I finally laid my hands on Metroid Prime Hunters yesterday. My hands have yet to thank me for it. Everything you’ve read about the hand cramping controls is true. The DS is just a little too heavy to be held with one hand. Tilting it on its side for Brain Age is easy enough and works well, but here it’s pretty difficult. There is an option to use the buttons for aiming, but that sort of defeats the whole purpose of the game—that being to demonstrate PC-esque aiming in a handheld game. In and of itself, the aiming is damned good and rivals said PC. I’ve found myself getting headshots and what not on a somewhat frequent basis, which is cool. Landing those really nice shots is pretty satisfying, as it should be. It is a little disorienting to see “Headshot!” appear in the context of a Metroid game though. But that’s a whole ‘nother barrel of peanuts I’ll get into another time.
I’ve heard that this game is easier on the hands if you’re playing on the resplendent DS Lite. Anyone care to comment? (Given the history of comments so far, probably not.)