This is another piece I’ve picked up recently. My love for Metroid and the sexy heroine Samus Aran started when I was very young. I read about her exploits in the first Nintendo Power

and never actually got my hands on the game until I was much older. Looking back, Nintendo Power was a revolutionary marketing gimmick and my impressionable young self fell for it hook, line and sinker. I mean where else could you get the latest and best info on all of the games you knew you should’ve had but more often than not you would have to resign yourself to renting at best. Nintendo Power offered that hope and the tangible feeling of still being involved in their community. It also fostered the love of Nintendo fanboys that eventually resulted in a passionate and vocal majority today throughout the internet. I can still remember putting the NES Lightgun right up to the screen while playing Duck Hunt and resetting the score number on the bottom of the screen. I then sent a picture of me posing with my triumphantly cheated score into Nintendo power hoping that someone would realize my gaming genius and post my picture in the letters section at the beginning of the magazine. That never happened (the score counter being at zero instead of 1 million probably didn’t help)

Back to the topic at hand though. I really first learned to love the Metroid series when I played the Gameboy Advance games Metroid: Zero Mission and Metroid: Fusion, with Zero Mission being a remake of the original NES Metroid. Through those games I realized the joy and fun of exploring these worlds and opening up new areas by upgrading Samus the heroine. Now to also understand the cultural impact of Metroid we have to look at the fact that in the 80′s videogame protagonists were often dominated by action hero types and were mostly male. I mean take a look at these manly NES carts:

Double the manliness…

The amazing thing about Metroid was the fact that upon beating the game the hero was revealed to be a heroine and the whole time you spent blowing the shit out of aliens a woman was the hard ass in the awesome suit. Here is that amazing reveal:

Needless to say that these games are amazing. Now more recently I discovered the awesome model Garage Kits and the beauty posted above. The problem with Garage Kits is that they are usually limited runs due to the indie nature of them and they are also fairly expensive because of the limited run. Additionally the ones I seem to like (videogame related) are mostly made in Japan. This can make getting them difficult. Upon finding the Dimension Diver Samus Aran I wanted to get it but the normal second hand sellers were out and to get one would have cost upwards of $500. Way too much for my tastes. Like most things I waited for a bit and eventually stumbled upon Tatsu Hobby. This awesome independent seller had recast and manufactured there own versions of the model and were also selling them at a reasonable price.  I got it and put it together and it is as awesome as it looks in pictures. The thing I really love about this model is that it has ball joints and therefore articulates at all the major joints. I’ll eventually get around to painting it but for now I’m just happy that I put it together. The only thing that could be better would be if they would come out with all of the Super Smash Bros. Brawl characters on the roster:

Here’s some more pics:

In pieces before assembly:

Action Pose!!!

Up Close…