hmm.. I wonder if the similarities between these two box arts are deliberate or accidental... that's one freaky coincidence, eh?

Do you think having Samus on the cover three times is enough?

I'm also not sure about that background. It's like they want to scream at us, "HEY GUYS, IT'S A SPACE GAME!"

That said, the Samus model looks better than ever. I like the crisp detail and cool tones.

@ Jezreel

What, you want the box-art background to have twinkies and a chocolate river? Because that's what the Metroid series is based around, chocolate.

God that's borzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

Sorry I feel asleep for a moment there.

was the plot already unveiled to have a rival or is this a new develpoment??

mo: Play Metroid Prime 2.
It's called "Metroid Prime" for a reason.

@Reapz - I just wish that covers would be more elegant in understatement. Besides, it's not often that the Metroid series actually transports players to views of outer space itself. Unless, Corruption does just that, I find the background to be a bit of an overstatement.

And no, I know well enough to know that twinkies and chocolate are for The Adventures of Cookie & Cream!

so so art. hopefully an awesome game

really hopefully with multi

really really hopefully sonic will be unveiled as a character

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TyXUVd2c83c

Sonic Adventure 2 box > Metroid 3 box.

*hums while the fanbase goes crazy*

That's not Dark Samus mirrored by Samus. I think it might be Samus in corruption mode, or at least symbolizes the corruption. The evil doppleganger is seen in the upper left hand corner outlined against space.

@6

i was never into the metroids so i have no idea, i was under they impression that the main bad guy was ridley, am i mistaken??

The baddie in the prime series has been an evil dupllicate of samus due to a toxic substance called phazon. The only time Metroid Prime was in these games was at the end of the first game, upon being killed Dark Samus rose from the corpse.

It's been bugging me for years, they can never make samus look cool and stylish for their CG mock-ups. Metroid Prime's Samus half crouching and aiming her gun got close, but in that pic she's just standing there. I say get a graphic artist to draw some awesome pictures for the box art (concept art style) or get a professional 3D artist for some ultra high detail pictures.

Sonic Adventure 2 is the only 3d sonic I've played thaat I liked, but I haven't played Sonic adventure 1. The other ones suck.

Anyways Metroid Prime 3 looks awesome and I hope they've figured out the controls well.

@mo:
I guess you could say that. If I recall correctly, Ridley is the leader of the Space Pirates. And although Mother Brain was the final boss, she/it was more like a central computer used by the Space Pirates.

However, in the Prime games (excluding Hunters and Pinball), the main villian is Metroid Prime. Who SPOILERbecomesdarksamusbyabsorbingthephazonsuitSOILER.

YOU IDIOTS ARE MISSING THE BIG PICTURE!!!!!! NOW TELL ME, WHAT PLANET DOES THE BACKROUND OF THE COVER RESEMBLE? AM I THE ONLY ONE THAT NOTICED? anyways i agree with you no.13 sonic started going downhill after sonic adventure2 and thata because yuji noka and halph of the sonic team just up and left one day to make a new team. I really miss the choa garden btw.

Introducing countless, gimmicky, non-sensical, irrelevant, shallow, tertiary characters.. instead of focusing on the primary protagonist, was the downfall of the Sonic series.

The same thing is happening with Metroid; its started with Echoes and will get worse from here on.

I'm with ssuk. While they are both not that great, the MP3 box art is awful. It looks like it was made by a 13 year old with his pirated copy of photoshop.

This looks like it was taken from the Canadian box. You can see written in both French and English in the ESRB description box.

No wifi logo, unless thats still being kept secret until e3 (hopefully). Ah well I won't get any online gaming for the next 3 years anyway, damn uni networks.

Yeah, Konny! Because adding characters is awful and can only hurt story telling!

Sometimes I swear you Nintendtrolls are actually getting dumber.

@hvnlysoldr

When I worked retail, it wasn't uncommon for Nintendo to send Canadian copies to the US. In fact, one entire shipment of Metroid Prime was like that.

@Tray

Well, to answer your question, I'd say you're trying to elude to Earth. Which would be awesome but apparently MP3s version of Earth lacks the distinctive LAND MASS to make it Earth. So I'd say it's likely an aquatic planet. If it has anything to do with anything in the game instead of "good planet/evil planet" this particular Graphic Designer was locked into. This becomes especially apparent as good planet has swirling clouds and evil planet has tribal flame tattoos with a smudge brush in Photoshop.

So yes, you are the only one who saw Earth there. Be proud of your ability to jump to conclusions without noticing ground.

Yay, Sonic-Cult has invaded the comments.

That's amazing! The two go together so perfectly on so many levels. It's genius even if it's an accident. btw, I don't car that it's basically a rip off, it's not like the box art for this game will sway sales anyway.

one of the worst/cheesiest covers ive seen in a long time, 3 friggin shots of samus and the corruption font is just stupid looking

Honestly, I'm not too interested in the Metroid Prime series, but that box art looks good enough for me to start considering buying this game. Really, it's so colorful and great...

I have to stop staring at it so much...

Man, it looks exciting!

Hasnt the last 3 Metroid games already have an "evil twin".

Enough evil twins please!

Wow! You actually used my news tip!
Anytime Ludwig!

It will be great to play a Metroid Prime without the control scheme we had in 1 and 2. Don't get me wrong, it wasn't bad... but the nunchuk/wiimote combo will be a huge improvement.

Me, I'm sadly more excited that hopefully upon its release on Wii Nintendo will finally get off their collective rear ends and release Metroid or Super Metroid on VC.

Yeah Dansk, they have. Since all 3 are direct sequels, I was under the impression that it was the same evil twin.

BTW, I only just started MP2 earlier this week. Gotta beat it before august.

I only play these games for the art galleries anymore. Andrew Jones is that good.

Wait wait wait. Wait. Is corrupt Samus left-handed?

"Introducing countless, gimmicky, non-sensical, irrelevant, shallow, tertiary characters.. instead of focusing on the primary protagonist, was the downfall of the Sonic series.

The same thing is happening with Metroid; its started with Echoes and will get worse from here on."

I hardly think that's a problem because Dark Samus was well utilized in Prime and MP2 was a well crafted game. Not only did Sonic get lots of pointless friends, but he was also introduced to shitty gameplay and horrible cameras. Playing as Big and Amy is far from the only thing that has hurt that series.

Crono: Metroid Prime 1 didn't have a 'doppelganger' Samus.
MP2 and 3 have "Dark Samus" (aka Metroid Prime with the Phazon Suit) and Metroid Fusion has SA-X, an X-Parasite created copy of Samus.

I hope we don't see this plot device in future Metroid games, it's getting tiresome. MP3 will still rock though :)

The cover could be of two monkeys doin' it I'm still buying it NQA.

*Spoilerage if you haven't beaten prime and fusion*

Daniel, there's actually some discussion that Metroid Prime is the SA-X (though not the same one as in fusion). When you beat Metroid Prime in the first one, it comes out of its shell looking a whole lot like an X Parasite from Fusion. I also think that the Phazon allows it keep the metroids from eating it, which is why its hooked on phazon and then swallowed the Phazon suit.

*end Spoilerage*

In any case, all I was saying is that Dark Samus first appeared in prime 1, and was a major character in prime 2.

I'm going to go home and play me some prime 2 tonight. Gotta beat it before August.

@ 35:

What? Metroid Fusion takes place WAY after the events of Metroid Prime. The official Metroid timeline goes as such:

Metroid/Zero Mission -> Metroid Prime 1/2/3 -> Metroid 2 -> Super Metroid -> Metroid Fusion

The SA-X is born when Samus gets taken over by the X Parasite while on "clean-up duty" on SR-388 after Super Metroid. The X only lives on SR-388, so there is no possible way for Dark Samus to be the SA-X. I don't know where you heard this "discussion", but whoever said it needs to be severely beaten.

"The X only lives on SR-388, so there is no possible way for Dark Samus to be the SA-X."

Yeah, and the Metroids only exist on SR-388 as well, until the space pirates got ahold of it. Isn't it possible that while the space federation was extracting the metroid from SR-388, they also picked up an X-parasite that got taken to Zebes, and then hitched a ride to tallon IV, where it came into contact with the Phazon and became Metroid Prime?

Think about the behavior of Metroid Prime. It was able to absorb all weapons and technology thrown against it and integrate it into itself. Not very metroid like, but very X-Parasitic. Not to mention that when you kill Metroid Prime, whats left is something that look alot like a giant X-parasite that tears the phazon suit off of samus.

Remeber, there were like 4 or5 SA-X clones at the end of Fusion. Why couldn't there have been an SA-X born at the end of Prime?

Wow, if I were sitting there listening to the conversation crono and syphon just had, I would have started clapping. I might have cried.

@ 37:

Because Metroid Prime was just that: A Metroid. It was severely pummeled with phazon, but it was just a metroid. The Space Pirate logs cite this fact repeatedly. As far as Metroid continuity goes, there are no known organisms such as the X yet. Where on Tallon IV did you see an X parasite?

Also, the X were only so plentiful on SR-388 because Samus destroyed all Metroids in Metroid 2. Before the end of Metroid 2, there were virtually no X parasites on SR-388, which also explains why there weren't any there during Metroid 2, also. So, no, it is not possible that an X parasite snuck onto a Space Pirate cruiser and traveled to Tallon IV, nor is it possible it snuck onto a Space Federation frigate, since at that point, SR-388 hadn't even been discovered by anyone other than the Space Pirates yet.

Now, you MIGHT be able to make the argument that there was some travel between Tallon IV and SR-388 by the Chozo, and MAYBE an X parasite came to Tallon IV that way, but that's a pretty big stretch since it seemed that the Chozo on Tallon IV were fairly cut off from the rest of the universe.

Where on Tallon IV. I keep telling, in the Metroid Prime's death throws, right before it sucks the Phazon suit off of samus, it appears to be a big ass x-parasite. Metroids don't evolve into metroid prime. The biggest they get is Omega metroid (as seen at the end of Fusion).

Heads up, Space Federation discovered SR-388. Space Pirates raided the research vessel carrying the metroid from the first game. Also, just because X-parasites were rare, doesn't mean a straggler couldn't sneak on board an alien spacecraft, especially given the X-parasites uncanny intellegence. I think things will come full circle in metroid corruption, and I'll either be proved to be right or on the right track, or completely and totally off base.

I'm going to go out on a limb and say that the Omega Metroid was the highest NORMAL evolution of Metroids, while Metroid Prime was the evolution based on Phazon irradiation, i mean its not like you would expect Space Pirates to evolve into the Elite Pirates, Phazon Elite, and the Omega Pirate, right?

@ Crono

I always presumed that that blob that sucks the Phazon Suit shell off of Samus was just the 2nd form of Metroid Prime, but kind of collapsed upon itself in its death throes

Oh, and not to nitpick, but Samus is only on that cover twice, the two mirrored images to be exact

That third image is clearly Dark Samus, note the subtler, curved lines around the mask's visor, as opposed to the sharp straight lines on the two Samuses

A) You are correct in stating that metroids don't evolve into Metroid Prime, but an Omega Metroid. However, this is a NATURAL evolution. The phazon that was pumped into Metroid Prime caused it to UNNATURALLY evolve into Metroid Prime. That's all there is to it; Metroid Prime is a metroid. There were no X parasites on Tallon IV. None. Zero. Zip. Nada. Nothing. I really don't know where you are getting this idea that an X parasite appeared from the phazon ooze that was Metroid Prime's defeated body. All you see rise from the ashes was a hand. Where are you getting this from?

B) You're also right about the Galactic Federation discovering SR-388 before the Space Pirates, you got me there. HOWEVER, Space Pirates did not raid any frigate and steal the metroid from the first game. The Space Pirates got all their metroids directly from SR-388. The only metroid they ever stole was the baby metroid from Metroid 2.

Also, the X parasites were not intelligent. The only intelligent X parasites were the SA-X. All the other X parasites were dumb, mindless parasites just looking for a host.

I hope that's not the official final one. Seems like there were no creative effort put into this, those are thaught at a basic level in graphic design; red vs blue, light vs dark (they should have made a black costumes rather than just a tainted screen version, looks like a shadow) etc. The third Samus is also out of place.

To everyone saying there are 3 shots of Samus, the one in the corner is Dark Samus, so there are only 2. And all this evil twin stuff makes sense with the game's storyline, where Samus is corrupted and in a struggle between her dark side and regular self. It's not a twin. Just Samus' corrupted side.

I understand the point that some of you are making in correctly identifying one of the figures as being a person other than Samus. However, the helmet design is so similar that all but the most invested fans would assume that to be a third Samus extraneously placed in the corner. My main critique would be for the repetition in the cover based on the presence of that assumption.

My point was that upon playing the game, the cover would make a lot more sense.

Although, I guess that's not the point of a cover. It's supposed to entice people into playing the game, and I guess it might not do a great job at that. But word of mouth will certainly entice people to play this game, cause I'm sure it's going to be great.

Yeah, at least Metroid is a well-known franchise so the advertising aspect of the cover isn't as crucial, recent lackluster sales notwithstanding. As long as Corruption is as good as Prime and Echoes, I couldn't care less what the cover looks like.