Dog vs Cat

Welcome to season one of Character Select. How many seasons will there be? Some mysteries deserve never to be revealed.

Ah, now we're suckin' diesel. It is a conflict that has raged for as long as humanity has had a gristly bit of mammoth salami they did not want to eat. Who will get the scraps: man's best friend, or best frenemy? One is known for boundless enthusiasm, strength, loyalty, and also for going "bee-woop-dee-boop" while battering gasmasked dorks. The other is known for putting small dead rodents in your slippers, and rescuing an entire city of robots from an endless night. This will be a tragic fight, because in another world, at another time, Dog and Cat would have been inseparable pals. But not here and not now. This is Dog from Half-Life 2 versus the Cat from Stray. It's now or it is never now. Select your character!

The case for Dog from Half-Life 2

He can lift a car and he can throw a car. That's got to count for a lot. He once jumped on top of an alien tripod and tore the top of its skull off, as if he was dismantling a cheap chew toy from Jollyes. He is capable of performing mathematical operations, such as Rock + Throw = Hurt. Dog cannot fly, but he can clench onto the mandibles of an extraterrestrial dropship and dangle there like a heavy scrapmetal bollock until he brings it crashing down to the city streets below. Dog does not fight fair or unfair, Dog just fights however his clanking body tells him to. If this is a straight-up smash fest, all organic matter should be concerned.

The case for Cat from Stray

You can't be killed if you can't be caught. And you can't be caught if you are slipping in and out of alleyways, hopping through windows, clambering across drainpipes, and disappearing under fences faster and more agile than any chonk-ape made of steel. Stray's heroic feline is not your average cat, even if it retains a weakness for sleeping on bellies and knocking objects off ledges. This cat has outlived and outmanoeuvred many machines. If it really wants to deactivate what is effectively a big delivery robot, all this ginger menace needs to do is find the right keyboard to walk across.

The arena

A cardboard box factory.

Select your character!

As ever, the winner of this duel is up to you now. Who would win? More importantly, how? I cannot force your opinion one way or another, except to remind you that if you harm a cat, or through inaction cause a cat to come to harm, then you and I will never be friends. Just saying. 

Give us your best outcomes for this terrible tête-à-tête and we'll announce the winners at the end of the first season. Jank reserves the right to pick the victor according to simple popularity, or to accept one rogue commenter's superb prediction. Don't overwrite your visions, because I won't read more than a paragraph. I've got a wee babby to remove from a car seat over here!