Article: Mapping Metroid: Narrative, Space, and “Other M”

Luke Arnott writes: “When Metroid: Other M (Team Ninja, 2010) was released on the Nintendo Wii, it got mixed reactions from fans and critics. Other M diverged from the first-person gameplay that had distinguished the Metroid series for much of the 2000s, returning to the third-person perspective of earlier games with a more “arcade” feel. More significantly, the player-avatar protagonist, Samus Aran, was made to speak for the first time since her appearance in the original Metroid (Nintendo R&D1, 1986). Many fans saw this as a betrayal of the character, especially since Samus – in earlier games an autonomous bounty hunter – was now taking orders from a patronizing new character, Adam Malkovich. But if Metroid: Other M appeared to stumble on the narrative level, an analysis of why – and in what specific ways – it did so might better help us to understand why earlier Metroid games were seen as great successes”.

Download the full paper at http://gac.sagepub.com/content/early/2015/04/24/1555412015580016.abstract or read the free preprint at http://lukearnott.weebly.com/mapping-metroid-narrative-space-and-other-m.html