Metroid Prime: Hunters - Metroid Prime: Hunters

Beating them also raises another point – and one that might be more crucial if you’re playing on the move: you can only save the game while back at Samus’s mothership. This isn’t an issue most of the time, as the mothership is either in easy reach of the portion of the world you’re currently exploring, or there’s a nearby teleportation portal that can take you back there in a thrice. However, when you’ve just trashed the boss and you’re facing a five minute countdown to escape extinction, it can be annoying that you face a second hunter battle, and then a difficult sequence of climbs, runs and jumps before you can save the game and stop playing. It’s not one to play on the commute out of London, unless you’re happy to find yourself in Penzance some hours later.

Still, these sticking points hardly ruin a great adventure, and I soon forgot them as I ploughed back into the action. Probably the worst thing I can say about Hunters is that while the control system works effectively, it also forces your hand into an uncomfortably cramped position. So it’s both a tribute and a warning that I regularly found myself after ninety minutes or so of play with my hand stuck in an arthritic claw, a bruise developing on my palm, and an uncomfortable stinging feeling in my eyes – and then went back in and played some more. How many other games could have made that pain worthwhile? Not many. Metroid Prime: Hunters does.


Verdict

More than just a great handheld FPS, this is one of the very best mobile games around and a glowing testimony to what the humble DS can do when pushed. Unmissable.