I like the new format. Lots of battles and pretty much everyone fought everyone. Carbide was awesome. Cannot belive how much Razor sucked.
Carbide looks to be a VERY good robot, Suprised to see Razer go out so early, and mainly due to bad driving ( but they admit they havent had much in the way of practice ).Behemoth looked good, but it seemed they had transmission problems in their final fight. Also surprised to see Clusterbots being a thing now, The original rule was that if one segment of the clusterbot failed, the whole robot was out iirc Still preferred Craig Charles to Dara though, and the old arena looked alot better imo. It had a fantastic Sci-fi scrapyard feel to it, while the new one feels a little shiny and flashy ( i mean why have the green lasers ?
Craig Charles' style suited the show better than Dara's but I still think Dara was a good host, I certainly have no problems with him.
I enjoyed the Nuts robot too, it was fun to watch... Spoiler ...especially after the post-Carbide rebuild, complete with bent wheels.
I found it interesting how much the house robots held back. There were a number of times when, in previous seasons, a house robot would have weighed in. It seems that they played a much more appropriate role breaking up a deadlock or pushing a competitor back into the fight.
Show was very poor to me, production values for the entire thing looked like they were done by a 2 bit and Bob house. Not the BBC, can not remember a time in the past when the show was that bad actually. So many needless battles at the end, you win you go through you lose you go out simple. Not lets battle each other 1time again with the 2 most wins going to another battle. The changes to clusterbots ruling also surprised me. Also preferred to see the house robots destroy stuff was part of the show, guess when you have lots of fights to have the house robots doing that would prevent a lot of extra battles.
It didn't, until Dara gave the Nuts team back the huge chunk that had bounced off the control room's window!
It surprised me to see Razer go out so early on, but it did look to be driven by someone who was out of practice, and it is a very old bot now. The idea is still phenomenal though, I wouldn't be surprised if an updated version appeared in a future series, since Carbide might have the edge on raw brutal hitting power, but Razer will always have a place in my memory for absolutely annihilating Matilda. Plus a Razer V2 running on modern tech would be absolutely glorious, since the original is, IIRC, 24V DC motors on a 36V Power supply.
Raver going out early is traditional: in the past they've either done pretty terribly (e.g. poor driving, the 'tail' getting them stuck to the floor, or just technical issues) or smashed their way through effortlessly, rarely anything in between.
I thought the show wasn't bad, but it could use a little improvement for the inevitable season 2. I agree that I preferred the look of the old arena, but tbh I'd be happy enough if they just chuck some hazard stripes on the CPZ. It does look like it's much harder to flip a robot out of the arena now though, not sure how I feel about that. On one hand it tempers flipper bots, but it also makes their fights less interesting. Seeing behemoth flipping nuts around got pretty stale. Dara I thought was okay, if a bit prim and proper for the show, nicely cut suit though. Not so sold on Angela Scanlon though, felt like she was always rushing, the show also feels remarkably Irish now haha. Bots wise, not a bad bunch. Razer is a little tired now, loved it back in the day but it would have been nicer to see a more updated bot. Behemoth was never hugely interesting in the first place IMO, but the good manoeuvrability and strong scoop were cool (sending that clusterbot to the moon was ace). Carbide was awesome, although spinners are always tempermental. It does look like it needs to be heavier though (not sure how close to the limit it was?), that weapon often threw the bot further than the opponent! Didn't like Nuts at all. I know it's for a laugh and all that, but it had no weaponry so was really boring to watch. Just a matter of waiting to see how long it takes to be either reduced to scrap or flipped etc. That two matches with it went to a judges decision was not my cup of tea. I do like the new format of the show though. Had it just been knockout from the start we wouldn't have seen Carbide rip into both Nuts and Behemoth.
Format wise its pretty good, much more fighting going on which is never a bad thing. Do agree on the arena wall, and CPZ, Wall needs to be a little lower making flipping an option an the CPZ needs to be more clearly defined. Overall though pretty good, house robots were less concerned with breaking things more keeping the action going breaking up deadlocks so no need for the silly ref bot. Bot wise, Carbide looks lethal I had the volume up quite high on the TV. That "death hum" is quite audible can only imagine what its like in the arena. Spoiler I think in the last fight Behomoths rear took a big hit from the blade knocking out part of its drive hence being stationary. The reverse into the pit may have been tactical knowing just how lethal that blade can be after it ripped a chunk out the bucket and part of the lifting mechanism. The interview at the end seemed chopped short too. Interesting to see what else come out in the next few shows, not sure on the clusterbots bar being great projectiles and being stabbed reminded me of the lightly armoured RC car from series one.
From what i have heard from Various people is that the BBC has gone overboard with H&S for this series Bash isnt a member because they felt that a flamethrower isnt to effective as a weapon and is more of a danger than a help ( there was matches previously where his fuel line got ruptured and caused a pretty major fire risk. The reason you can no longer flip opponents out of the arena isnt to nerf flippers, but a Health and safety reason to keep everyone OUTSIDE the big box with the increasingly high powered robots in it. Back in the old days there were a few instances where robots flipped out the arena hit camera's and those camera's were human operated... so putting everyone outside the box is MUCH safer, and also Cheaper with the fact that the cage doesnt need to be as big. Also with the Arena it feels much smaller than it used to be, and from the first battle the hazards seem to be a little TO big and just get in the way
I actually think well driven well designed cluster bots could cause real trouble for larger more powerful robots. There was one point were one of Nuts' threatened to wedge under the bodywork of Terrorhurtz and the little bots can be largely out of reach of many of the more destructive weapons. Spoiler I think Carbide stopped the weapon deliberately as an act of chivalry. They knew Behomoth was immobile and planned to shove it into the pit rather than trash it.
