Welcome to VC Weekly, N-Europe's guide to the wonderful world of Nintendo's download service. Written by Sam C Gittins.

Anyone who's a fan of intergalactic bounty-hunting will no doubt be pleasantly surprised to find that their needs are most definitely catered for here.Anyway enough from me and on with the game!

Available for download this week we have...

• Metroid II : Return of Samus

Price: GB �3.60 EU �4
Publisher: Nintendo
Developer: Nintendo R&D1
Released: 1992
System: GameBoy

The original Metroid is most certainly a memorable title for many as it introduced a style of gameplay which was otherwise almost unheard of at the time, in it you played an orange and red clad intergalactic bounty hunter known as Samus Aran; indeed a great deal of people may have also been shocked to learn that Samus was in fact a woman - oh no a twenty-five year old spoiler! - but needless to say this only helped the title to become even more of a classic with its unique adventure style of exploration coupled with platforming plus shooting elements which insured success. It wasn't until some years later however that a sequel arrived not on the NES but on the humble GameBoy which may have seemed like a curious move to some but it's one that most definitely paid off.

Interestingly this is perhaps one of the most criminally overlooked titles in a series which has since become one of Nintendo's key franchise's, this is perhaps partly due to the omission of the famous map screen not seen until the legendary Super Metroid on the SNES plus the obvious lack of colour; neither of these elements make the game unplayable however though they certainly are accountable for many people missing out on what's actually a rather good if a little bizarre sequel. For those unfamiliar the events of this game take place between Metroid Prime 3 and Super Metroid as Samus travels to the home planet of the Metroid SR388 with the order of terminating every last living specimen of the species.

But your task won't be an easy one for you see there is a rather long descending shaft full of lava which blocks your ultimate goal so you must hunt down and defeat the ones that you can get to as this lowers the lava level allowing you to progress further; while this may seem odd it actually works rather well, of course exploration is still intact as you'll be finding extra missile tanks plus various upgrades across the course of the game including the ever-popular Spider-Ball upgrade which made its first appearance here and was later resurrected for use in the Metroid Prime series to great effect. On your hit-list are every type of Metroid as you will encounter them in varying stages of their life-cycle including Alpha, Gamma, Omega and Zeta each of which present their own unique challenge but ultimately you must take all Thirty-Nine out as this is your ultimate goal.

For a game such as this it may seem odd to those coming from playing later games in the series to this as of course naturally the series is famous for its rather striking colour palette but here everything is in black and white but there is a somewhat surprising amount of detail present still especially in the foreground though some may find it challenging having to tell apart which doors correspond to which arm-cannon beams. Musically there are a fair few fantastic themes contained within, some of the best in the series in-fact though some areas are almost completely lacking in music aside from a few eerie tones which vary in their effectiveness.

Ultimately if you love Metroid games but somehow gave this a miss back in the day then I would urge you to play through this at least once as while the lack of a map is off-putting at least the core Metroid experience is still present and very much correct. Though even I will admit that it's something of a crying shame that Nintendo didn't decide to instead produce a 3D Classic remake of the title in colour and with a map as that would have been something very special indeed so this strikes me as a missed opportunity but regardless if you wish to experience the game in its original colourless glory then here it is, enjoy it as much as you can.

Verdict : The most overlooked and underrated Metroid game to date.

That's it for another installment of VC Weekly which will return again soon. So until then, enjoy the rest of the week and Game On!

Sam Gittins
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