Conclusion
With any hope, gamers now have a better idea of the massive amount of work that went into making Metroid Prime the graphical masterpiece it is today. Without the extraordinary vision of Todd Keller and all the dedicated artists that followed his guidance, Prime could have turned out much differently. So many games these days fall flat on their face in the area of art and, as a result, the project never fully realizes its true potential. What make's Metroid Prime such an amazing example, is the fact that a studio with no prior experience, three failed projects, and a turbulent beginning was able to pull off one of the most polished and critically acclaimed titles of this or any console generation. This accomplishment is nothing short of astonishing and a true testament to the commitment and loyalty Nintendo has to the series.
Videogames are rarely viewed as a legitimate art form, which truly is a shame. So much labor and love goes into making this interactive media the most memorable experience for all those that play them, yet like many painters, sculptures, and musicians, their work is never truly appreciated until much later when they themselves have been long forgotten. This fact sadly rings no louder than with the passing of Metroid creator, Gunpei Yokoi.
Though many of Prime's artists have left Retro Studios, including producers Steve Barcia and Michael Mann (both now work at EA Canada), the amazing work continues to flow from Retro Studios. Metroid Prime 2: Echoes stands to up the ante once again in both the art and game play departments. This holiday season will bring the second coming of Samus Aran to the Nintendo GameCube and we at N-Sider couldn't be more excited.
The N-Sider staff would like to leave you all now with the final thoughts and feelings from the artists at Retro about their overall feelings on the project. We hope you have enjoyed this inside look at the creation of Metroid Prime.
1) At the end of the day were you satisfied with the end result of your work? Do you wish you could have done something different to make your work even better?
Gene: I'm very satisfied and proud of the assets I created for Metroid Prime. Looking back on the work that I have created during my 9 years in this industry I see lots of areas that I could improve upon characters that I wish could be revisited. Prime is probably the one title out of all the games in my career that I can honestly say that I am 100% content about the work I put into it. There are technologies that I am working with today that I would have loved to have used on Samus to make her even more well artistically sexy but all in all I think she turned out fantastic.
2) Was your time at Retro working on Prime memorable and do you believe you were able to learn valuable lessons to take with you to other studios?
Gene: My time at Retro was extremely valuable. I had the opportunity to work on great games and meet some of the most top-notch talent available in the gaming industry. Two of the people that I would have to say were most beneficial to me during my stay with Retro would be Andy O'Neil and Chris Voellmann. Andy, a programmer, would take the time to explain why many of my assets had to be created a certain way. His explanations went a long way in improving my understanding of how to make my work much more efficient to maximize and keep their quality while not sacrificing frame rate.
Chris Voellmann, a fellow artist, showed me a bunch of cool stuff within the 3D package we were using. He introduced ways of speeding up modeling time and how to create some kick butt renders of my assets. His techniques were huge by enabling me to help create the marketing artwork that you have seen of Samus, including the box cover (all of which were given a final touch up by Andrew Jones to give them that extra eye candy goodness). I hope my path crosses with these guys sometime in the future so that we can get back to creating some cool stuff together.
Other than talent, the people at Retro possessed a very positive attitude about the work we were doing. Even during long periods of "crunch" the vibe was upbeat due to the excitement level we had about the product we were about to release.
I cannot wait to see what the crew over at Retro is cooking up for their next Metroid installment... Echoes!
1) At the end of the day, were you satisfied with the end result of your work on Prime? Do you wish you could have done something different to make your work even better?
LeRoy: I was happy. Of course there are few times were I wish I could spend more time on a texture or polish something but that just comes with being an artist. If we didn't have a schedule we artists could spend a few months in each room. :) It's good to have constraints and limits. It keeps us in balance and ensures the game actually gets out the door. We just have to do the best we can with the tools, time and resources allotted to us.
2) Was your time at Retro working on Prime memorable and do you believe you were able to learn valuable lessons to take with you to other studios?
LeRoy: I loved my time at Retro. There were ups and down like in any studio but I loved the people I worked with, they are some of the best in the biz. :) I learned some very key things that I can take with me as I do in any studio, be it good or bad. Even a bad experience can be a learning experience that can be turned to good. I learned it's good to work closely with your team to set a uniform standard and it helps maintain trust and friendship. I also realized that a person should never get too comfortable in a company and that loyalty with honor is usually one sided as the management is always looking out for their own selfish interests.
1) At the end of the day were you satisfied with the end result of your work? Do you wish you could have done something different to make your work even better?
Mike: I am very happy with the characters my teammates and I did for Metroid. Do I wish I could do anything different? Yeah, I think that I could of cranked out some of those characters faster. Since I've moved on from Retro I've really focused on painting my textures more efficiently. That's where most of the time is spent making a character look really good. The modeling is the easy part.
2) Was your time at Retro working on Prime memorable and do you believe you were able to learn valuable lessons to take with you to other studios?
Mike: Oh, yeah Metroid is definitely the most memorable project I've worked on and I learned a lot of lessons from my Retro adventure. It was a very interesting experience to work for Nintendo and to work at company like Retro. As IGN well knows Retro went through a lot of growing pains to get to where it is today. I went through most of those growing pains and it was not a fun experience. Many people may paint a very romantic idea of what it is like to work in the video game industry. Don't get me wrong, it can be a lot of fun to be part of team of people who make a kick ass game but that's only one side of the coin. On the other side of coin are teams and companies that fail to make a successful game. When that happens it can be really tough because that's usually when people get laid off. Retro failed on three titles before Metroid. A lot of people had to pay a personal price for some very decisions that were made way before Metroid came a long for Retro. Metroid Prime is a great game but it came at too high of a price for my personal beliefs.
The N-Sider staff would like to thank Gene Kohler, Mike Sneath, LeRoy Strauss, and the many anonymous sources that helped contribute to this article.