Welcome to the first installment of Fight Your Rival!, a new series here at Infinite Ammo. FYR! is a cage match series (definitely inspired by Suvudu’s Cage Matches and Game FAQ’s massive character tournaments) that pits two famous characters / groups / things against each other to prove, once and for all (with all of our logic and experience fueling our decisions), who would be left standing. These characters are picked because of their similarities in ability and niche (we’re talking super hero archer VS super hero archer [oh, it's comin'], not Sonic VS Mario or Superman VS Spider-Man) with a generous sprinkling of fights-you-actually-want-to-see (no one cares, Mario VS Wario [no one cares]).

But enough talk. Ladies and gentlemen, we present the first battle, an unsettled contest that was all the rage back in 2007. Now, in all of their gun-toting, alien-decimating glory, it’s the gaming world’s original bounty hunting bad-ass VS the last Spartan. It’s…

Disclaimer: This post has a very, very long build up in which ground rules for matching strengths and two scenarios leading to the fight are listed. This was done in the hopes that this particularly hairy dispute could finally be put to rest. If you’d rather just get to the fight itself, click here, but keep in mind that you need to read the ground rules and scenarios if you want your comments to be credited (as in not deleted).

Both of these armored titans released the final installments of their very popular trilogies only a month apart in 2007. Naturally, tongues wagged about who would take whom in a fight (especially considering their many, many similarities [both clad in power armor, both battling violent alien races, both lone wolves, etc.]). While the sales contest went to the Halo franchise without a shadow of a doubt, that doesn’t answer the question of who would walk away if they faced off.

To actually, finally, and objectively decide, let’s establish some ground rules:

• First, I have to say that I love Halo and I love Metroid. However, my love and personal biases have been set aside for this battle royale; I understand that it doesn’t matter at all which character or which universe is more carefully plotted out. It doesn’t matter whether the mutliplayer in Metroid Prime 2: Echoes was worse than the multiplayer in Halo 2, nor does it matter that there are far more Metroid games than there are Halo games staring the Chief. All that matters is what these characters can do to each other on the common ground of very logical ground rules and what I call “game canon”.

• "Game canon" means that what happened in here stays in here.

  Game Canon: We have to dictate that the characters, as represented here, come with all of—and only—the abilities they’ve exhibited in gameplay. I don’t care if you read a book where the Master Chief ate a bomb and punched the sun or saw a youtube video where Zero Suit Samus flew around on jet boots and used her whip like a lightsaber; none of that is game canon. However, Samus moving very quickly and the Chief’s shields recharging? Totally game canon.

• I have to stress that unlike the Master Chief, whose control scheme has remained largely the same, Samus has changed a lot between her 2D and 3D appearances. It would be unfair to her and an unrealistic example of her abilities if we did not grant that the Samus used here was the extremely fast Samus from the 2D games with the abilities she had in the Prime series. On the note of Other M though, I have to say that not a single one of us at Infinite Ammo observes Other M as a canon Metroid game solely because of how hard Team Ninja got Samus’ character wrong. That said, when it comes to personality, we’re going with Samus as she’s always been, not Team Ninja’s weak, terrified poet laureate of the galaxy (especially because she went right back to being a bad-ass when cinemas in that game were over).
• Next, we establish that Heroic is, according to Bungie, “the way Halo is meant to be played.”
• With that in mind, we can assign the Halo: Reach Plasma Pistol as a pretty even match for Samus’ Charge Shot (which eventually became part of her standard equipment). Both weapons take largely the same amount of damage to kill Space Pirates and Elites (Elites on Heroic, without over-shields, that is).
• In the same way, let’s equate the explosion from a Frag Grenade to the power of one of Samus’ Missiles.
• We also have to establish that the Master Chief’s over-shield, at 100%, is roughly equivalent to one of Samus’ Energy Tanks. I would make a point here that Metroid Prime 2: Echoes features possessed Space Marines as enemies and that, even on Hard, the game’s highest difficulty setting, their bullets don’t do much harm to Samus. But to keep things simple and be fair to the Master Chief, we can assume that UNSC weapons do more damage than the Galactic Federation’s firearms (which, I must remind you, Samus’ weapons are not among).
• Finally, there are two scenarios in which the showdown could happen:

1) Basic Equipment

To be fair to the Chief, we could assume that the two face off before Samus has had a chance to do anything. Perhaps her ship has been shot down by the UNSC. She crashes and then the Chief is dispatched via Pelican to discover the fate of the mystery ship’s pilot. He takes an Assault Rifle and two Frag Grenades with him (because weapons in the Halo franchise, as they are about 99% of the time, are OSP). He finds Samus a short while after she’s done the barest bit of exploring, managing to find an Energy Tank (to be fair to Samus and match her shield power with the Chief’s), a single Missile Upgrade, the Morph Ball, and (albeit useless here) the Morph Ball Bomb (again, keep in mind that even after the usual explosion that’s somehow destroyed Samus’ upgrades from her previous adventure, the Charge Shot is, in fact, now part of her starting arsenal).

I honestly can’t imagine either of them breaking the ice (both of them are pretty mute [although Samus definitely more than the Chief, who at least speaks about three times per game he's in]). Perhaps the Chief would ask her who she was and what she was doing in UNSC airspace. Regardless, one or the other would open fire and the battle would start, the Chief using short controlled bursts and aiming for the head while Samus dodges and charges her blaster. The Chief would acclimate to Samus’ speed quickly, compensating his aim and doing well for himself, possibly throwing a grenade to keep Samus on her toes, likely dodging the Charge Shot (which, unlike the Plasma Pistol is not heat seeking). There’s a good chance that in that first moment, the Chief would have Samus’ first Energy Tank depleted. Possibly only taking a bit of damage from the follow-up, uncharged shots from Samus’ blaster, the Chief would be certain that he’d win. Only, right then, he would stop to reload. And then Samus would charge him, jump clear over the grenade he would likely throw, and stop in mid air directly over him to fire all 5 of her missiles directly down at his head.

Allowing for real life physics, Samus would actually sail over him. Unfortunately, allowing for real life physics (and even Havok physics), there’s absolutely no chance the Chief would survive 5 successive (Frag Grenade equaling) explosions fired directly down at his head. Samus is absolutely awesome at aiming and continuing to rain down death while she’s traveling through the air at high speeds and the Chief is very bad at moving quickly.

Also, possibly, the Chief would not see this coming because, really, “Why the hell would Missiles come out of her blaster thing?” “How did they even fit in there?” “How does that gun have a… secondary… firing mode… thing???”

These are all questions Ghost Chief would ponder while he watches Samus scan his corpse, a Halo turning slowly about his head, as if his mind was trying to load an answer.

2) At Full Strength

This is, in my mind, much more likely to happen. And so, it gets the bold:

The UNSC shoots down Samus’ ship, suspecting her, possibly, as some kind of Covenant deployment. Samus crash lands on whatever planet, the explosion, naturally, damaging her items from her previous adventure. And, realizing this, Samus reacts to the situation exactly the same way she always does; she wisely goes off in search of weapons.

Meanwhile, in space, Sgt. Johnson (let’s assume) gives the Master Chief a fist bump and tells him to get down there and catch that Covenant (?) spy (??). The Chief shrugs, hops into a drop pod, and gets fired directly at the coordinates of Samus’ crash. And exactly as you’d expect with Halo, the Chief crashes forty minutes away from his target and has to trek to the ship through a jungle (cause it’s always a jungle) to get there.

Only, surprise, there are Space Pirates! Instantly pissed off (the Chief and the Pirates), they immediately mistake each other for their mortal enemies; “THE COVENANT!” the Chief shouts and, “THE HUNTER!” the Space Pirates cry. Unfortunately for the Pirates, the Chief has a bit of experience killing hostile aliens, so he makes short work of the Pirate scouts who were likely hunting Samus themselves and proceeds to radio in to the UNSC, telling Johnson that yes, there are Covenant on the planet and yes, they should send a billion Pelicans and launch a small seek and destroy purge (aka a recon mission staring the Master Chief). 

Meanwhile, near the planet’s core, Samus has rediscovered the Ice Beam.

Meanwhile, back at the surface, the Master Chief experiences the hollow gap between stages in which we assume he sleeps (?) and the UNSC land, establish a base of operations, and plot out their recon mission (centered around finding that ship they shot down and checking out another energy signature [the Space Pirates' ship] that they’ve found on radar). This all takes a full night.

Seriously, if I wanted to be insanely accurate here, I'd admit that Samus has, no doubt, found some next level insane suit like the Light Suit from Metroid Prime 2: Echoes, which let Samus travel ALONG STREAMS OF LIGHT.

A full night in which Samus easily rediscovers the Varia Suit, the Wave Beam, the Grappling Beam, the Screw Attack, the X-Ray Visor and absolutely everything else she lost while simultaneously killing all of the Space Pirates on the planet and saving its indigenous people/culture/ghosts/snails from (inevitably) Metroids. You can go ahead and say that this couldn’t happen, Halo players, but any Metroid fan can tell you that 12 hours (we can assume) is such a generous amount of time for Samus to do all this that she would very possibly have flown to and liberated two more planets from Space Pirates by now. She’s just that good.

The next morning, the Chief would wake up (?) to the pleasant sound of many-a fist bump and the cries of UNSC Marines for purple blood. The two units would split up, the Marines largely heading for the Space Pirate ship while the Chief and a few more Marines head for Samus’ crash site. 

When they get there, they’d discover the ship with not a scratch on it. Confused, they would have missed the fact that Samus repaired it after killing whatever big bad had threatened the entire planet. In all likelihood, she’d been about to take off when the UNSC showed up. And seeing them, she would suddenly remember that… Yeaaaah… Some assholes did shoot her ship down, didn’t they? And remembering, she would rise out of her ship, in all her Chozo-plated, Super Missile-toting fury. And despite the fact that she would still be willing to use diplomacy, one of those stupid Marines the Chief brought would freak and open fire.

And then, it would begin.

FIGHT!

It would happen like this: One of the Marines that came with the Chief would open fire and Samus would flip through the air, Screw Attacking right through trees only to come to a full stop and rain Ice Beam down on all of them, flash freezing them. The Chief would manage to duck out of the way, perhaps jumping behind the Warthog they rode in on. Peeking around the vehicle, grabbing a Sniper Rifle out of the back seat as he does, the Chief would hear the all too familiar sound of a rocket on approach. I know this is a liberty, but, in all honesty, this fight would be over right now if I didn’t take it, so I’m going to say that the Chief would pull the Sniper Rifle free and immediately Armor Lock, the massive impact of the Super Missile on the Warthog raging around and past him. Samus would watch, assuming he was dead until he ended the Lock and threw the wreckage of the Hog away from himself. Then it would be a headshot. Maybe a second with the Sniper Rifle while Samus was still stunned from the first. But then she’d flip into the air and spin into a storm of electrical light, arcing away into the forest. And the Chief, cautiously now, would start to pursue, his shields fully recharged.

Only, he would stop almost immediately when a pin-prick of light would appear before him in the woods. It would grow larger and then, almost too late, he would realize it was his query. Samus would have run back to charge her Speed Booster, then flown back with her invincible shoulder ram dash. Just in time, the Chief would Armor Lock again. Samus would hit and fall out of the Dash. The Chief would end his Armor Lock and the resulting EMP would hit Samus and knock out her Visor (because, I’m sorry, Halo fans, but in Prime 3, Samus encounters an enemy who uses EMP’s and it only affects her Visor—it’s game canon). For a precious moment, the Chief would dish out melee after melee, each time knocking Samus back and depleting her Energy by a Tank. But he would only get her down to perhaps 12 out of 20 by the time her Visor reactivates.

Samus would stumble one last time, just as the Chief wisely backs up to give the Sniper Rifle its distance. But Samus would be tired of games; she would dodge as he fires the Rifle and then catch the Master Chief around the throat with the Grappling Beam. And then, as per Prime 3, she would drain his over-shield, bringing herself back to 13 and the Chief down to 0, all the while struggling with the Chief as he tries at first to get a shot off at her, and then, when Samus’ tugging makes his remaining two shots fire wide, to just free himself.

In the end, the Chief would grab the Grapple Beam and pull her to him. He’d remove one of his Frags, drop his spent Rifle and pull out the pin. As the safety lever flicks away from both of them, the Chief would hold it between them and say, “See you in Hell.”

But Samus would say nothing as she closes her hand over the grenade, moves in closer and holds it before both of their visors.

The grenade would explode.

The Master Chief would die.

Samus would be down to 12 again.

By the time she was back in her cockpit, even before lift off, she would be back to 20.

If you've played both series, you know that honestly, objectively, there's no contest. There are so many ways Samus could've ended this fight sooner; in all honesty, I was being really generous to the Chief dragging it out for so long.

Halo fans, don’t be upset. In all honesty, Samus would defeat just about every last video game protagonist out there. She’s just that overpowered. However, I know there are a million ways that this fight could’ve gone and I’m sure there will be those who are eager to contest this. So, if you disagree with the write-ups here and have read all of the supplemental info above, vote or comment below!