Wesley Fenlon | Not with a bang but a whimper.

Growing up a diehard Star Wars fan enamored with the grave and thoroughly cool Boba Fett, the glamorous profession of the bounty hunter wasn’t to be taken lightly. It’s not a job for the likes of Duane “Dog” Chapman — it’s serious, alien-scum-catching business, where no job is too tough when there are credits to be had. Maybe that’s why I’ve always approached Metroid with a degree of skepticism. For all the similarities they share — armor, slotted visor, deadly gadgets, an air of mystery, and a propensity for conversational brevity — Boba Fett and Samus Aran don’t quite line up. Where Fett intimidates with that gravelly voice and charges astronomical fees to exact harsh justice, Samus…saves the galaxy?

The E3 announcement of Team Ninja-developed Metroid: Other M coupled with my recent completion of Metroid Prime 3: Corruption has resulted in a lot of Samus on the brain. The more I think about Samus, the harder it is to consider her a bounty hunter — but maybe that’s not such a bad thing. Under Nintendo’s direction, the Metroid franchise sported a paper-thin storyline, with hardly a scrap of background information given to flesh out the wholly original galaxy Samus traverses. Retro Studios, on the other hand, has pushed Metroid in a cinematic direction, introducing more cutscenes to the series and using the scan visor to provide a wealth of knowledge on the species and history created for their games. Metroid Prime 3 employed voice acting in the series for the first time — but more importantly, it gave life to the Galactic Federation, with soldiers, battleships, fighters, and plenty of reading material about their history and technology.

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As one of the most important aspects of any video game, level design is a fascinating concept to study.  We can chart its progression from 2D into 3D, from simple linear stages into vast, sprawling environments.  In doing so, the general trend of 3D games begins to come into focus — and in some cases, it’s not such a pretty sight.  Sometimes we have to look backwards to see how we should move forwards.

Open world games have risen in popularity steadily since the release of Grand Theft Auto III, which not only spawned several sequels, but far too many cheap knock-offs and shoddy cash-ins.  Still, the goal of these games is admirable: they are presenting you with not a level to progress through, but a world to explore.  It’s a way to accomplish a level of escapism that smaller, more constrained games can’t match, but it’s a tricky thing to pull off.  The key is being able to form an explorable world with a scope so vast that players won’t feel as though the constraints of the area are too artificial — but size must be balanced with enough memorable locations to make the world feel alive.

Ultimately, games such as Bethesda’s Oblivion and Rockstar’s Grand Theft Auto IV can’t live up to both ends of the deal.  Oblivion is, even now, nearly three years after its release, a huge, beautiful game world.  But one grassy green hill looks like the next.  And the next.  The sense of exploration gets lost in the scope without delivering enough of what’s ultimately the most important thing: design.

Which, in my long-winded and roundabout way, brings us to Super Metroid.  Compared to GTA or Oblivion, Super Metroid is laughably miniscule.  It’s 2D.  It can’t compete with the miles and miles of explorable land and cityscape in Cyrodil or Liberty City.  But it just might have the best level design of any video game ever made.

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