If there's one game PlayStation-owners and Xbox-gamers are jealous about, it must be Metroid Prime. This first-person adventure shocked the gaming audience with its magnificent graphics, challenging adversaries and the many weapons and gadgets it offered. The sequel, Metroid Prime 2: Echoes will really have to be "bigger & better" to satisfy the fans, but will Retro Studios be able to improve their masterpiece?

The game was shown on 2 demo-units on Nintendo's Amsterdam Event. One of them showed the intro sequence and the tutorial level, while the other offered us severel minutes of actual gameplay. I wasn't able to notice any important changes to the single-player mode, save for some new beams (weapons) and gadgets. This isn't such a "big" problem -the gameplay still remains excellent as ever- but I expected some more new gimmicks.

Unfortunately not all is postive. For one, MP2's graphics still need severe optimizing because the graphics in the shown build seemed very jaggy and actually worse than the original Metroid Prime. This was something I couldn't believe at first, but it's really like that. Luckily I'm pretty sure this will be solved, although I don't believe we'll see any noticeable graphical improvements over MP.

On the other hand, something that really surprised me was the included multiplayer mode. It features very intense combat, well-designed levels and doesn't show any slowdowns or lag of any sort. I only have one remark: it really takes forever to frag an opponent, because of the high-density shields. Hopefully, this small bump will be ironed out after balancing and finetuning.

When it's all said and done, I still anxiously await this game. Metroid Prime 2: Echoes promises to be a worty sequel to the best Cube-game so far. Unfortunately MP2 doesn't offer any real innovations compared to the original (save for the multiplayer mode). I expected a little more from a high-budget title such as this one