Alright, time to add my two cents to this article!

First of all, I respect everyone's opinion about this, and I have no intention to offend

anyone (I can often be a bit harsh), but I do have a rather strong opinion on the subject.

Let's get some things straight first. I like Metroid: Other M. It's a great action game, and

despite some occasionally wonky controls, I think it's a great attempt to bring the classic

Metroid side-scrolling games to a more modern 3D style, and I would like Nintendo to continue

down the 2D/3D road. However, I have some problems with the story in Other M, and I think this

article largely ignores the TRUE reasons of the negative backlash.

You see, Other M is not the first game to portray Samus as a character with real emotions.

Pretty much every game since Metroid II have given us insight into the protagonist. I think

the designers have always managed to put a great amount of story into the key sequences of the

games, and I do have the feeling that Samus has developed a strong character over the course

of the games, perhaps a little slowly.

Other M differs in two different ways for me:

1) The narrative framing is TOO different. Let's take the previous Metroid games and have a

look at them. Samus does talk a few times during those games, but it's all pretty limited.

It's safe to say that Samus remains largely silent throughout the series. To me, Samus was

always a character that seemed cursed in a way. Since the assault on KL-2, Samus seems

destined to hunt down the Space Pirates, and the Metroids they try to abuse. All of her

attempts seem futile, as she constantly seems to re-encounter the enemies she thought she had

wiped out for good (Ridley, the Space Pirates, Mother Brain, the Metroids). She's locked in an

eternal battle that is both intensely personal and of intergalactic important at the same

time. And yet, she seems to accept this terrible destiny without hesitation. She knows she was

made to do this, and I find this strong selfless behavior very touching. I think we all wish

we could of be of importance to someone, but we get scared when it asks too much of ourselves.

Not for Samus. She has no home. She knows no peace. She's always out there. Now, some people

might say: "She's a bounty hunter, of course she's always doing missions!". For me,

that's not entirely true. Sure, Samus frequently receives "missions" from the Federation, but

we don't actually see that happening in the games. In fact, we never see Samus receiving a

"true" reward, we don't see her enjoying fame and the biggest reward I can remember that she

gained was either the 5 second applause from the Luminoth in Prime 2 or a salutation from

Admiral Dane in Prime 3. Other M creates a stronger connection between Samus and the

Federation, featuring a large amount of Federation soldiers and a HUGE amount of voice acting.

To me, this diminishes the feeling of selflessness that was always such a strong part of Samus

because it once again puts an emphasis on the fact that she, after all, a bounty hunter.

Metroid Prime 3 already had voice acting and a more cinematic presentation, and I never liked

that. However, I could sort of understand the decision. After all, Corruption was the end of a

trilogy, and no doubt Retro wanted to give the game a more "epic" feel to make sure players

really felt like they were playing the closing chapter in a long saga.

2) The next issue is the biggest problem with the game. In fact, I'd say it's a huge problem

that's been plaguing Japanese gaming for the last 12 years or so. I'd something I always like

to refer to as "explicit characterization" (I know, it's a stupid term). What this means is

that the developers try to make the protagonists more interesting by giving them several

different characteristics. And then they shove it in your face. They shove it in your face so

HARD that your nose starts to bleed. How common is to see characters from Japanese games

complain about their feelings or give you elaborate explanations about how the feel or

experience a certain situation? It's pretty much in every contemporary jRPG.

Now, you may say "What's wrong with that?". My problem is that this is not how it works.

People aren't like this. Our minds don't work like this. For starters, we usually don't talk

openly about our problems. Two people often have to work very hard to truly "understand" each

other. We also don't understand our own minds well enough to explain our behavior. We often

find ourselves being happy or sad, but can we truly explain why? We are often afraid of

things. For example, I'm afraid of talking to people I don't know or entering buildings that I

don't know the layout of. I would have a lot of trouble explaining someone why, even though

it's a big part of my life. The human mind is immensely complex, and we lie to ourselves

constantly to make things even more difficult. I now of very few people that are willing to

talk so openly about their ACTUAL emotions. Sure, you must of met hundreds of people that

complain about this or that, or act like they were hurt by something, or who say they hate

someone, etc. But these are all very superficial emotions that mostly take place within the

frame of our society. Samus is open about her feelings in a way that not only works in an

alienation way, but also in one that comes across as unconvincing.

Let's take another medium/form for example. Let's say you were watching a (good/mature) movie

about a dysfunctional family where the husband and wife are having trouble living together.

How would we notice this? Would the film be successful by letting the husband or wife narrate

the entire thing in first person rambling on and on about how she feels towards her husband?

Most likely not. The feeling of social discomfort is often achieved by given away by small

signs of annoyance. They might not take much interest in each others hobbies. They might talk

about different things to each other over dinner, or they might be silent during a ride in the

care. Perhaps the wife would never looks her husband in the eyes, or they might sleep with

their backs turned to each other. These are all small and perhaps silly examples, but I think

you get my point. Telling us about the characteristics and emotions of characters is much more

satisfying when it is slowly revealed and when the viewer/player/reader has an active

involvement in the process (the process of deducting those very emotions from the behavior of

the people that play a large role in the story). In other words, it's often better to avoid

the "explicit characterization".

I recently saw the film adaption of Richard Matheson's brilliant novel I Am Legend. I didn't

expect all that much from it, but I still wanted to give it a chance because I loved the novel

so much. In the end I thought it was a piece of for various reasons.

The most obvious criticism would be that the film was not even remotely similar to the novel

(Here's a small anecdote: leading up towards the release of the movie, there was a small qui

that was being organized on the main site of MSN. My sister saw it and asked me to answer the

question because she knew I read the novel. The question was "What creatures live on the post

-apocalyptic Earth in I Am Legend". I said the answer was "Vampires". Everyone who read the

novel knows that this is the correct answer. But according to the quiz, it was incorrect. The

correct answer was "Zombies". And indeed, as I afterwards saw, the movie barely explains that

the creatures are Vampires, and it is indeed more likely to assume that they are zombie-like

creatures. THAT'S how unfaithful it is to the novel. But I'm getting off-topic). But another

criticism is that the main character was WAY too vocal for my tastes. If I would have made the

movie, I would have chosen to let the Robert remain largely silent. The power of telling us

messages through visual and aural means is HUGELY underestimated these days. Another example:

The Thin Red Line. A lot of people I know HATE Terrence Malicks third masterpiece because of

the voice-over narrations. To a lot of people, the poetic first-person narrations (I couldn't

find an example on YouTube, but a good quote/sample is used in the first part of a song called

Have You Passed Through This Night by Explosions in the Sky, which you can listen to here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4cr1w9liUjE) of the movie sound pretentious or impenetrable. I

don't agree. I think a lot of people mistake the actual words being spoken for true things

being told by the characters. I don't see it like that. To me, these narrations are simply

thought from the deepest subconsciousness of the characters put into words. These thoughts are

unframed by the definitions of emotions found in our contemporary society, thus making them

more free for interpretation and (for me at least) more touching.

Yet ANOTHER example would be the first person narration used in the film adaptation of The

Road (which I thought was a very fitting, beautiful and humble adaptation of a deeply moving

novel). In the opening lines The Man (played by Viggo Mortensen) gives us an overview of the

situation on the devastated Earth. He talks to us about the death of trees, animals, the

cannibalism, and the fading hope in both him and his son. Some people once again interpret

this as an "explicit way" of talking about the emotions of the characters. ONCE AGAIN I

disagree (are you surprised?). It is the cold, dry and hopeless way of speaking about these

terrible things that makes this scene so beautiful and haunting, not the actual things being

said per sé.

One last example from that same film. There is a scene where The Boy basically says he want to

go up to his dead mother, who he believes is in heaven.

They could have said it like this:

The Boy: "Pop, I want to die so I can be with Mommy in heaven."

But that would have ruined the entire movie and would have resulted in either a facepalm or a

loud yelp of agony from me. Instead this is what was really said.

The Man and The Boy are sleeping in a truck. The Man is still awake but The Boy is lying in a

bed behind The Man.

The Boy: "I wish I was with my Mom."

The Man hesitates: "Do you mean you wish you were dead?"

The Boy: "Yeah."

When I first saw this scene in the movie it hit me like a sledgehammer. I literally felt like

the air was knocked out of my lungs and I immediately felt tears well up in my eyes. It's a

moment you only experience a few times in your life.

Okay, now I'm really getting a bit off-topic. What I'm trying to say is that it's pretty much

NEVER a good idea to serve your story, characteristics and emotions in an "explicit" way to

your reader/player/viewer. It makes little sense compared to our real world, it destroys all

room for interpretation, and it insults the intelligence of the reader/player/viewer, as it

insinuates that we wouldn't be able to figure it out on our own. All those things are

situations a competent script-writer would want to avoid. The writes of Other M made those

mistakes on top of a script that was already mediocre, and slaps some so-so voice-acting on

top of it, including a rather unfitting.

And, as a final note, I would like to chime in on the entire "high heels" issue. I usually

find high-heels very unattractive, and I often find it irritating that this is imprinted on

the mind of women as "universally attractive and feminine". We should all wear what we find

attractive, not just because we know other people think we look good because the person

resembles the stereotype built up in the media. It makes Samus more of a female stereotype

than she ever was in my opinion (Yes, I know she only wore a bikini at the end of the first

Metroid on NES, but how else would you make it so that there would be absolutely no mistake

what so ever about her femininity with 8-bit graphics?). On top of that, it makes absolutely

ZERO sense for the tasks she has ahead of here, including sprinting at lightning speed and

wall-jumping! And it makes her look like the stupid shoe-shopping shallow blonde that I always

thought she wasn't.

There. That's pretty much all I've got to say about the subject I think. It's not her emotions

that are most bothersome, but the way she shows them to us. Sorry for going on for so long,

but I wanted to make my first post here super-awesome!

Great game though