From nintendo.com:
Now, Samus is once again called to investigate Space Pirate activities on the unexplored Tallon IV. Her adventure begins as she enters a mysterious derelict spaceship.

The Metroid games have shown a lot of similarities in story line/plot elements to the Alien movies, as outlined nicely on this site. However the mentioning of a mysterious derelict spacecraft immediately brought to mind the abandoned ship which housed the eggs in the original Alien, which was even referred to as a derelict spacecraft in its sequel, Aliens.

This is a good comparison of all of the common *BSDs. I hope this helps.
http://www.daemonnews.org/200104/bsd_family.html