Robot Wars Series VIII - Week 1 Discussion

[R9000]

Upcoming spoilers, I guess. I don't know how to do spoiler tags on this forum, so if someone knows, please let me know so I can edit the post.

Well, here we are. New series, finally. All teams fought so valiantly imo, with some seriously good engineering behind their bots. Some of my all-time favourite veteran competitors in this episode including Terrorherz and Behemoth, and some fantastic newcomers to Robot Wars (though I know of course those of you that frequent this forum are well-seasoned already). I have to say I thoroughly enjoyed the new format, my only complaint is the sound design, or lack thereof. Previous series of Robot Wars had an amazing theme, and awesome battle music that always had me absolutely pumped to see the upcoming fights. This one, well there wasn't much music at all, and the music that I did notice seemed to be mostly just some kind of war-like drumming. I hope they step that up next year, I feel like it would really be the icing on the cake for me. What does everyone else think?
Huge congratulations to the Carbide team, I can't wait to see that deadly robot in action again, and commiserations to Team Behemoth, Ant, Kevin and Kane, I really wanted to see you guys go the distance this time, but Evolution 8 of Behemoth seems to be so tough regardless. Rory Mangles and Team Nuts, you were fantastic fun, I can't wait to see what you build next, or if you somehow piece Nuts back together. Truly a fantastic effort by all, and I really did not expect Razer's downfall in that first fight, though I think no one did.

[ady]

My thoughts. For the first 20 mins I was really struggling with it but then it got better and better (but was that coz of carbide)
I'd like to see the house robots doing more,
Some of the camera angles were poor, the lighting I didn't like.

And I can't quite put my finger on it but I didn't feel the atmosphere like I used to with the old series.
But overall I enjoyed it.

[katch]

I've seen quite a bit of negativity on social media that seems to revolve around peoples expectations of the "old robot wars"

I see the comparison is similar to judging a renamed modern film such as " Italian Job " its not the same because its a remake. If you treat it as a modern film that was called the "Italian job" without expectation, it does meet all the requirements of a good movie.

Seems to me its a good start so far, with potentially bigger better and stronger robots yet to come.

[daveimi]

Liked the minimalism of it, no waffle just fighting. it struck me how for all the cash and engineering involved, most fights still got finished by trying to just shove each other down the pit lol.

Get the feeling that something that resembles a heavyweight version of Tiny Toon would be nearly unbeatable.

[steven_mcg]

Copy-pasted from my Facebook post because lazy :

Robot Wars is back. After twelve years off the air and months of self-inflicted hype, does the new series live up to expectations? What is the verdict on Heat A of the Eighth Wars?

...

S'pretty good.

Let's get the criticisms out of the way first. There were a LOT of "instant replays" in this episode. Robot Wars has always had filler to some degree, but it felt like there was way too much reliance on repeating the same excerpts from earlier fights over and over. The lack of music within fights feels pretty jarring and awkward too. Say what you will about the minimalist techno and cheesy metal of the old series, but they helped give the show a lot of character and the absence of the classic theme song even in remixed form = very disappoint. On a minor point, I like the idea of the "at home with the roboteers" segments, but the actual dialogue all felt a little redundant. ("I'm X, this is Y, we're here to win" etc). A little more in-depth detail about the teams and the robots would've been nice.

Thankfully, the rest of the episode held up very well and made sure none of those quibbles were deal-breakers. Dara and Angela were just as charming as they were during my day out at the filming and Jonathan Pearce is as hyperactive as ever. They have very good chemistry and get on well with the roboteers. I like that we're spending a little more time in the Pits now and you get a real sense of the banter and good sportsmanship behind the scenes. I also loved Noel Sharkey's little spiel with Dara about some of the latest real-world advancements in robotics. Very nice touch, hope it sticks around. The new arena actually looks very cool on screen too and while the House Robots didn't get too much action today, they looked good when they did. Here's hoping they get more time to shine as the series goes on.

More importantly, the fights themselves were great and boy, was there a lot of them. The individual battles are a lot shorter this time around, but you get a lot more of them to balance things out and each one had its own memorable moments. The new "league table" format for Round 2 will take some getting used to but hey, more fights per episode is AOK by me. I think I counted around 11!

And the robots, good lord. The speed and the power of these newer competitors is amazing. We've come a looong way from the days of Detonator and Torque of the Devil. I really hope vapourbots become a thing again in the fandom because I can't wait to see all the Carbide and Nuts clones slapped together for fanfic tournaments.

So yeah. Robot Wars 8 is quite good after all. Keep watching it or I'll keep boring you all with more pointless megaposts only three of you will ever read. Nyeah.

(P.S. f**k's sake, Razer)

[sean retro]

Not a bad start, but after all they've been off the air for a good few years so they'll find the right path soon.
I was also shocked to see Razer go out in the first round, But the true winner in that episode was Nuts.

[leorcc]

From watching it on TV, it all felt a bit clinical, modernistic. That is a style choice one either loves or hates. I am not in the like camp on that aspect.

However, the presenters were very good, I liked the setup of the drivers positions and the arena itself looked the business.

The fights were great. Well done to the teams on making this a great first episode.

[R9000]

Just watching the first episode again today, the music in the intro sequence was quite a cool electronic/heavy metal mix, which could've easily been looped in a fight to some extent. I think they definitely have a grip on what to do with the soundtrack, but I'd wager it was a matter of budget management and lack of time that the sound design is as minimalist as it is, along with some other elements of the show. I think once they have a whole year to prepare for the next series (which I'm banking on), there might be a bit more bravado, when the show has proved itself as a hit again to the BBC.

[shakesc]

I'm hoping the next series (assumption) is sooner than a year

[team death]

Overall I liked the new series of Robot Wars -shame the intro music and sequences have been dropped, but the arena
looked great and feel was more mature.
Interesting to see how veteren roboteers have changed and how the robots in the words of noel sharky have changed very
little.
There are obvious increases in the power/reliability/build quality- but visually you could line them up with the series 3 robots
and fail to pick out 2016 machines from 2000 machines unless you know your onions.
Didn't like the way nuts and first round robots were treated to massive distruction-no punches pulled while others were treated
with kid gloves, thier robots may look like they are knocked up in a trice but i can assure you they are not and its just as
painfull for thier machines to be destroyed as anyone else's.
I love to see distruction and so do the programme makers and viewers but I say treat your apponents robot with respect
and the programme makers will as usual....not be paying for any robot to be repaired.

[R9000]

Overall I liked the new series of Robot Wars -shame the intro music and sequences have been dropped, but the arena
looked great and feel was more mature.
Interesting to see how veteren roboteers have changed and how the robots in the words of noel sharky have changed very
little.
There are obvious increases in the power/reliability/build quality- but visually you could line them up with the series 3 robots
and fail to pick out 2016 machines from 2000 machines unless you know your onions.
Didn't like the way nuts and first round robots were treated to massive distruction-no punches pulled while others were treated
with kid gloves, thier robots may look like they are knocked up in a trice but i can assure you they are not and its just as
painfull for thier machines to be destroyed as anyone else's.
I love to see distruction and so do the programme makers and viewers but I say treat your apponents robot with respect
and the programme makers will as usual....not be paying for any robot to be repaired.

To be fair, the damage sustained by Bonk, Razer and Kill-E-Crank-E didn't look serious at all, and The General only lost a wheel, not an entire drive assembly like Nuts. Nuts sustained massive damage indeed, but (please correct me if I'm wrong) it didn't look like a robot that was intended to be particularly armoured against spinners. I can't blame Carbide for wanting to do as much damage as possible to avoid a judge's decision, the logic of which is maybe something to think about with regard to fairness and respect. Behemoth also sustained huge amounts of damage, and certainly no punches were pulled against them. The only real damage I saw done to Terrorherz was Dead Metal's slice through its underside. Yes they'll have to replace that CO2 bottle, but I can't see it being too expensive overall. Admittedly it would be nice for the show to fund repairs, and I feel it would be fair compensation for coming on the show. However, I'm sure all the teams that did go in were fully prepared and agreed to this kind of outcome, so I don't think it's necessarily wrong for them not to.

A couple of things I noticed:
-Carbide changed their tyres to larger ones after getting stuck on the flame pit in their bout with Terrorherz.
-Aren't Nuts' flails classed as an entanglement weapon?
-Who's that featherweight in the intro sequence?

[Shakey]

It's full combat, you don't go in against a spinner and expect to be hugged. If you can't deal with sustaining damage stay out of full combat.

"-Aren't Nuts' flails classed as an entanglement weapon?" No

[joey_picus]

It's full combat, you don't go in against a spinner and expect to be hugged.

But what if you just need to be held?

I thought the show was absolutely brilliant to be honest - the lack of a theme song, and a couple of the early fight camera angles, would be the only things I'd change. I'd like there to be more fights in the first round so you can't just turn up, lose, and then have to go home, but then that's slightly selfish wishful thinking on my part! It was so good to see it again, and I'll have to get on with Swift now...

[daveimi]

Agree with what Shakey said, it's a shame that nice robots get bust but in the same breath I see RobotWars as the heavy equivalent of RoboChallenge.

Was pleasantly surprised at how tough Terrorhurtz was when fighting Shard.

[shakesc]

"Is he allowed to do that?
It's an unlicensed boxing match. It's not a tickling competition.
These lads are out to hurt each other."

Not quite but its fighting robots - carry spares and spanners