MDb news since 1996.
Though most of this is by now old news, I haven't been keeping up with even 1Up anymore, so here's a roundup of everything we know about the Metroid Prime Trilogy:
-Releases August 24, 2009
-All 3 games on one (dual-layer) DVD for $50
-Wii Motion Controls from Metroid Prime 3 in all three games
-Widescreen Mode
-420p
-Mii integration into user profiles
-All 3 games accessible from your profile menu
-Fancy frontend animations
-Metroid Prime 3's credits system - including friend credits
-Credits interchangeable between games
-Some unlockables more expensive
-Fusion Suit playable in Prime 1 only
-NES Metroid no longer unlockable
-No word yet on music test or screen capture unlock for Prime 1 and 2
-Prime 2's multiplayer mode is splitscreen only - no online play
-No graphical or texture enhancements for 1 and 2 save bloom lighting
-On the minus, FMV compression is more obvious for 1 and 2
-No voiceover for the Prime 1 intro cutscene
-No word yet on log book standardization
1Up also stated the first two games play quite a bit faster, which means our expert speedrunners may be able to shave off a little bit more time from these titles (though of course they will have fixed some of the exploits).
I'm a little bit disappointed in the implementation of the Friend Vouchers system. Considering how poorly documented the Friend Code system was in the Prime 3 manual and what we had to do to clarify things for our visitors, I'm personally hoping they have some excellent documentation this time around...
I'm particularly interested in whether or not the log books have been updated. Some of you may remember that the European and US versions of Metroid Prime have different log entries: Pirate Logs and Chozo Lore entries were changed for the European release to make things 'more clear': mainly Metroid Prime no longer escaped from the Cradle to absorb Space Pirate weaponry. Note that none of these changes were implemented for the US Player's Choice. We're hoping somebody at Retro Studios has sense enough to standardize the logs for ALL regions. Finally, the voice-over mentioned above was present in the European version and the Japanese Wii Play version of Metroid Prime, but not in the US version.
Until next time...
Captain Commando