We don't know the origin, only that we got sent this via friend of a friend (thanks, Sam and Matt) and that it touched us both as a Metroid reference and as an adorable cat. Not a lolcat, though -- it'd have to read something more like "morf boll akqwird." Check out the highlights for today:

Joystiquery
Readers pick best webcomic: Marketing 101
The Joystiq Guide to PSP Themes
Today's most traumatic video: Trauma Center: New Blood teaser

News
Quake Wars demo now available
Unreal Tournament 3 gets 'no guarantee' of Nov. release from Epic
Guitar Hero III coming to Mac and PC this fall
PSP gets firmware 3.70
Namco Bandai site shows Eternal Sonata and Beautiful Katamari coming to PS3
Uncharted coming to PS3 on November 20
Study: M rated games have higher scores, better sales
Igarashi favors Xbox 360 for next Castlevania
Ratchet & Clank PS3 demo on Oct 4
Capcom stock hits five-year high, boosted by Wii
PS3 named best 'media center' by European org.
Guitar Hero II DLC goes multi-platinum
Pre-purchase Orange Box on Steam, play TF2 beta next week
E-mail phishers targeting Xbox Live accounts
Sega bringing Crack Down and ESWAT to Virtual Console
The Engineer tells his tale in Team Fortress 2 trailer
Tom Morello to appear as Guitar Hero III boss
Sierra talks risk and new IPs

Rumors & Speculation
Purported copy of Halo 3 sells on eBay
Rumor: Ninja Gaiden 2 images leaked on Xbox Japan site
Rumor: Halo movie script leaked
Overheard: New Blizzard project codenamed Hydra
'Brutally Fun' countdown could signal 'Brutal Legend'

Culture & Community
COD4 dev becomes most popular gamertag
Is the PS3 above the average consumer's 'price ceiling'?
HBO acquires Second Life documentary
Halo 3 launch events in US and free Xbox Live Gold
Japanese arcade game driving beetle extinction

Remember those in-game references from Metroid Prime 3 hinting at the rumored 2D Metroid Dread's near-completion status? Turns out the joke's on us.

Speaking to CVG, Nintendo has confirmed that the company "is not making the 2D Metroid at this point in time." Metroid Dread for DS showed up on a Nintendo pre-E3 list in 2005 but never materialized after that. The wording does leave room for a three-dimensional title, but instead of getting our hopes up, we're just going to call this one dead.

Check out this awesome Samus Aran figurine being modeled by IGN forum user red3183 (via The Wiicast). If he stopped now, we'd still sit this high on our shelf of nerdy paraphernalia. Check out the highlights for today:

Joystiquery
Readers pick best webcomic: To Catch a Predator

News
PS3 gets firmware 1.92
Quake Wars demo due this month
Call of Duty 4 devs 'going after' Halo 3
SCi/Eidos admits takeover talks
Reminder: Gears of War maps now free
Veterans protest America's Army
33% of UK game stores in 'financial danger'
Kane and Lynch movie gets fast-tracked
Forty PS3 titles to be playable at TGS
Finally: Master P and Seth Green team for RPG
Mercenaries 2 slips to '08 -- happy delay
Xbox 360 HD DVD getting Euro price cut
Harvey Birdman gets on Wii's case Nov. 13
Wii Guitar Hero III gets no online initially
Motorstorm gets patched to 2.0
Sony raising money for PlayStation division with insurance unit IPO
Uncharted sidekick gets a dye job
WSJ: Sony prepping plunge into video download service
Nintendo trademarks Body Controller, others

Rumors & Speculation
Analysts believe 80GB to go $499 this year

Culture & Community
Survey: British (male) gamers not peeved by in-game ads
Heavenly Sword animated series: Part V

The Variety review of Metroid Prime 3: Corruption just goes to show the ramifications Nintendo's message that the Wii is a casual system can cause a title like Metroid. Just forget the debate if Nintendo abandoned hardcore gamers, or gamers abandoned Nintendo, for just a little bit. Like we went over in Joystiq podcast #14, whoever did what to whom, the two are currently experiencing what professionals might call "marital issues." The thing this review by Variety showed is that a mainstream publication notices something wrong with a non-casual title on a perceived casual system. Variety ends the first paragraph of the review saying, "Ultimately, gamers looking for a well paced, thrill-a-minute shooter with a compelling narrative are going to be disappointed. 'Halo' this ain't."

The Variety review has some kind words for the game, but it seems so clearly written with the realization that the marketing of the Wii console as a casual system doesn't click with this game. Another scathing point they make is Metroid is more "tedious than epic," they say the boss battles are "exhaustive affairs requiring dedication, patience, and most importantly, a familiarity with the vocabulary of videogames: double jumping, circle strafing, shooting weak points for massive damage, etc. Those who previously used the Wii only for party games will need a 13 year-old boy to explain it all." Whether this analysis is right or wrong isn't the point, 10 million people may own a Wii, but how many of those people actually move beyond the casual titles or would purchase a game like Metroid? The Wii was sold on casual fun, Metroid is not -- to an outside consumer -- a Wii title.

Despite being unofficially canned in November 2005, Metroid Dread, the rumored 2D-throwback project for DS, is back on the radar. New evidence has been uncovered by IGN (and other privileged Metroid Prime 3 reviewers) while scanning a certain panel found mid-game in this week's Wii release. Using Samus's scan visor, the message reads:

"Experiment status report update: Metroid project 'Dread' is nearing the final stages of completion."

Is Dread back from the dead? Maybe -- or perhaps MP3 developer Retro is just pulling an insider's gag. It's time for Nintendo to fess up.

GameTrailers finishes off their Metroid retrospective by quickly going over the retelling of the original Metroid in Zero Mission and then setting up the chronology of the series. From Metroid (Zero Mission) to Metroid Fusion, they go over the 10 games, which have sold over 13 million units and bundle up the series in a nice morph ball

Although the games bounce back and forth in the Metroid timeline, it's nice to know that there's an actual cohesive story in there compared to the debatable Legend of Zelda timeline. And now we look forward to this week when we finally get our hands on Corruption. Samus will be playable again in the near future with Smash Bros. Brawl, but we'll have to wait and see if the next full Metroid game takes place after Fusion, or if Nintendo squeezes another chapter out of the Prime series.

I spent a few delightful minutes at the Nintendo booth playing Metroid Prime 3: Corruption, and displaying my poor sense of direction to a crowd of onlookers. I got just enough playtime to test out the controls (I didn't need to beat the game or anything!) I can safely say that after about five seconds of fantastically awkward movement, I felt not only comfortable playing the game, but, like with Zelda: Phantom Hourglass, I was enjoying just messing around.

The controls are exactly the same in normal or expert mode, with the exception of Wiimote sensitivity. Expert mode is way more sensitive, and requires much subtler movements. It also enables quicker motion. Looking around and turning with the Wiimote was awkward at first, but it immediately clicked and I was ready to run and jump around. Shooting, of course, is mapped to A, and jumping to B, so there was no problem there. Z on the Nunchuk locks on, and C activates the morph ball. Down on the D-pad shoots missiles. All of these worked well and intuitively. The only exception is scanning: I never quite got it, but it basically involved holding Z, moving the Wiimote to point at an area in the corner of the screen, then holding Z again. It's the only part that I can honestly say takes getting used to.

The best part of the controls is easily the grapple beam, which involves targeting a grapple point and making a lasso motion with the Nunchuk, then pulling back. Once I started doing that unconsciously, I felt pretty cool (I wasn't.) It seems that Nintendo has finally found a "hardcore" equivalent to Wii Sports: if not in popularity, at least in deriving actual enjoyment from the basic control scheme.

Oh, and, in case you were wondering, the game looks hot, especially on those big fancy screens Nintendo was using at their demo stations. We should all get some of those.

Need more Samus and Link in your Euro life? Nintendo has confirmed that the leaked European release date list is partially true, in that Metroid Prime 3: Corruption is slated for Oct. 26 and Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass sails in Oct. 19. If the trend continues and the leaked list does translate into actual European release dates, gamers can expect Super Mario Galaxy there November 16 (soon after the NA Nov. 12 date).

Of course, Zelda launches in North America Oct. 1, so with no region lock on the DS, Europeans should feel free to get one sent to them from the States. On the bright side of things, at least it won't be a long engagement for Europe like some games. A month is not a terribly long time to wait.

The original headline was something along the lines of "Samus and Shinobi tour Neutopia on Virtual Console" but honestly, the less time spent thinking up trite headlines the better. Today's incredible Virtual Console update has steamrolled our Monday productivity into a lackadaisical mush of "meh."

• Super Metroid (SNES, 1 player, 800 Wii points): Considered by many to be one of the greatest games of all time (evar), Super Metroid hardly requires a descriptive paragraph such as this one. Needless to say then, that it features Samus doing what she does best: murdering metroids, blasting evil brains and reminding us why we need to stay alive until August 27th.
• Shinobi III: Return of the Ninja Master (Genesis, 1 player, 800 Wii points): The third entry in Sega's ninja kill-em-up series and arguably the best. As far as side-scrolling slashers go, the Shinobi one is your only hope... for gaming fun!
  
• Neutopia (TurboGrafx16, 1 player, 600 Wii points): Neutopia is often labeled as a Legend of Zelda clone. Somehow, we don't think it minds.

Look for these games in the Wii shop after 9AM PST.

GameTrailers continues their Metroid retrospective focusing on the DS titles and the soon-to-be-released Metroid Prime 3: Corruption. Metroid Prime: Hunters may not have been friendly in avoiding cramps for adult hands, but it was still a solid 3D handheld shooter game. Maybe not exactly the Metroid experience genre fans were looking for, but it was something for the road. As for Metroid Pinball -- well, you either liked it or not.

We understand now why GameTrailers took forever to get this episode out the door this week. Turns out that they were adding a bunch of little snippets from this week's release of the Metroid Channel on the Wii. They take a nice plasma shot at putting the basic information we know about Corruption into this retrospective. The series concludes next week with a look at all the games mixed together in one gelatinous Metroid glob.

See also: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3

Metroid. Prime. 3. So close to release. After delays and forgotten promises of online play, will this be the first great Wii first-person shooter? This new GameTrailers clip gives no idea to how this thirst quenching title will control. We're trying to to get sucked into the hype. (There's that other game to strum us into a frenzy for now.) But here's hoping that Metroid will be a much-needed oasis. (The thing in the desert, not the band.)

See the new video for this August 27 game after the break.

A new trailer for Metroid Prime 3 focuses on an awful familiar... uh, "face." That's right: Mother Brain appears front and center in "Aurora Unit," the newest preview video being featured on Wii consoles everywhere. After a number of confusing lobe-focused shots, the scene pictured above is shown, revealing the layout of Ma Brain's oh-so-famous Tourian hangout, and essentially confirming that the big boss of both Metroid and Super Metroid will at least be making a cameo appearance.

But how large a role will she play? The non-gameplay footage is labeled "Cross section of future aurora complex." Does this mean we won't be battling Mother Brain in Prime 3? Will the reconstruction of Zebes be a part of the storyline? Take a gander at the video after the break, and let us know what you think.

The "Month of Metroid" continues with the Virtual Console release of Metroid, one of the real classics of the NES. It's joined by two other titles with ... mixed results.

–Metroid (NES, 1 player, 500 Wii Points): You should absolutely download and play Metroid, but please, once you've completed it, don't give away the secret twist ending. Why not let your friends be shocked when they discover that their manly lead man is not so much a man -- as a lady?

–Shining in the Darkness (Sega Genesis, 1 player, 800 Wii Points): This is the beginning of the Shining series, although it makes some significant departures from it. The series it would birth is probably enough to make it historically important, though not necessarily worthy of your cash. If you're a fan of dungeon RPGs though, go nuts.

–Cratermaze (TurboGrafx16, 1 player, 600 Wii Points): When you read that what you're about to play is "a comical action game set in a parallel world," you know you're in for something special. But when you find out that also, the game was originally called Booby Kids in Japan, you should strap in for the ride of your life.