Will you look at that, we’re on week 3 of the Ultimate Beastmaster Gaming Edition, based on the Netflix reality show produced by Sylvester Stallone, The Ultimate Beastmaster, where competitors from around the world tackle the most vicious of challenge courses, the Beast.
In our gaming edition, there are no coins, rupees or souls to be won, but there is a certain kind of prestige, where one characters steps out of the ruins of the Beast, confident they are the Ultimate Gaming Beastmaster.
New challengers for this week are: Super Meat Boy (Super Meat Boy), Sir Daniel Fortesque (MediEvil), Corvo Attano (Dishonored), Cole MacGrath (Infamous), Brick (Borderlands), Scoprion (Mortal Kombat), Chris Redfield (Resident Evil), Pitfall Harry (Pitfall), Spyro (Spyro the Dragon), Agent 47 (Hitman), Handsome Jack (Borderlands) and Dovahkiin (Elder Scrolls). These new contestants, like those last week, come with sponsors: Drakulus, Adventure Rules, Hurricane Thought Process and GeekOut Southwest
For the competitors, I took note of their skills from across all their videogame appearances, including crossovers such as Super Smash Bros. and other such games, matching these skills to the ones required to best the four levels of The Beast. I also took note of their individual styles, their restrictions and sometimes even clothing. Unlike competitors on The Ultimate Beastmaster, video game competitors bring their own clothing to the table, though they’re forbidden from using the many tools of their trade. Since this episode features the first competitors from fighting and point & click adventure game series, some conversion rules were necessary.
For the Beast, the skills required are:
- Climbing: Vertical movement while hanging.
- Ledge Shimmying: Horizontal movement while hanging.
- Running.
- Jumping.
In addition to this, there are advanced skills such as Wall Climbing and Rope Swinging which grant the competitors an edge.
Below are examples of skill sets:
Scorpion Skill Set: Running, Jumping, Climbing. Scorpion Restrictions: Short jump distance. Scorpion advantages: Short-range Teleportation, on the horizontal plane only. Tools: Spear, not allowed.
Spyro Skill Set: Running, Jumping, Climbing, Ledge Shimmy. Spyro Restrictions: Can’t freely fly. Bulky build. Spyro advantages: Tail, Wings (hover, glide and high-jump allowed, free flying is not), Wall Climbing, Rope Swing, Fire breath projectiles.
Having this in mind, I ran Scorpion and his competitors through the course, noting the obstacles completed, the ones failed, whether they’d go for point thrusters or not and noting the final results. Below is an example of this, Scorpion’s Level 1 run:
Scorpion – Level 1:
Scorpion wastes no time with Bite Force, quickly running up the ramp, climbing the chain and using his teleporting strike to land on the grinders, using this skill to make quick work of each gear. Faceplant to the first Energy Coil is easy. Taking advantage of his teleport, Scorpion overcomes his jumping distance deficit and takes the thruster on the Energy Coil, makes his way back and crosses the rest, hitting the pipes the coils hang from with each teleport, aiming for it to not overshoot the distance.
Scorpion barely makes it through Deadbolts, almost overshooting his teleport on the last one, too far a swing jump from the previous one. Using another teleport to land on the wall. Sadly that’s where his journey ends, with the wall’s falling handholds catching up to him and its uneven shape making his controlled teleports much harder to pull off.
Points for Level 1: 90. Time Taken (relevant for ties) 3.5 minutes.
For the sake of brevity, considering the amount of competitors going through the levels, below are the rankings at the end of each level. Twelve (12) competitors start the competitions, then the top eight (8) make it to Level 2. After that it’s the top five (5) who make it to level 3 and the last two then advance to Level 4.
If you wish to know how a specific character’s run went to understand their score, let me know and I’ll relate their experience in the comments.
Level 1 – Max Points 115 – Rankings. Ties broken by faster times.
- Pitfall Harry – 115 points.
- Corvo Attano – 115 points.
- Cole MacGrath – 115 points.
- Spyro the Dragon – 115 points.
- The Dovahkiin – 105 points.
- Agent 47 – 100 points.
- Scorpion – 90 points.
- Handsome Jack – 90 points.
- Super Meat Boy – 85 points.
- Brick – 80 points.
- Sir Daniel Fortesque – 65 points.
- Chris Redfield – 45 points.
Level 2 – Max Points 155 – Rankings. Ties broken by faster times. Scores are cumulative.
- Pitfall Harry – 270 points.
- Corvo Attano – 270 points.
- Cole MacGrath – 270 points.
- Spyro – 270 points.
- The Dovahkiin – 160 points.
- Scorpion 155 points.
- Agent 47 – 145 points.
- Handsome Jack – 135 points.
Level 3 – Max Points 155 – Rankings. Ties broken by faster times. Scores are cumulative.
- Spyro – 415 points
- Cole MacGrath – 405 points.
- Corvo Attano – 370 points.
- Pifall Harry – 330 points.
- The Dovahkiin – 260 points.
Level 4 – Winner – Spyro
Facing on Level 4 are the Conduit, Cole MacGrath and his electrical abilities and the cute but deadly Spyro the Dragon. On the outset it seemed like Cole’s parkour skills would nab him the victory but on reaching the motherboard he stalled while Spyro used his climbing skills and wings to give himself boosts of speed up the peg wall, he could easily jump to the next spot and put the pegs in the right places. It helps that his tail allowed him to reach point thrusters without needing to stop.
Spyro then pushed his advantage on the Skyhook and began climbing the ventilator, in which Cole had an advantage, as he could freely climb up the metal surface using his electromagnetic abilities. Sadly, by the time he reached this spot, Spyro’s advantage was too great and though he tried his best to zip up, Spiro reached the 200 point thruster at the top first.
The new Beastmaster to join the others in the finale is Spyro the Dragon!
That’s it for this week then, we’ll see you on the next edition of The Ultimate Beastmaster – Gaming Edition!
Note: In my original run, Spyro didn’t make it to level 3, but on reviewing my research and doing a bit more digging on every character, I discovered Spyro had more platforming and climbing skills that I gave him credit for, so I had to re-run him and this time he scored very high. The original end in that first run was Corvo vs Cole, but to ensure fairness I reviewed every character again after looking over game FAQs, speedruns and just normal gameplay videos, including slow playthroughs, to make sure I could capture every skill the characters have which of course influences the m
Wow, the amount of research you put into this is quite interesting. Watching speedruns and slow motion playthroughs? I definitely would not have thought to do that!
I’m glad to see that my picks made it quite far in the competition today. I certainly don’t mind losing to such an icon of early 3D platforming!
It depends on the game. Super Meat Boy, you want to watch speedruns, because its all about skill and there you can see the limits of the character’s athletic abilities. For games like Infamous, Spyro, and Dishonored, among others, walkthroughs are better because they take you through all the situations and you can see all player skills. Speedruns tend to have more glitches on bigger games like that.
I also look at specific gameplay videos, like infamous free roam videos, so I can see all aspects of its parkour and climbing.
I need to see all of that so I can tell jump distances, climb speed, and so on. This is especially true with fighting game characters, who usually have poor jumping skills, vertical and horizontal.
My Dova lost. What?! BOO! I’m just kidding :). This was fun to read.