Samus Aran. Badass bounty hunter. Galactic savior. Hero and protagonist of a videogame series that has endured for almost thirty years. Samus Aran is among the most iconic videogame characters of all time. As far as female protagonists go, Samus is the earliest surviving one. Aside, I guess, from Ms. Pac-Man, but can you really count an anthropomorphized yellow blob? Samus is — at the very least — the oldest surviving female protagonist we can identify with. You know, since she’s human. Or at least humanoid. Back in 1986, even if you owned the original Metroid, even if you’d beaten
Tag: Metroid Fusion
What If… (Videogames, Star Wars, and the Power of Fanon)
I remember being read a story when I was a kid. Nothing about the plot or the characters — what I remember is the ending, and it’s stuck with me for something like two decades. The story ended… by not ending. Not just by leaving questions unanswered or threads untied, but literally telling the reader, “Now you come up with your own ending!” You might laugh if I say that to me it was a moment of profound frustration, disappointment — even betrayal. But it was. I can still remember how disturbing it was to me and how lost I
I Got a Game Boy!
A Game Boy Advance SP, specifically. Yes, welcome to 2003! I have finally arrived, and let me tell you — it’s a pretty rad year. Shame I missed it the first time around. This may be a little weird, but I’ve never owned a handheld console in my life. Ever. I once played Link’s Awakening on someone else’s Game Boy back in the ’90s, but that’s about the extent of my handheld experience. I was always a Nintendo kid. We had an NES since before I can remember; maybe since before I was born. I remember going to the store