Her gaming debut may have been more than 20 years ago, but from what we’ve seen so far of Team Ninja’s Metroid: Other M, Samus Aran has never looked better.

In an interview at the Nintendo Media Summit in San Francisco, Nate Bihldorf, a localization producer for Nintendo America, shed some more light on what we can expect from this chapter of the Metroid series and took us beyond the E3 trailer that left everyone wanting more.

We liked what we heard so much, 2D-X is bringing you the top five reasons why you should add Metroid: Other M to your 2010 wishlist.

1. Who Is Samus Aran?
Though we’ve followed Samus through hell and back over the years, there’s little we know about her and how she came to be the franchise queen we know today. All of that changes with this latest installment that promises to explain the Metroid hunter’s past, and tie together the events of previous titles. If you’ve had questions burning over the years, be prepared to have them answered finally in an epic quest that will have you piecing together clues until the very end.

2. Upgrade Time Baby
Samus has a few new tricks up her arm cannon to keep things fresh this time around. Bihldorf revealed a new “concentration move” in which partial health is restored in times when critical damage has been taken. The same method can be used to refill your depleted missile cache but in both cases the “concentration move” can only be performed in a non-hostile environment. For gamers who often find themselves overwhelmed and low on health…get better. Until then, count on this new feature to get you through the storm.

3. Old School, Meet New School
The gameplay in Other M mixes everything we loved about the 2D classics with the first-person features that have made the series so successful on the Wii. Players will find themselves holding the Wii remote sideways, playing through a majority of the story in a 2Dish world that will feel much like the Metroid we know and love from long ago. Pointing the remote towards the TV screen will put you in a first-person mode that allows for a better look at the environment when goal objections elude you. If you were looking for a bridge between old-school and new, consider it found.

4. Old Faithful
With all the Metroid titles that Nintendo has pumped out over the years, none have ever failed to live up to their hype. Developers always find a way to build on the previous titles without ever losing sight of what has made the series so consistently entertaining. The arm cannon and ball morph ability is always a plus, but each game’s solitary feeling in a vast, unknown world has always kept us curiously and cautiously wanting more. If you’re worried that Metroid: Other M might stray too far from the pack, Bihldorf promises that “the sense of isolation that has been a hallmark in the Metroid series is alive and well in this game.”

5. Such a Babe
Since her bikini debut at the end of the first Metroid title, Samus Aran paved the way for badass girls in the gaming arena and solidified herself as a Nintendo icon. She’s definitely matured (in more ways than one) since her 8-bit days on the NES but graphical upgrade or not, Samus will always be able to hold her own against the big boys of the gaming industry.

If Metroid: Other M is anything like what we’ve seen or played in the last 20 years, you can bet we’ll be suiting up as the Metroid hunter no matter where the journey takes us.

For a look at the interview with Nate Bihldorf, click above. Many thanks to GameTrailers for the video.