Metroid Prime 3: Corruption

Metroid Prime 3: Corruption closes out the trilogy that carried Samus Aran from 2D action into a first-person perspective without sacrificing the series' exploratory core. This time Samus is infected by a corrupting substance called Phazon, which grants her extraordinary power while slowly consuming her. That's where the main new feature comes from: Hypermode, in which you briefly obliterate everything in front of you, while risking that the infection spins out of control. This injects the calm pace of exploration with tension and the urge not to linger too long in a form that's too powerful.

The controls are probably the best showcase of what the Wii Remote could do. Aiming the on-screen cursor is precise and fast, turning the view flows smoothly, and several actions rely directly on gestures, such as a jerk of the Nunchuk that fires a grapple to yank an enemy toward you or tear off a panel cover. Locks turn with an actual twist of the wrist. The world consists of several planets, traveled between via your own ship, a greater scope than in previous entries. The structure remains a metroidvania in three-dimensional space: new abilities unlock previously inaccessible areas, and the player learns to read the map as an interconnected puzzle. Scanning the environment, which reveals enemy weaknesses as well as fragments of background story, is still present and rewards those who don't rush.

Sound and lighting hold the atmosphere together. The suit can be heard with every step, the visor fogs up with water or flashes with an explosion, and the music alternates between quiet ambient stretches and hard-hitting combat themes. Retro Studios also tells more of a story than before, a notable change for a series famous for its heroine's solitude, and not all fans took to it. Critics received the game very well and often cited it as proof that Wii shooters didn't have to be a compromise. Today Corruption still holds up wonderfully, mainly thanks to controls that, even years later, feel more pleasant and intuitive than most console action games of its time.