game extends the story of Phazon, but on a different planet known as Aether. Samus crash-lands there and encounters the last of a race known as the Luminoth. The leader, U-mos, tells the story of dark warriors called Ing who have taken over the strange planet, which has both a dark dimension and a light dimension. The Ing inhabit the dark side due to another strange comet colliding. Through the use of portals, one can travel to either side of the planet. U-mos requests Samus's help in restoring the planet, so once again she is forced to wait. She encounters many more locations, on both sides of the planet, and learns much more about the Phazon radiation. She also encounters a new nemesis, Dark Samus, who was born from the remains of the creature she defeated on Tallon IV. After defeating the Ing and their leader, she once again heads off into space to continue her journey.

The third game begins with Samus's return to the Galactic Federation. She is examined and then called into a meeting with the Commander and the ship's "brain" known as an Aurora Unit. The AU explains to her and three other bounty hunters, Rundas, Ghor, and Gandrayda, that they have learned more about Phazon and its origins. It stems from large comets called Leviathans, which are able to generate wormholes to travel to distant planets. These are the same comets from the previous two games. Samus is sent to several planets to destroy the leviathans, but once again Dark Samus gets in the way. Samus is corrupted heavily with Phazon and must have a new suit developed to deal with the radiation. It also allows her to enter a state called Hypermode, which allows her to use the Phazon in her body as a weapon. Dark Samus corrupts the other three bounty hunters during the journey and Samus is forced to end their lives. At long last they discover the space pirates have gained control of a leviathan and they can use it to get to its originating planet Phaaze. Samus travels to Phaaze and defeats Dark Samus and destroys the planet once and for all.


These are my favorite games of all time. With the exception of the third game, there is no dialogue used, and Samus never says anything. It's up to the player to learn the story based solely on experiences and the little informational bits included when scanning the local objects, creatures, and logs of the space pirates and luminoth. It's almost essential to play each game several times to get the whole story (which I have,) and once you do you realize how deep it actually is. I could write pages upon pages of this, but I chose to shorten them for convenience sake. On top of that, the worlds are incredibly beautiful, the music is gorgeous and ambient, and the creatures are unique. Overall the games are incredibly well made and have a lot of replay value. I encourage all of you to check them out!


Metroid Prime Trilogy. Redmond, WA: Nintendo of America, 2009. Computer software


Too lazy to site all three games separately....