Metroid Prime: Hunters: The Hunt Begins Company: Nintendo The Metroid Prime: Hunters demo comes with every purchase of the Nintendo DS. This peek into what is to come for the Metroid line not only lets you play through several different kinds of modes, but it gives you a chance to learn how the game will feel when it does come out. This demo has two modes of play: Multiplayer and Training Mode. Training Mode lets you practice controlling Samus as she goes up against various villains like zoomers and several metroids. These three Training Modes are Regulator, Survivor and Morphball. Regulator puts you in a sample level where you learn all of Samus? various controls. You control the bounty hunter?s movement with the D-Pad (or face buttons if you?re left handed), and fire with the shoulder buttons. You also aim, switch weapons, and go into morphball mode with the stylus and the touch screen. When I first played Metroid Prime: Hunters at E3, I had no problems picking up the controls. But at the time, it was strapped to a table and I didn?t have to worry about holding the DS while playing the game. Since then, I was worried that it would be difficult to hold the system and control the character at the same time. Thankfully, this is not the case. Survivor Mode dumps you into an arena filled with an endless supply of monsters. The basic idea is to see how many baddies you can shoot down before they knock you out. In Morphball Mode, you?ll race through yet another level, collecting floating blue symbols to gain points. Here you will have a limited amount of time to weave your way through the enemies and rack up points. If you collect enough symbols, your rank will be put into the high score list. The Hunters demo uses the DS Single-Card Download Play. That means that you only need one copy of the game and up to three friends with a DS of their own. One person (the one with the demo) starts up the system and selects multiplayer. The others then select Download Play from the OS screen and choose the Metroid Prime: Hunters game. After that, the players go head to head in an all out deathmatch, just like every other multiplayer first person shooter on the shelves. Metroid Prime: Hunters will take the Metroid line in a whole new direction, but the more I played the demo, the more I felt like it was becoming just another FPS. Hopefully this is not the case. Hunters takes to the street this March. -J.R. Nip, GameVortex Communications AKA Chris Meyer Related Links: Nintendo Home Page Nintendo DS Home Page