How Robot Wars is Ruining Itself

This is a post that I didn't want to write. I didn't want to write it because it's a tarnish on something I really love and it's a threat to the biggest robot combat company in Britain - Robot Wars.

A little more than a month ago, I went to see Robot Wars Live! at Gloucester. I had mixed hopes, since I know how exciting these can be but I the last time I went, 2 years ago, there were times when the little kiddies in the audience were chanting or being asked what they'd build by the presenter. The arena floor had been torn up and needed to be worked on so I assumed this was a quick fix and even gave them credit for thinking on their feet. As it turns out, this was actually normal and things have gotten far worse since.

So I was back for another show, with mixed hopes but cautiously optimistic. It turns out my caution was more than justified. I was willing to put up with the invitation of excited screaming from children in the audience a few times before each battle. I didn't really mind the chanting of the famous phrase '3, 2, 1... activate!'. What pushed it over the edge was the poorly done, cheesy and highly cringe-worthy use of a radio-controlled, full-scale R2-D2 to encourage social networking and Robot Wars' new shudder-inducing (for all of the wrong reasons) house robot.

Because Apparently Fighting Robots Aren't Enough

Let's start with the audience participation. In the US, if given any reason at all the whole crowd will shout and cheer. In the UK though, most adults will hold back and leave the children to yell excitedly. The fact is that in Britain this sort of audience participation is only used in the belief that without it, the younger members of the audience will get bored. It just seems so unnecessary here though. It just gets them hyper and drives everyone else nuts. I wouldn't mind too much but there are 100kg machines throwing each other around the arena so surely the show is exciting and engaging enough. Nothing is gained from getting young kids to scream and shout. It also turns out that the 'quick fix' I mentioned from two years ago is a permanent, reoccurring feature. The first time it was a little endearing to hear a 6-year-old describe how his robot would have death missiles and chainsaws. This second time around it just seemed lazy and it became more and more apparent that this was yet another attempt to grab children's interest and burn time. It really isn't necessary. As the presenter went around the stands from person to person, I cared less and less. Having little kids describe a robot on the spot really doesn't add anything. The whole show felt targeted at children. I didn't just feel disappointed, I felt like I didn't belong. I felt as if I stuck out like a sore thumb. I felt very self-concious and rejected by something I cared so much for.

Is this not exciting enough?

Source: http://gloucesternewscentre.co.uk/comp-two-family-passes-to-robot-wars-live-up-for-grabs/

What Did I Just Watch? Why Did that Happen?

Then they drove out that R2-D2 model. Let's breeze over the fact that R2-D2 has absolutely nothing to do with Robot Wars or robot combat generally. This segment involved the presenter 'listening' to R2's warbles, 'translating' and telling the audience to like Robot Wars on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and a few other places. It felt horribly forced and low-effort. The presenter kept up his enthusiasm, so good on him, but that didn't make up for the fact that no audience anywhere wants to spend 10 minutes of a paid-for show watching a man telling them to scour the internet for his company and adding a scale-model sci-fi character fails so hard to help that it's embarrassing. For all of Robot Wars' (needless) efforts to keep the audience engaged, this was a complete contrast and utterly disinteresting.

Now we come to the greatest tarnish to the world of robot combat since the producers fixed the Seventh Wars final. Whilst I don't personally like house robots anyway, Robot Wars' latest addition to the arsenal, dubbed Oll-E as a pun on the Disney robot Wall-E (a point they tried to milk at the event), comes with so many new issues. It is a paintball cannon with googly eyes and a silly voice. Think about that. I have no clue whatsoever what convinced the minds behind Robot Wars Live to invest in building this thing. It offers no combative threat at all. It couldn't hit a featherweight sitting right in front of it and even if it could, a paintball would do sod all to a modern feather anyway. It doesn't look impressive, which is much of the point of the house robots. And they gave it a voice. They decided the presenter needed to be able to pretend to talk to this thing. What is the point of that? What is that meant to add?

Shown here in the arena at a previous event.

It looks depressed by its own existence. So it should be.

Source: http://roamingrobots.wikia.com/wiki/Olly_the_paintball_bot?file=Olly_the_paint.png

The absolute pincher, though, is that Oll-E isn't even used in the arena any more. They built a house robot so completely incapable of being a house robot that it couldn't hold its own against the featherweights for which it was built. The only joy I've had from this house robot was from watching small bots topple it and seeing it's big googly eyes hit the arena floor. Oh joy! It's down! It's dead! But no, we can't even have that now. Instead, they bring Oll-E around in front of the arena and chat with it. Remember, though, that there is a soundman crouching in his booth talking through a synthesiser. There is nothing on show here. It is hopelessly pointless. I was close to walking out when a little girl was invited to the front to have a 'spinning competition' with the robot. They cut it short, seemingly realising this was a huge... mistake isn't a strong enough word... I mean, I know this stuff is made up as they go but come on! Why would excluding the entire audience and drawing all attention to a small child spinning on the spot be a good idea, even for 20 seconds? There's fucking giant robots duelling to the death. What the hell did I just watch? Why did that happen?

This all happens in something which tries to present itself as some kind of a competition. All that this acting does is give the impression that everything there is fake and that the whole competition is synthetic. Like I said, most of the events are only friendly anyway, but the teams are still making some effort to win their battles. Interjecting these with horribly-written fakery tarnishes the entire experience, every bit of it. It's interesting to note that Oll-E has been around for about 9 months (though it was mute for the first month) but Robot Wars still don't acknowledge its existence on their website.

The whole show was so disappointing that even the usual "Let's get this show back on TV!" was met by a fairly muted and scattered response. If a television reboot was similar to this, I honestly would not watch it.

Rated Ages 12-

It has become blatantly obvious that I am not part of the target audience for Robot Wars. In fact, no one over the age of 12 is part of the target audience for Robot Wars, which is confusing. The thing is, 12 years ago Robot Wars was coming to an end and those who were alive back then won't remember it. However, people like myself who have either followed robot combat since or are nostalgic for the program are given this mess. True, parents who enjoyed the show as children may want to show it to their own kids but that can be done without all of the 'performance'. Please, if you are looking to go to one of these live shows, don't go to a Robot Wars show unless you have young children, and even then know that you're only doing it for them, not for yourself. Feel free to enjoy watching the battles with the horrible presentation cut out (I can recommend the YouTube channels MicroGravity100 and Team Panoramic) because they themselves are still pretty good but, for your own sake, stay away from the shows.

Instead, hold out for one of the few large annual competition-focused and engaging Robots Live events. Even then, make sure you are definitely going to see one of their main shows, as many of them are walk-by attractions on the side of a larger event, will have a very small arena and will only feature a few robots.

It's no wonder why Robots Live always hosts the FRA heavyweight championships

Source: http://www.mcmcomiccon.com/manchester/attractions/robots-live/

I'll leave you with the hope that maybe, with BattleBots returning, some program producer will find Robot Wars and completely rework it into something much better. Until that happens, I'm afraid I just can't recommend them to anyone on the far side of puberty.