Hands-On: Metroid Prime: Federation Force Is Fun and All, But It’s No Metroid

Nintendo will release Metroid Prime: Federation Force in "late spring," it said today. Whatever the 3DS game turns out to be, thus far, it's no Metroid.

Nintendo announced Federation Force for the 3DS at last year's E3 Expo in June, and hasn't said a word about it until today. While the main game is a multiplayer cooperative shooter, the only playable demo was of "Blast Ball" mode, a sort of soccer-with-guns game in which teams compete to shoot at a ball into a goal. Last week, I got to go hands-on with the first demo of the game's main story mode, playing two of its levels.

The Metroid Prime games may look like first-person shooters, but they're really slow-paced, single-player adventure exploration games based on the classic 2-D titles in the series. Nintendo hasn't released one since 2007, which has left fans a little antsy, to say the least. Federation Force's debut as a ball-shooting future-sports portable game was met with widespread negativity. (The game's official trailer on YouTube currently has 9,000 likes and 84,000 dislikes.)