Wikitroid:Featured article queue/Week 29, 2007

Samus Aran is the main character and protagonist of the Metroid series. Introduced in 1986 in Metroid, Samus is a bounty hunter famous for her accomplishments on missions thought otherwise imposible. Armed with a cybernetic Power Suit built by the Chozo, an ancient highly intelligent race, she is a powerful opponent in battle. She hunts Space Pirates and energy-draining alien parasites known as Metroids, while completing missions given by the Galactic Federation. Samus is voiced in Metroid Prime and Metroid Prime 2: Echoes by Jennifer Hale, but only for cries of pain, grunts and death screams. Despite many male protagonists, Samus is one of the few female ones. Metroid led players to believe Samus was a male as the instruction booklet used male descriptions for Samus and her always wearing suits led players to believe she was a robot or male in a robotic suit. However, only by completing Metroid under an hour revealed Samus to be a young athletic woman. Although Samus wears the Power Suit throughout most of the Metroid series, it has become a tradition to depict her in much more revealing attire at the end of each game, often as a reward for satisfying certain conditions, such as completing the game quickly or with a high percentage of the game’s items collected. Contrary to popular belief, Samus was not created by Metroid producer Gunpei Yokoi. The original game concepts were done by game director Makoto Kanoh and was designed by Hiroji Kiyotake. (more...) Recently featured: Zebes