Shacknews reports that several "key" employees of Austin, Texas-based developer, Retro Studios, have left the company. The studio is best known for its work on the critically acclaimed Metroid Prime trilogy, which concluded in August last year on Nintendo's Wii.

Staff members said to have been escorted off the premises last Friday include design director Mark Pacini, art director Todd Keller and principal technology engineer Jack Matthews. There's no word yet on what their futures entail, but Shacknews notes that Retro Studios is in no danger of closing. Which is just as well, really, since we're in no danger of not wanting more games from them. We'll let you know when we hear more on this subject.

Update: There's some unconfirmed gossip from mysterious dealer in rumors, Surfer Girl, who mentioned that "something definitely went down at Retro" in a post dated Sunday, April 20th. An unnamed individual is quoted in the post as saying, "Pretty much no one at retro would agree to relocate at nintendo's behest, as asinine shenanigans are typically met with little fanfare."

Have you seen anything that's been totally awesome today? How about totally rad? Or totally sweet? What if we told you that an object had been fashioned that was not only all three of those adjectives, but required the dipping into the vernacular of the 80s to summon up ... "tubular"? Behold, for this Metroid-based Wii mod is just such an object.

Ramon, of the God of War PSP mod fame, is back with this gorgeous addition to his canon, currently up for grabs on eBay. As with his last piece, a portion of the proceeds are going to benefit Child's Play. So dig down, bid hard, and get yourself a big chunk of awessweetubularad.

[Via NWFB]

The original headline was something along the lines of "Samus and Shinobi tour Neutopia on Virtual Console" but honestly, the less time spent thinking up trite headlines the better. Today's incredible Virtual Console update has steamrolled our Monday productivity into a lackadaisical mush of "meh."

• Super Metroid (SNES, 1 player, 800 Wii points): Considered by many to be one of the greatest games of all time (evar), Super Metroid hardly requires a descriptive paragraph such as this one. Needless to say then, that it features Samus doing what she does best: murdering metroids, blasting evil brains and reminding us why we need to stay alive until August 27th.
• Shinobi III: Return of the Ninja Master (Genesis, 1 player, 800 Wii points): The third entry in Sega's ninja kill-em-up series and arguably the best. As far as side-scrolling slashers go, the Shinobi one is your only hope... for gaming fun!
  
• Neutopia (TurboGrafx16, 1 player, 600 Wii points): Neutopia is often labeled as a Legend of Zelda clone. Somehow, we don't think it minds.

Look for these games in the Wii shop after 9AM PST.

Metroid. Prime. 3. So close to release. After delays and forgotten promises of online play, will this be the first great Wii first-person shooter? This new GameTrailers clip gives no idea to how this thirst quenching title will control. We're trying to to get sucked into the hype. (There's that other game to strum us into a frenzy for now.) But here's hoping that Metroid will be a much-needed oasis. (The thing in the desert, not the band.)

See the new video for this August 27 game after the break.

A new trailer for Metroid Prime 3 focuses on an awful familiar... uh, "face." That's right: Mother Brain appears front and center in "Aurora Unit," the newest preview video being featured on Wii consoles everywhere. After a number of confusing lobe-focused shots, the scene pictured above is shown, revealing the layout of Ma Brain's oh-so-famous Tourian hangout, and essentially confirming that the big boss of both Metroid and Super Metroid will at least be making a cameo appearance.

But how large a role will she play? The non-gameplay footage is labeled "Cross section of future aurora complex." Does this mean we won't be battling Mother Brain in Prime 3? Will the reconstruction of Zebes be a part of the storyline? Take a gander at the video after the break, and let us know what you think.

Nintendo fans, rejoice. Metroid Prime 3 is going to be the best Metroid Prime game yet. It's been burdened with the enormous task of fulfilling Nintendo's promise of providing unsurpassed FPS controls through the Wii Remote and Nunchuck. Surprisingly, Metroid Prime 3 has more than delivered in this near-final E3 build. Not only do the controls work exactly as we'd like them to, Retro Studios has surprised us by fleshing out the Metroid experience with its most ambitious story yet.

Long-time Metroid fans will appreciate the game's opening moments. We're taken inside Samus' trademark space ship. Have we ever been here before? Interfacing with the ship through the Wii Remote certainly felt exciting, allowing players to control Samus' ship -- something we can't remember ever doing in the series' history. Players will touch various panels within the ship, and pull a lever, providing a simple facsimile of piloting a real space ship.

As you dock your ship in a battleship, you'll meet a small army of NPCs. Imagine our surprise when they referred to Samus' previous exploits, fully voiced. In the game's opening moments, Samus will be able to interact with characters that feature full voice acting, seemingly a rarity in modern Nintendo-published efforts. We appreciate the series attempting to connect Corruption to the previous Prime games, but we have to admit that the heavy-handed nature of the story caught us a little off-guard. Watching the Galactic Federation talk about the conquest of the Space Pirates made us think we were watching Halo 2, not a Metroid Prime game. However, Metroid purists need not worry: Samus still goes on as a mute.

Nintendo PR revealed their "damage control playbook" last year, Croal said, when they announced the then-distressing final name for the Revolution, Wii, just 12 days before E3 2006. (Check the linked post and its 593 comments for a look back at the announcement.) Of course, the oft-teased title change did little to waver its hype and Nintendo is widely regarded as having a stellar E3 showing that year.

Sony, as Croal noted, gave their bad news at the very end -- namely, the $600 price tag. And with it being their final note, they left a sour taste in all gamers' mouth. With Nintendo's bad news out of the way this year (hopefully), Iwata and company can end on a high note. We've illustrated this phenomenon on a chart above. (Note: all values are approximate)

Michael Kelbeugh, head of Retro Studios, confirmed to GamePro that no online multiplayer would be included in Metroid Prime 3: Corruption, much to the relief of of lil' Timmy Eldridge, the apple-cheeked teen that Nintendo has come in on the weekend to run their online gaming strategy. "Unless you're sending pictures of metroid that you captured, I really don't know how to help you," lil' Eldridge said as he swept the Nintendo commissary (his weekday job).

For his part, Kelbeugh gave the credit for a top-notch single-player campaign for his team's inability to include newfangled multiplayer technology. "It's something we talked about early on, but we only have so many resources. We opted to devote those resources to making a better single-player experience." Oh well, we guess there's always Metroid Prime 4.

According to a reader at GoNintendo, stuffed within the pages of the latest issue of Play magazine are a few impressions from the staff's romp with Metroid Prime 3: Corruption at the Nintendo Media Summit. According to Play, Corruption is aimed at Metroid fans and hardcore gamers alike but will still be accessible to grandma thanks to intuitive controls. The game's long delay was to add a "Twilight Princess level of polish" and, in the magazine's own words, Corruption could be the "biggest revolution in FPS gaming since Halo".

Mighty strong opinions from playtesting the demo, but we'll be able to find out for ourselves on August 20. Hit the jump to read more impressions from Play magazine, complete with miniature spoilers!

After skirting the issue for months, Nintendo recently dated the third game in the Metroid Prime series for North America: August 20. Today five new images have been shoved out the door to keep the buzz alive. Content-wise, the shots are mostly ho-hum and don't show off anything radically new in the series. But the image above does raise a few questions, such as "What kind of hair gel does the purple lady use?" and "Have her arm muscles gone on vacation?". Let the rampant speculation ... begin!

Kids in the U.S. who dreamed of whiling away the summer days with Samus Aran may still be able to jam a few days of visor-scanning fun before class is back in session when Metroid Prime 3: Corruption drops on Aug. 20. At least they'll have Mario Strikers Charged, due out on July 30, to help fill the lemonade-soaked summer break. Nintendo also announced a few other August Wii releases, specifically dating High School Musical: Sing It! and Madden for August 14. Others coming sometime that month include Tiger Woods PGA Tour, Brunswick Pro Bowling, Space Station Tycoon, Dave Mirra BMX Challenge and Pinball Hall of Fame: The Williams Collection. Due out in September are Battalion Wars 2, Brothers in Arms, Looney Tunes: Acme Arsenal (finally!) and George of the Jungle. Boogie is coming in fall.

Nintendo announced some other notable DS releases for the summer too, including SimCity in July, Heroes of Mana on Aug. 14, Brain Age 2 on Aug. 20, Worms: Open Warfare 2 in August and Jam Sessions in September. We could add something clever here about our relative anticipation of the above games, but we imagine half of your are spinning and giggling wildly in front of your computers and we lost the other half around Looney Tunes. So, feel free to commence your waiting, or check after the jump for even more DS releases.

A recent interview with Nintendo's name-taker/ass-kicker Reggie Fils-Aime revealed some disappointing (but not surprising) news. Originally scheduled as a Wii launch title, Metroid Prime 3: Corruption was pushed back to a vague "er, um, sometime around, uh, 2007" release. That was later refined to "later this year." Now, according to Fils-Aime, Metroid Prime 3 won't see the light of day until after June. And if recent pre-order rumors turn out to be true, it could be way, way after June.

Why the delay? According to Reggie, both Nintendo and Metroid Prime developer Retro Studios were disappointed with the sales of Metroid Prime 2. Prime 3 has to be the best game in the series, and that level of perfection takes time.

Yes, we want Metroid now, but if it turns out as good as we've been led to believe, it'll be worth the wait.

When we saw First4Figures first Metroid statue, we wondered "where's Samus?" As it turns out, she was coming all along. Though it's not shipping yet, they've released the statue's likely to be final appearance, in both Varia and Gravity suit varieties. Also coming are Samus' Light, Dark, and Phazon suits. The $99 11" tall statue will be available later Q4 2006, which is more than we can say for the recently dated Metroid Prime 3: Corruption.

See also:
Majora's Mask Fierce Deity Link figurine
Colossal figurine ... at 1/150 scale
Collectible Metroid statue
Samus returns as... a Metroid paperweight