Round 1 – Main Strength

Drake – Fingers of Steel

Have you ever tried hanging off a cliff or ledge for a while? It’s quite difficult. Just think how hard it is to do that with just your fingers or, even better, imagine a day in the life of Nathan Drake. He spends the majority of his time leaping for ledges, missing them and then having to hang on for dear life by his fingertips. His fingers of steel must be so strong that he could rip a man’s heart out with them, but I suppose they didn’t want to rip off everything from the Indiana Jones movies.

Spencer – Bionic Arm

Spencer has an arm literally made from steel (or at least a metal similar) and it can do cool tricks that our useless fleshy limbs could only dream of. Like the ability to extend, grapple and grab things from long distances. The uses for it are endless, you’d even be able to grab the TV remote from anywhere in the room or change the TV manually without getting up. Nathan Spencer is living the dream.

In Character Assassination there is rarely a decisive win. Some peoples’ strength may be the weakness of another. However, no one can argue against Spencer winning this one. In a battle of Fingers of Steel vs Arm of Steel not only does Spencer beat Drake on a literal vs metaphorical level but he also beats him for amount of steel body parts. Spencer wins hands down.

Round 2 – Main Weakness

Drake – Smugness

Nathan Drake is one of the most punchable characters in gaming. By combining rugged good looks and chiselled abs with an everyday man attitude Insomniac have created hypocrisy on par with Brad Pitts’ we are not movie stars speech in Fight Club. It doesn’t help that Drake is voiced by Nolan North, the master of smugness who has lent his abilities to the most irritating Prince of Persia, the blandest character in gaming Desmond Miles and just about every NPC in every other game.

Spencer – Convoluted Backstory

There isn’t much going against Spencer, apart from a stupid nickname (RAD). He probably has many weaknesses but they’re hard to notice because they are massively overshadowed by Spencer’s impenetrable backstory. The plot of Bionic Commando (2009) is so full of conjecture and suggestion that for all we know Spencer’s bionic arm could be a convoluted metaphor for the player. Compare this to the original Bionic Commando’s story, kill Hitler (or Master D as he was known in the censored versions). It may not have been sophisticated, but at least we knew what the hell was going on.

Drake may be smug but at least you know where you stand with him, preferably within punching distance of his face. Incidentally, nobody tell him he’s won this round, he’d be insufferable. Also he’s not real so you’d look crazy if you tried. Don’t tell Nathan Fillion either, he’s near enough the same person.

Final Round – Style

Drake

No rocking the boat in the clothing department from Drake. He’s gone for the standard t-shirt and jeans combination. As we know though, style isn’t just about fashion and Drake’s overall look is pretty decent. He can be quite endearing when he’s bumbling around battlefields, throwing punches that we can all out-do and frantically running behind cover. All this ignores the fact that he still manages to murder most of the world’s PMCs. Just admit you’re awesome Drake, we need some consistency, and more PMCs otherwise we might run out after Uncharted 3.

Spencer

Jumping in such an over-rated ability, no-one can look stylish when doing it. So instead Spencer uses his bionic arm to grapple and swing everywhere. That’s right his bionic arm to grapple and swing everywhere. It’s almost impossible for Spencer to lose on that basis alone, the rest of this paragraph will be just for courtesy’s sake. Spencer’s outfit consists if a fairly functional but uninteresting vest and combats combo. The vest chosen purely to show off his bionic arm. The only thing that lets him down is that awful hat… wait a minute, oh no, that’s his hair. Drake wins, Drake wins!

Winner – Drake

In an amazing turnaround Spencer, who has it in the bag, threw it away at the last second with the worst haircut in gaming since Dr Wily. Drake wins this round purely by virtue of being standard and uninteresting.

Drake proving yet again that all you need to succeed in life and, more importantly, in Character Assassination is dashing good looks, massive hypocrisy and an opponent who is more useless than King Hippo. Spencer only has himself to blame for his loss today, despite being the odds on favourite he managed to proved that even a bionic arm can’t defend you from a character assassination.

Come back next time for the first time two characters from the same game go head to head. We’ll be definitively proving* who is better in a battle of the mages.

*Warning- proof may be subjective, flimsy or most likely completely wrong.