(Nintendo)
For Nintendo fans, there are few things more exciting than the release of a new Metroid installment—the event's becomes something akin to the frenzy surrounding a new Zelda game. Why? Well, besides Samus's—the amply endowed, Ahhhhnold-bodied heroine—ability to get series lovers hot, the games' puzzles are such gene busters, it doesn't seem to matter how advanced the artwork is on the Wii.

Yet when I played Metroid: Corruption's early stages, I felt like I was playing a game for the first time. I had trouble with everything—from aiming to morphing Samus up into a rolling ball (with crazy weapons, that Metroid's trademark). They've fixed most of the game's glitches, but someone new to the series will still find the controls daunting.

This disk marks the end to the Metroid Prime trilogy, and the sci-fi art is the best I've seen in a Nintendo Wii game. There's a good Samus and a nasty-bad Samus (hence Corruption), and nasty-bad Samus wants to spread a plague the likes of which Moses never even conceived. I finished the game in about 25 hours, but it took a lot of Sherlock-ing and digging into thousands of nooks and crannies. My best reward: a spankin' new Mii bobblehead. Even though I just spent what amounted to a Platonic date with Samus, I still wish it was a date with the girl in Rilo Kiley. But the virtual bobblehead kind of makes up for it: 'cause that's how game geeks roll.—Harold Goldberg