Robot WarsTV 

  • Thread starter Jimlaad43
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All in all it was good, the only thing I found disappointing was the atmosphere. The crowd were far less baying than they used to be and its also a shame that they have abandoned the whole theme of the world the competition exists in. None of the weird poetry and speeches like Craig used to give, no mention of toil of the previous wars. In the past it was theatre, it felt like was based in some post apocalyptic setting.

Now its missing some personality and felt like it was a programme covering a live event like Crufts rather than being a show itself, if you get what I'm trying to say. Also, not more "Roboteers Stand By...." with the siren :indiff:

The robots seem to have become far more professional, robust and reliable. In the old days you got all sorts of terribly constructed stuff that would explode or break in 10 seconds! :lol: New tech and materials have certainly helped.
 
Trust me, when we were there, the crowd was into it, it just wasn't quite loud enough when shown on TV.
 
I should probably point out that there is a robot in the coming heats that weighs 45kg, and one with 18mm MDF for armour...
 
Thought it was good but not as good as Clarkson Hammond and May, wait hang on.....

But seriously I really enjoyed it, great start and Carbide is brutally impressive!
 
haitch40
I have been trying to find that somewhere as my disk had been scratched horrendously and thus didn't work, but all I can find is the disk on Amazon and they are asking a fortune for it.


I would have assumed it would be freeware by now as many games of that age are.
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I'm glad I kept mine now it might be worth a few bob, just a shame I have no PS2 to play it on.
 
Just watched the show and enjoyed it a lot. The presenters were well chosen and Jonathan Pearce's commentary is always excellent. One beef I have is that the audio editing is shocking, with weird bursts of subdued canned laughter, the "countdown" is all out of sync, and dialogue cuts and levels seemed all out of wack to me.

The overall presentation was a bit shonky too, for example the rating bars of speed etc. of the robots was really unclear and pointless, and the graphics were very 90s/early 00s (OK no need to change everything, but felt like a bit of a timewarp). One change I liked though was the round-robin format, rather than dragging things out I felt it gave the robots a fair go, as things can get random with the pits, and the house robots often seemingly doing whatever they want. Didn't really work out for Razer though, sadly. Never attempt the pit manouevre unless you know you've won!
 
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@Tyger yeah the audio mixing was atrocious. The levels were all wrong and the commentary was set for example way louder than the crowd or the action in the arena. I noticed that canned laughter (and it wasn't even good quality canned laughter) when Dara was doing some of the interviews.

Watching it again I have also noticed the arena is now brightly lit and it ruins the atmosphere. In the past it was dark and lit by spotlights that followed the action. A darker scene also made the sparks and flames look brighter and more exciting.
 
The old arena was far better. I'm surprised they brought back floor spikes (and made them even bigger) considering how many battles they used to wreck.
 
PeterJB
The old arena was far better. I'm surprised they brought back floor spikes (and made them even bigger) considering how many battles they used to wreck.
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They aren't as powerful now, and aim to only prop a robot up for a few seconds rather than flip them over. Plus, there are so many flippers nowadays that all robots really should be able to right themselves, and if they're defeated by the spikes, they don't really deserve to go through TBH.
 
PeterJB
The old arena was far better. I'm surprised they brought back floor spikes (and made them even bigger) considering how many battles they used to wreck.
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Yeah the new arena also looks a bit cheap if I'm honest and not as robust as the old one. I think there was one point where the ground flippers top broke off.
 
The Arena is as big as it is practically possible in the warehouse it was filmed in. It has been designed to not favour one weapon type. The old Series 7 Arena with low walls everywhere basically meant that if you had a powerful flipper, it became very easy to win. The large size also meant that spinning weaponed robots also had a lot of space to run away into to spin up, so opponents very much struggled.

With shorter battles, you need a smaller arena so there is the same amount of action. 3 minutes of missing each other isn't very exciting, so give them a smaller Arena and make the robots the stars of the show, not the Arena.
 
Just watched it on replay and what an awesome show! I was only young when it used to be on, but now i'm an engineer myself I can appreciate the level of work gone in to these machines. Carbide was awesome, massive sparks everywhere from the blade, and the other competitors fearful of it when the 'death hum' starts to sound from the rotation. And props to Behemoth for sending one of those tiny bots to the ceiling haha. Great bunch of presenters too
 
Jimlaad43
The Arena is as big as it is practically possible in the warehouse it was filmed in. It has been designed to not favour one weapon type. The old Series 7 Arena with low walls everywhere basically meant that if you had a powerful flipper, it became very easy to win. The large size also meant that spinning weaponed robots also had a lot of space to run away into to spin up, so opponents very much struggled.

With shorter battles, you need a smaller arena so there is the same amount of action. 3 minutes of missing each other isn't very exciting, so give them a smaller Arena and make the robots the stars of the show, not the Arena.
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Enter Dantomkia, Mighty Mouse and Typhoon 2.
 
Carbide seems annoyingly tough. Still though, we haven't seen all the robots so a bit premature to make that conclusion I guess..
 
Exposed wheels and tires... do they ever learn! :lol:

Mr Speed Squared is seriously dangerous, you can't even touch it! Excellent design but that system looks pretty fragile.
 
That was quite a disappointing heat. None of the robots worked properly, Shockwave won because they happened to be the best drivers. They'll be out first in the final.

Disconstructor: Should have done well but just got caught in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Tough as Nails: Disappointing that they lost the link as they could have done well, as they did in the old show.
Chimera: Exposed wheels and a lousy attempt at an axlebot. Was never gonna last.
Draven: Should have gone through because they actually did something, they need to bring RefBot back.
Foxic: They're very good on the live circuit but seemed to just just and couldn't get the drive together. Obviously powerful though as they demonstrated against Dead Metal.
M.R. Speed Squared: Demonstrated the greatest weakness of flywheels...they're no use when thy're not spinning!
Thor: Expected to win this heat, well driven, rather conservative use of the axe. Might get in as a wild card.
Shockwave: The robot itself is a bit basic but happened to be very well driven. Can't see them doing well in the final though.
 
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It wasn't one of the finest pools or robots ever! Like night and day compared to last week. I still don't understand why everyone has trouble activating axes!

I felt Mr Speed Squared was the best one there until they found out the spinning ring needs be totally replaced every match :lol:
 
Was proving to be a bit boring and predictable with Thor tearing everyone one apart, until the final that is, then I was like 'Wait, WHAT?!
 
Robin.
It wasn't one of the finest pools or robots ever! Like night and day compared to last week. I still don't understand why everyone has trouble activating axes!
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If you're on about the Thor vs Foxic battle, I was at that one, and Jason said in his interview afterwards that he didn't want to fire the axe when Foxic was right in front of the robot with the blade up, as it would likely have bent the axe badly. As soon as he was around the side, he was hitting Foxic nice and hard.
 
Foxic were rubbish the whole time, I was expecting much more from them.

Fun fact 1: Draven comes from the adjacent town to mine!
Fun fact 2: Despite competing this year and in season 7, DisConstructor is yet to last more than one cumulative minute in the arena.
 
Glad the audio issues seemed to be fixed this week. Strange line up of robots, why did Shockwave switch to a wonky bucket made out of plastic piping for two battles, then back to the way more effective metal shovel? Also what was up with Foxic? The flipper never seemed to do anything but flip up and stay there when it was off-camera.

Don't like the pit, too random and unfair, as are the house robots a lot of the time. Still a very entertaining show though =)
 
I don't think it was anywhere near as much of a disaster as you guys seem to think.

Disappointed for Foxic, it's a good machine.

Perfectly happy with Shockwave winning though, it's a good-looking, powerful and sturdy robot. Could be a surprise contender in the Final. Please don't ever use the ugly white pipe-scoop again, though.

 

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