Jesus, Tom Chick is completely insane. Two points.
1) He says the OPPOSITE of what many reviews are saying. Many reviews ding it for being too easy--he dings it for being too hard! That's patently not true, as the game is significantly easier than the previous 2 entries. It is the only really serious gameplay flaw that the game has. Similarly, he calls the boss fights lame, when other sources (even the "negative" Gamespot review) cite them as the best parts. It's like he got shipped the special bizarro version of the game.
2)Similarly, he also dings Metroid for being Metroid: tossing the player into a strange environment with a vague goal and letting them figure out what the heck they are supposed to be doing. Is he totally unfamiliar with the franchise?
3) It also seems like he is writing this for the "nongamer mom that just got a Wii audience." Note that I am not even sure if this audience exists in reality, but the last paragraph shows that Tom's writing for some audience that's not close to core gamer:
"Too much of the time, though, "Metroid Prime 3" is more tedious than epic. This is particularly true of the boss battles, which are exhaustive affairs requiring dedication, patience, and most importantly, a familiarity with the vocabulary of videogames: double jumping, circle strafing, shooting weak points for massive damage, etc. Those who previously used the Wii only for party games will need a 13 year-old boy to explain it all."
As usual, folks, this isn't a Tom Chick review based on reality. He gets everything backwards and wrong (more than usual, even), including wasting too much ink on the lame, but ultimately superficial and unimportant story. Remember, folks, he hates Deus Ex.
