You have to hand it to Nintendo. The company can gloat about first-place sales to the unassuming masses clambering for low-rent accessibility in a dinky white game console, rebuff critics' cries of foul as but a handful of games cater to the ardent Nintendo loyalists that carried the company through two previous underachieving generation, throw the serious Wii gamers a bone once in a while and say "chew on that," and then go back to preening about "Wii Yoga II."

Today, that bone is Metroid Prime Trilogy, a revisit to two old GameCube games, Metroid Prime released in 2002 and Metroid Prime 2 Echoes circa 2004, plus one Wii game, Metroid Prime 3: Corruption, released back in 2007.

The first two titles have been retooled to accommodate a point-and-shoot Wii Remote Controller (Wii-mote) interface (and opposed to the thumbstick-and-shoot convention of old). The lot of it is supplemented with some unlockable bonus content and repackaged anew in a monumental tin box containing a glossy booklet you'll never read twice and a single game disc you'll likely play more than once.

Speaking of three games on one disc, you'd correctly assume the thing is packed to the brim with game data. In fact, the trilogy seems to use dual-layer DVD technology, effectively doubling the capacity of standard Wii disc capacities to almost 9GB from about 4.5GB.

While Wii is obviously capable of reading dual-layer game discs, the Wii's laser lens must be in tiptop shape to do so. That is to say, disc read errors are possible, or so multiple message board posts would seem to attest and the review copy in hand affirms.

Here's the thing: as was the case with the dual-layered Super Smash Bros. Brawl, you might need to clean your Wii's lens before you can play Metroid Prime Trilogy. Wii Wash! Cake, right? Wrong. You'll need to clean it with a special, Wii-specific lens cleaning contraption as the system will not accept conventional CD or DVD lens cleaners. Cough up the $10 for an official Wii Lens Cleaning Kit, wet it, insert it, wiggle it - seriously, hold its protruding thumb nub and whap it back and forth - eject it and you're good to go. Good grief.

Meanwhile, back at the game review...

Though generally pegged as a "first-person shooter" (FPS), the last three Metroid games - those of this here Trilogy - have only passing resemblance to other icons in the genre, i.e. your Call of Dutys, your Left 4 Deads, your Dooms and Quakes. Good thing, too, as no Metroid game has ever been quite capable of matching the visual fidelity of games on comparative systems (Nintendo has long taken advantage of the economies of scale providing low-cost components to make competitively priced, low-wattage game systems, usually sacrificing graphical chutzpah in the process).

Be that as it may, nothing in the trilogy is particularly ugly. In fact, even the GameCube refits looks spiffy enough while the third outing, designed for Wii to begin with, looks genuinely modern; as good as standard definition (at 480p) can get. New 16:9 widescreen support does make the older titles look a tad more contemporary, too. It helps, of course, the environments of Metroid are all based on sci-fi whimsy and speculative imagery - who's to say a Flaahgra isn't suppose to look like an articulated Krazy Straw?

What's more, Metroid is so very good at breaking with FPS convention by providing a genuine, long-playing adventure that just happens to feature some shooting from the first-person perspective. By and large, you're walking, running, or rolling around investigatively, solving puzzles, besting traps, and strategizing skirmishes by way of cerebral mojo and judicious use of your weaponized armor and multi-HUD visor.

And though it's never going to win any Hugo awards, there is a verily-engrossing series of tales being told, light vs. dark, alien infections, the redemptive qualities of doomsday, yadda yadda yadda. Great sci-fi pulp, you might say, but with terrific game design to bring it to moody, pensive, sometimes harrowing life.

Now, seeing as this Metroid trilogy is already available as three separate titles discs, each playable on Wii (which is backward compatible with GameCube discs and controllers) - available as cheap pre-played games in every other game swap shop across the land, no less - the only real reason to pick up this single disc compilation - aside from blind brand loyalty, that is - is to play them with retooled controls.

The Wii-mote and Nunchuck configuration lacks the second thumbstick found on other consoles, and therefore lacks the exactitude of dual thumbsticks to walk and aim at the same time. Instead, the games opt for a peculiar but serviceable screen-edge pointer scheme to affect looking around. Aiming at specifics somewhere in the middle of the screen, meanwhile, is aided by an auto target-lock system that forgives you your wobbling Wii-mote.

Still, were it not for the fact the Metroid games are more about exploration and adventure than frenzied firefights - more so the case with the first two titles, anyway - the controls would be considered second rate. Regardless, as the saying goes, "you get used to it." Of course, the same can be said for dentures and prosthetic limbs...

As it stands, there is so much top-shelf adventure offered by this well-established, righteously-revered sci-fi trifecta, all at the price of a single game that might offer only a quarter the content, that you can't really lament any of its shortcomings, which are slight at any rate.

As the only bone Nintendo has opted to toss the serious Wii gamers lately - the ones who haven't defected to Xbox and PlayStation, that is - Metroid Prime Trilogy certainly stands out in a crowd.