Part 5
The loading screen for the game when you start up shows a recap of what you've just recently done. Unfortunately, the loading screen also takes ages. I head through a short section into a water-filled area (can I have my gravity suit authorized now please?) and find some more missiles along with a switch to let me ride over the water to the next area (where I have to first-person shoot some vines along the way which is always nice).
After this is a water-filled area which is really quite pretty, Sector 1 overall has been fairly nice in terms of its graphics at least. I raise the water level just like everyone's favorite Ocarina of Time temple and jump over to another missile pack hidden in a hole in the 2nd pond area. You lower the water in this section and then hit another switch to make it periodically rise and lower, allowing for wall jumping to the end of the room.
The game is actually trying to throw puzzles at me for once? Well that's a nice change. In the next room it's a rainy area with lots of pipes around to roll into. Sadly, rolling around fast leads to me taking some damage from the enemies inside. I deactivate the machine in here and a miniboss appears. This thing just kind of...walks around slowly and fires purple stuff that never seems to reach you. Just stay far away and fire missiles until it dies, it can change its weak spot but this has no effect on the battle at all. The death of this creature magically makes the elevator activate. It's good to see the Bottle Ship's crew had to travel around by killing their own specimens.
Another save point and I proceed north. There are flies that hatch from cocoons here, and if you shoot them their wings fall off. Remind me vaguely of cazadors from New Vegas with just as crippling a weakness. Two rooms later I see a crate on the ceiling that I can missile to get...a missile. Well that's 1 for 1 at least. After this I find an elevator shaft.
...
are they really going to pull this trick again
Turns out that no, at the top is a switch you have to shoot that makes a morph ball slot appear below, which makes you plow through the elevator. I want to know what the hell the Bottle Ship's crew was even thinking with these designs, but that involves thinking and we can't be having that. After killing more cazadors I arrive in a room with 3 armadillos, oh Metroid you're back to your old self again. One of them jumps on top of me and pounds the living crap out of me for a full energy tank but I respond by doing a lethal strike that hits two of them at once, so pro.
Two more rooms and I get to fight the miniboss that changes its weak point again, but with so much space it's not an issue either. After this you get to ride another rail again and flies come out of the walls. Some of them go off screen and don't bother charging, so at the end of the line I exit first-person view and see two of them just floating beside Samus. What gentlemen. I reward them with a diffusion beam and move on. After rolling through some pipes (CAREFULLY, stupid enemies lodged in them) I find an energy tank! Sweet! I unlock the door and move north for another save. Sector 1 is pretty long!
After going north I arrive in the Biosphere Test Area and Exam Center. After wandering some halls I find another save point (um, awfully generous of you game but this doesn't warrant a save much when I fought nothing and solved nothing between the two segments). I bomb through a wall and activate the door nearby. This exam center is very unnerving by the way, it's no longer plantlike like the other parts of the section and the music is very eerie, and there have been no enemies so far. Nothing is scarier after all. After running down some halls I notice the door in front of me has been opened already...uh oh.
--
Geologists will date anything.