That sounds like a hoax to me. Either that or the guy they interviewed wasn't too bright. How could one button be assigned to visor and beam switching without fagging up the game? If you were in the middle of fighting some enemy that you needed to use the Echo visor or a certain beam on, you would have to cycle through 2 other visors/beams before you got to it. And if you screwed up and pressed the button one too many times, you would have to cycle all the way back through the menu to get to the proper item. And by that time, you've already lost an energy tank. This controller effectively turns MP2 into Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicals.
Furthermore, the Metroid Primes weren't supposed to play like shooters. They were more like the 3D Zelda games, except with guns and a first-person view.
And when this guy said having to push the joystick for several seconds on a console controller to aim sucked, it became apparent to me that he only plays slow, shitty, low-quality shooters like MoH: Frontline, or he plays his games with the thumbstick sensitivity and look speed on the lowest setting.
Hybrid Mode
