May 14^th, 2004 (12:00am) - At E3 a roundtable was held with Michael Kellbaugh, Mark Pacini, and Bryan Walker from Retro Studios and Metroid directors Kensuke Tanabe, Akira Otani, and Super Metroid director Yoshio Sakamoto of Nintendo to discuss the highly anticipated Metroid Prime 2: Echoes for the Nintendo GameCube. In this roundtable the two revealed many new details about the game, including many new details regarding the game’s multiplayer aspect. Located below are the some of the details revealed during this roundtable:

In Metroid Prime 2, the Light and Dark beams that Samus is newly equipped with, in the game, will play an important function. The beams themselves are limited to ammo, unlike all the non-missile beams in Metroid Prime, and they will be used to kill enemies of the opposite of color, similar to the blaster’s in Treasure’s Ikaruga for the GameCube. The beams will also feature different effects on enemies, where the Light Beam produces a shotgun-like effect, and where the Dark Beam fires a type of liquid that freezes objects and enemies. In addition, the Light beam will cause things to grow, whereas as the Dark will cause things to wither, thus making these beams a key tool in order to solve the game’s puzzles.

In the game’s multiplayer, the Morph Ball will play a key role. In addition to opening up new areas and paths, the Morph Ball can be used as a weapon when using its Boost Ball technique, which charges up Samus in ball form, allowing her to speed up and spin up ramps (as seen in the original Metroid Prime). In addition to this Boost Ball attack, a pick-up will be available during multiplayer called Death Ball. Its function is unknown at the current time.

The Scanning Visor will also have a new function during multiplayer. When picking up the Hacker power-up during multiplayer, scanning enemy opponents will upload a virus into their armor. Doing so, will have an effect on your opponent’s health, cause certain beams to become dysfunctional, and produce other effects of this nature. This element is expected to add plenty of strategy to the game’s multiplayer.

Retro’s Marik Pacini also disclosed the details on a multiplayer mode called Bounty. In Bounty Mode players will drop tokens every time they take damage during a shoot-out. The modes objective is to collect as many tokens possible within the predetermined time limit.

When questioned about why Nintendo didn’t stick with a dual analog control scheme like all other modern First Person games, Metroid designer Kensuke Tanabe replied with this following statement… “Because this is Metroid.”

Metroid Prime 2: Echoes is currently at sixty-five to seventy percent completion. However, I’m going to have to end this news report with at least one piece of bad news. For those hoping to play Metroid Prime 2’s multiplayer over LAN or Warp Pipe, time to fret. Retro Studios has not included LAN play for the current version of Metroid Prime 2, and it is not known whether or not this feature will be included in the final version of the game.