The funny thing about doubt is that it tends to light a fire under the ass of the doubted. Don't believe it? Ask Retro Studios; they know all about being doubted. When Nintendo commissioned the formerly little-known dev house to create a new, 3D version of Metroid - one of its most beloved franchises - there was a little skepticism. When it was discovered that this new 3D Metroid would be in the first person, there was a LOT of skepticism. Of course, we all know what happened after that; Retro Studios came up huge in 2002 with the modern classic for Nintendo's GameCube, Metroid Prime, and cemented their place in gaming history with a game that some may consider the best game ever conceived. Not bad for a freshman effort, I'd say.

After every freshman effort inevitably comes the sophomore jinx, however...and it seemed that the equally inevitable sequel was poised and ready to hit that jinx hard. Doubt was back, hanging over Retro Studios all over again. How were they going to respond this time? Metroid Prime 2: Echoes is Retro Studios' answer to critics, doubters and haters who have been lurking over them since 2002. It's the work of a group with a fire under their collective asses. Crammed with more of everything, Echoes looks to remind everyone that the series is in capable hands. But is it a better game than its predecessor? That's a hell of a task, but MP2 does everything to aim for that plateau - even at least one thing that's never happened in a Metroid game before.

One of the few - if any - knocks on the original Metroid Prime was the story. Some people considered it to be somewhat plodding and muted. Right from the very start of Echoes, though, it's made clear that this game's not playing around with narrative. The game opens with our hero, the ravishingly deadly bounty hunter Samus Aran, headed to the uncharted planet of Aether to investigate the whereabouts of a team of Space Federation Troopers; the group of troopers traveled to Aether to take down some Space Pirates they followed there, but were attacked by an unknown lifeform and not heard from again.

En route to the planet, Samus' ship is damaged by an electrical storm, and she makes a rough landing on the surface. Getting to work on tracking the troopers down, Samus cautiously walks the planet. She eventually comes upon the Federation Troopers - but not necessarily the way she'd like to have done so. The planet's surface is wrecked, and the troopers are dead, horrifically slaughtered by something beyond imagination. As soon as Samus begins analyzing the data and the situation, an evil, almost noxious darkness rises out of nowhere and possesses the dead body of one of the troopers. Samus fights it off, but you're totally unsure of what the hell just happened.

Suddenly, that familiar eerie loneliness that characterizes Metroid games comes over you like clockwork...but this time around, it's also augmented by a new trick - fear. Like, a sort of shocking, Resident Evil style fear of the unknown mixed in with the usual omnipresent Metroid dread. You have no idea what Retro's got up the sleeves this time, but you'll be mulling over the possibilities every second. Echoes wastes no time in establishing the Metroid feel; you're alone, against a mystery race of vicious aliens unlike anything you've fought before, and you lose all your equipment early after being mugged by a groups of those aliens.

However, much like in 2002's Metroid Fusion, there's an even creepier foe to worry about that joins the mugging effort - an evil clone version of you, Dark Samus. Beaten and weakened, you begin your great quest of exploration; just like that, the game is off and running in memorable fashion. Echoes is interesting, in that it's almost compelled to push the series forward as much as the last game did - maybe even more so - and at the same time, take care to keep the things that define Metroid games intact. As a result, it sports a design that doesn't change everything from the last game, which may initially disappoint people looking for that "fresh" feeling Metroid Prime has.

It's got the classic structure; Samus loses her gear, Samus hunts it down, Samus becomes stronger and is able to explore deeper and further into her world, Samus traipses back and forth across the game world, more secrets and such uncover themselves, Samus wins, she's a totally badass bounty hunter, film at 11. Don't be too worried though; Metroid Prime 2: Echoes, unlike any previous game in the series, uses that structure in an almost skeletal fashion - like, there's so much more going on here, so much wonderfully layered game design and so many new wrinkles added to the mix, that you forget that the hallmarks of Metroid gameplay progression are still in there.

Speaking of new wrinkles, this game's main gameplay hook is a huge one - more like a big, ominous rift, actually. The planet of Aether was once a calm planet, inhabited by the peaceful Luminoth race. When the planet was struck by a huge Phazon meteor, the planet was rended asunder, split into two different dimensions - a light dimension where the Luminoth survived, and a dark dimension that gave rise to the murderous aliens that killed the Federation Troopers, the Ing.

Since the dimensional rift was formed, the Luminoth and the Ing have been waging a violent war; however, the Ing now have turned the tide in the war, stealing Aether's energy sources from the Luminoth, possessing and destroying them, and otherwise just ruining their crap. The Luminoth decide to bring in a ringer to win the war and save themselves from being destroyed; naturally, that ringer is Samus. Samus is charged with recovering the lost energy sources, not to mention recovering all of her gear, wasting the Ing and also finding out exactly who - or what - Dark Samus is, among other things. In order to do so, Samus will have to travel between the Light and Dark versions of Aether, solving puzzles, unlocking rooms and defeating foes along the way.

Just like in Nintendo's Legend of Zelda: A Link to The Past, what you do in one world directly affects the other; as you could probably guess, this makes for some awesome puzzles, and great world design. Sure, it's not exactly a brand-new idea...but it is in the context of Metroid, and works excellently in Echoes. It's not anywhere near a simple job to just hop back and forth between dimensions; for starters, the Ing are killers. Like, crazy, scary, "run for your life"-type killers. They'll wreck you worse than most garden variety foes will. If that weren't enough, the very atmosphere of Dark Aether is poisonous to Samus; it drains her health quickly unless she stands in safe zones scattered throughout the shadowy land. Hell, the lay of the land in Dark Aether will kill you; jagged, deformed terrain and bottomless pits (yes, pits) will make short work of even a hunter of Samus' caliber. Lucky for Samus - and for us - she's got the tools to do the job.

Interdimensional travel requires interdimensional firepower; I think Gandhi said that once, right? Anyway, this dimension-hopping quest wouldn't be right without some heavy hitting stuff loaded up in that arm cannon, and Echoes brings the ruckus. Samus starts with her obligatory Power Beam, which does the job for frying a lot of baddies, but as the game progresses, new weapons become vital to survival. Samus acquires beam weapons that match the dimensions she's running through; the Light Beam fires a piercing beam of flaming energy reminiscent of the Plasma Beam, and the Dark Beam fires a shot with the ability to slow down targets. Each beam is powerful in its own right - doubly so when used against the opposing dimension's creatures (read: Dark hurts Light, and vice versa) - and when the Charge Beam is acquired, they gain even more abilities when used as part of a beam combo. As you might imagine, both Light and Dark Beams require ammunition in order to use them.

The beams aren't just for joyously obliterating things though, as they're also used to manipulate the environment in each dimension; for example, you could cause something to grow or energize a safe zone with the Light Beam, or freeze an object or activate portals with the Dark Beam. There are also other tasty tools and tricks our sexy steel soldier picks up, including the ability to fire a cloud of homing missiles at multiple targets, new suits, new Morph Ball techniques, the return of the fan-favorite Screw Jump, and even the ability to combine both Light and Dark beams to form a super-powerful beam weapon as well...and there's other stuff after that. Suffice it to say, Samus isn't going to be without some serious firepower on this adventure.

In Metroid Prime, the transition to the third dimension and the first-person view was done memorably via the unique Visor mechanic. Echoes can't reinvent the wheel, so to speak, but the Visor idea is taken to new levels this time around. The Combat and Scan Visors are back and work exactly as they did before, with the Scan Visor sporting a new design that streamlines its usage. The Thermal and X-Ray Visors are gone, replaced by the all-new Dark and Echo Visors. The Dark Visor allows Samus to see objects, creatures and locales that exist only in Dark Aether, and maintain target locks on them. The visual effect for this is indescribably awesome, and it's supremely useful to boot. The Echo Visor allows Samus to view sounds; it's almost as if Samus becomes Daredevil when using it, except she doesn't suddenly totally suck or become a hilariously leather-clad Ben Affleck while doing so. It's also a marvel to look at and an indispensable tool to use when the situation calls for it...or even when it doesn't.

Echoes turned things up on the story, the gameplay hooks and the arsenal...but Retro doesn't stop for anything, as they also streamlined the gameplay design. The wonderful mélange of tricky platforming, first-person blasting, and exploration is here in full effect, but with Retro Studios unleashed and going for broke, the experience has a new, more exciting pace. You're still driven, helplessly compelled by the game to keep going and open just one more door or find just one more weapon, item or expansion; however, unlike the previous game, you're almost never too far away from where you should be going next.

The world design has a lot of interdimensional shortcuts and time-saving tricks you can use to travel, and it makes the gameplay progression a pleasure the whole way through - perhaps even more so than in the original Prime. The time you save doesn't make for a shorter game at all though; don't get it twisted, boys and girls. The adventure is long and deep, and the difficulty probably approaches twice that of the original - which was a pretty tough game itself. The combat in the game is still carried out mostly in a first-person view, but as the love-it-or-hate-it control scheme (unchanged from the original), lock-on targeting straight out of a Zelda game, and gameplay skewing towards exploring and surviving over shooting makes evident, this is hardly a first-person shooter as the conventions of Doom, Quake, Half-Life and Unreal have defined it.

Don't be fooled though; you'll need all of the shooting prowess you can muster to make it out of either part of Aether alive. The enemies are creative too, attacking you in unique ways that you can't help but smile at. An enemy that attacks your suit's neural network can causes your systems to crash, requiring you to restart the suit? Genius. Metroid Prime 2: Echoes has regular enemies that would be midbosses and bosses in other games, they're so hardcore. I defy you to face off against an Ingsmasher and tell me these are your average first-person bullet sponges. If the regular baddies are like this, you can bet your ass that the real bosses are so not screwing around.

Remember the Flahgraa and Sheegoth from the original Prime? Remember how they were pretty big, and pretty bad? The bosses in Prime 2 make those look like Pokemon. If you think that statement is an exaggeration, just wait until you get an eyeful of the Quadraxis...which isn't even near the end of the game. It's a good idea to prepare a change of clothing for that particular battle, and perhaps a bottle of holy water, since your favorite deity is more likely to hear your cries for help if you've got some handy after you get served for the 4th time by something that's a screen and a half high. Overall, the gameplay is excellent - as close to perfect as any game has ever gotten in this generation. There are one or two things that may annoy, like the higher difficulty and the controversial lack of dual analog control...but for the most part, it doesn't get better than this.

When you aren't being hunted relentlessly by Ing creatures and Dark Samus, you can get hunted by your friends in the new multiplayer mode - a first for the Metroid series. Up to 4 players can hop into a Power Suit and get behind the visor for some multiplayer mayhem in either deathmatch, or bounty modes. Retro Studios, in crafting a multiplayer mode, tried to lend an almost Quake 3-ish look to the multiplayer with some cool arenas to get it on in, but makes sure to impart a Metroid feel to the proceedings, planting morphball cannons, ramps, Spider Ball tracks, chasms and the like into the multiplayer maps.

The Deathmatch is standard "kill everyone" fare, while the Bounty mode works like a Super Smash Bros. Melee Coin Match where knocking tokens out of rivals and collecting the most wins. The lock-on targeting still works here, but it doesn't make things easy or cheap since locks are easily broken by entering your morphball and rolling away. There are interesting powerups here too like the Death Ball, which places one player into a temporary morphball of doom and lets that player plow through people with reckless abandon, or the Hacker Tool, which lets you upload a virus to a rival with a scan.

The multiplayer is a fun diversion now and again, but it's designed to be an afterthought...and it shows. I do appreciate that Retro Studios put it in though; if anything, it'll sate players who need multiplayer tacked onto their first-person titles on principle. Granted, you're not going to give up Unreal Tournament 2004 or SOCOM 2 to play this with other folks anytime soon, but it's nice to have there.

The original game's graphics were arguably the best of any game on any system back in 2002; they showed off an unparalleled amount of detail, boasted impressive texturework and were filled with any special effect you could think of...and it did all of this with a rock-solid 60 frames-per-second framerate. Metroid Prime 2: Echoes doesn't change the impressive effects, framerate or detail; instead, it keeps the already superlative work done there, and improves even more on technical merit. The eye candy comes in buckets now, with everything jazzed up with cleaner textures, more polygons, more advanced particle, transparency and lighting effects, and better geometry.

More enemies and objects can be on-screen at once, and the animation is improved as well. The highly-skilled artists at Retro Studios put their own stamp on the visual design in this sequel; instead of the plainly themed areas found in the original Prime, the world of Aether found in Echoes is home to unique areas with more variety in design. Everything on Light Aether is far more lush and organic than anything found in Metroid Prime, and the landscapes of Dark Aether are designed to be as graphically foreboding as the gameplay makes it physically foreboding.

Sometimes, you may even find yourself walking around aimlessly just to see what locale will make your jaw drop next. The character design in Prime 2 is likely the most radically improved thing in the whole game; there are seriously some amazing things living in the world Retro's put together. The Ing are vile, evil things straight out of your sci-fi horror movie nightmares, and the Space Pirates look like gorgeous 3D representations of the Pirates from 2D Metroid titles, more so than in the last game.

The bosses in particular are just sights to behold, with the aforementioned Quadraxis as one of the most impressive-looking things in any game ever made. Period. The graphics as a whole bring the eerie adventure to life like nothing else possibly could. For those of you with the coin to own a high-resolution television, Prime 2 is even more of a treat for the eyes since it supports progressive scan.

The sound is great stuff too, with everything fitting the vibe of the game just right. Explosions, shots, beams and the like sound like they should, and every motion that Samus makes, from the tap of her metallic feet against metal to her spiraling through the air on a Screw Jump has impeccably-done audio effects. The music is vintage Metroid, with lots of drums and bass, powerful electric guitars, pianos and organs, and pseudo-chants interspersed with some well-done remixes of older Metroid tunes from other series installments being the order of the day.

Metroid Prime 2: Echoes is an effort that you'd expect once a generation from the biggest of game designers - except this is Retro Studios' second time producing such work. Lightning strikes twice, down is up and up is down, and Echoes lives up to the lofty standards of its predecessor - almost against all odds, depending on who you ask. Is it perfect? Far from it. Is there room for improvement? Absolutely - perhaps it's time to give the option for dual analog controls, and perhaps the narrative could be better next time with even more storytelling through the game rather than via scan logs. Does it render something like 95% of most games nigh-pointless with its extremely high quality? Hell yes. And with around 20 or so hours of gameplay in it, you'll have plenty of time to learn and believe that, too.

It sometimes feels like “more of the same”, but if this is what “more of the same” entails, you can only salivate at the prospect of a new, fresh effort in the next game and what greatness that would bring. This is proof not only that the first game's greatness wasn't an anomaly, but also that true effort in game design can overcome even the greatest possibilities for a letdown. Samus is back, people; get ready to ride, for the most anticipated GameCube game of 2004 is here, and it rocks the house. Buy this game, immediately.