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The BBC Announces Robot Wars' Return To TV (bbc.co.uk)

Posted by Soulskill on from the watching-machines-fight-for-our-entertainment dept.

Blacklaw writes: The BBC has announced that Robot Wars, the classic metal-mashing amateur robotics competition, is returning for a new series. They are building an all-new battle arena — following the sale of the original for scrap in 2005. "The new series includes a raft of technological advances since the show first aired over a decade ago, and viewers can expect to see more innovative fighting machines as teams of amateur roboteers battle it out to win the coveted Robot Wars title."

77 comments

  1. Not my kind of robot war by Crowd+Computing · · Score: 2

    The only Robot Wars I want to see is between gigantic bipedal robots piloted by cute blue-haired girls.

    1. Re:Not my kind of robot war by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1

      Is purple-hair ok?

      Also how do you feel about oppai loli's?

    2. Re:Not my kind of robot war by U2xhc2hkb3QgU3Vja3M · · Score: 3, Informative

      Pink hair is the best!

    3. Re:Not my kind of robot war by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      I'm ok with that. Also I agree with Neon Genesis Evangelion should return.

    4. Re:Not my kind of robot war by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      cute blue-haired CAT girls

    5. Re:Not my kind of robot war by U2xhc2hkb3QgU3Vja3M · · Score: 1

      No, PINK-haired cat girls! ... especially one who's actual name is Pink.

    6. Re:Not my kind of robot war by gbjbaanb · · Score: 1

      I always found the most interesting decision taken by the BBC was to get a room full of nerds who obviously spent a lot of time by themselves in their sheds and have them interviewed by Philippa Forrester, in very tight leather.

  2. Battlebots rip-off by Laxator2 · · Score: -1, Troll

    I remember the old Battlebots of 2001-2002. It was a really great show, and then the Robot Wars was made as a copycat about a year later. Now that Battlebots has been restarted, https://deadline.com/2015/02/battlebots-revival-reality-series-abc-summer-1201367663/ I see that Robot Wars is restarted as well, with the usual 1 year lag.

    1. Re:Battlebots rip-off by Richard_at_work · · Score: 5, Informative

      Uh, Robot Wars first aired in the UK in 1998, two years before Battlebots first aired in the US.

      Robot Wars also has the non-broadcast event history behind it dating back to 1994.

    2. Re:Battlebots rip-off by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What do you mean, rip-off??
      The BBC Robot Wars started in 1998?

      Maybe they only started airing it in North America after the success of BattleBots?

    3. Re:Battlebots rip-off by jellomizer · · Score: 3, Funny

      Nah the Brits love to rip off 'merica.
      Cricket is a cheap ripoff of Baseball.
      Dr. Who is a cheap ripoff of Star Trek
      They even double down by making a Red Dwarf a cheap ripoff of Voyager.
      The Office is a cheap ripoff of The Office
      And British football vs Football.

      Facts just get in the way of a closed world view.

      --
      If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
    4. Re:Battlebots rip-off by Richard_at_work · · Score: 2

      Dont forget House of Cards.

    5. Re:Battlebots rip-off by symes · · Score: 2

      Don't get me started on that faker Shakespeare - he made his name rewriting Hollywood scripts

    6. Re:Battlebots rip-off by occasional_dabbler · · Score: 1

      Accidentally modded you down, so having to post as me to burn the points. Curse these fat fingers...

      --
      "Our opponent is an alien starship packed with atomic bombs," I said. "we have a protractor"
    7. Re:Battlebots rip-off by AmiMoJo · · Score: 1

      The Apprentice. Isn't Dancing with the Stars based on Strictly Come Dancing. Oh, and America's Got Talent.

      I seem to recall there was a US version of Sherlock too. Life on Mars.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    8. Re:Battlebots rip-off by PinkyGigglebrain · · Score: 0

      What are you talking about?? Hollywood? Everyone knows he ripped of the works of the greatest Klingon poet and play write Sha'kspar. Even terranized his name.

    9. Re:Battlebots rip-off by Richard_at_work · · Score: 1

      The X Factor too.

    10. Re:Battlebots rip-off by tipo159 · · Score: 1

      A guy in the US came up with Robot Wars. A US record company funded it. As it was coming together, the relationship between the guy and the record company fell apart and ended in legal acrimony. The record company licensed it to a UK production company. The folks who were going to put it on in the US put together BattleBots. It think that the US folks worked on it first, but the UK folks got it on TV first.

      FWIW, I prefer BattleBots (except for that bogus rule interpretation on the prohibition of capture devices in the early rounds).

    11. Re:Battlebots rip-off by khelms · · Score: 1

      Leave it to a show about a time traveller to rip off a series that didn't start until three years later.

    12. Re:Battlebots rip-off by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This broke me.

  3. Didn't it sort of get bogged down? by Hognoxious · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Didn't it get tedious towards the end with all the robots being a sort of wedge with a flipper?

    What I'd like to see is more autonomous bots, rather than what are effectively RC tanks.

    --
    Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
    1. Re:Didn't it sort of get bogged down? by NeoNormal · · Score: 1

      > What I'd like to see is more autonomous bots, rather than what are effectively RC tanks.

      I was going to post something like this. They are not really robots, IMO. Autonomous bots would be much more interesting.

    2. Re:Didn't it sort of get bogged down? by Ksevio · · Score: 1

      That was kind of sad - all the cool innovative robots just ended up knocked over or pushed into a corner.

      One way to fix that would be more complex terrain so it's harder to drive a triangle around and as you say, autonomous bots that have to identify targets themselves.

    3. Re: Didn't it sort of get bogged down? by liqu1d · · Score: 1

      Lasers or gtfo!

    4. Re:Didn't it sort of get bogged down? by safetyinnumbers · · Score: 1

      I used to watch Robot Wars and the recent Battle Bots revival was a good show to watch with my son.

      I was expecting more technological improvements after such a large gap of time, but it was mostly flippers, spinning disks, pincers. There was even Warhead, from the old UK shows.

    5. Re:Didn't it sort of get bogged down? by Macdude · · Score: 4, Interesting

      The floor should at least be contoured, with hills and valleys. That brings up one of the problems with this type of competition, as long as the arena is fixed, the arena will determine what kind of specific robot is the best.

      I'd like to see various arenas and each bot has to battle in each arena, say each level of a elimination competition is in a different arena and the specific arenas vary by episode.

      Some examples:
      1. Flat metal floor
      1a. Flat metal floor with fixed obstacles.
      1a. Flat metal floor with moving obstacles.
      2. Undulating metal floor.
      2a. Undulating metal floor with fixed obstacles.
      2b. Undulating metal floor with moving obstacles.
      3. Packed earthen floor.
      3a. Packed earthen floor with fixed obstacles.
      3b. Packed earthen floor with moving obstacles.
      4. Undulating metal and packed earth floor combination with fixed obstacles.
      4a. Undulating metal and packed earth floor combination with fixed obstacles.
      4b. Undulating metal and packed earth floor combination with moving obstacles.

      --
      "Grab them by the pussy" -- President of the United States of America
    6. Re:Didn't it sort of get bogged down? by dbc · · Score: 2

      Well, autonomous fighting robots have been tried. It isn't very interesting to watch. At. All. Three minutes of watching two robots try to find each other is just not gripping. I work with autonomous robots a lot. Watching autonomous robots attack a 1-on-zero challenge course is something that is usually only interesting to other builders of autonomous robots, because the action is so freaking slow and the robots look feeble-minded. Only another builder can appreciate how difficult it is to make a robot do what appears to the non-initiated to be a very simple task.

      There are autonomous sumo-bots. Google for some video. Other than pushing an opponent out of the ring, they aren't weaponized. Those typically move quite fast, so there is action. Occasionally, you get some un-intended action -- I saw a sumo-bot erupt into a pretty spectacular lithium battery fire once. But I don't think you could make a TV show out of sumo-bots.

      I'm currently working on a Robo-Magellan bot. I can't imagine wanting to subject that much work to intentional damage. It's freaking hard enough to keep it all working in the first place without someone applying kinetic rage to your electronics.

    7. Re:Didn't it sort of get bogged down? by Ichijo · · Score: 1

      And no modifications to the robots between matches, only repairs. Unlike what we saw in the most recent season of BattleBots, the same configuration must be used in every match, otherwise it isn't the same robot.

      --
      Any sufficiently unpopular but cohesive argument is indistinguishable from trolling.
    8. Re:Didn't it sort of get bogged down? by IWantMoreSpamPlease · · Score: 4, Interesting

      There was a series long time ago called "Robotica" that had for their host one of the Zappa offspring.
      They had just that, all kinds of obstacles, so really low to the ground bots often were hung up. It forced designers to really think about what they were doing.
      Best show of the bunch IMO.

      --
      So rise up, all ye lost ones, as one, we'll claw the clouds.
    9. Re:Didn't it sort of get bogged down? by dpidcoe · · Score: 1

      I was expecting more technological improvements after such a large gap of time, but it was mostly flippers, spinning disks, pincers.

      News flash: spinners, flippers, and pincers are some of the best ways to damage a robotic target at this scale as long as entanglement, untethered projectiles, and electromagnetic type weapons aren't allowed.

      Also, If you didn't see any technological improvements you must not have been looking very hard during the show, and must have also missed out on the behind the scenes stuff that appeared on youtube. The amount of energy contained in those weapons was enormous compared to the previous iteration of battlebots. The design work and fabrication by people with no background was also quite impressive, and really only made possible by recent advances in technology making CNC machines and CAD software much more ubiquitous and accessible at a hobbyist level.

    10. Re:Didn't it sort of get bogged down? by dpidcoe · · Score: 1

      The modifications were the best part, and really the only avenue open to improvement with the other constraints imposed. It adds a lot of cost and complexity, not to mention design skill, to make something that's modular while remaining rugged enough to not fall into pieces in that environment.

    11. Re:Didn't it sort of get bogged down? by occasional_dabbler · · Score: 1
      By far the most impressive robot from the series was Razor, one of the original wedge designs but rather than a flipper, was fitted with a 'beak' that could penetrate pretty much anything, albeit slowly.

      Most notably it killed the house robot 'Matilda.

      'It also used a self-righting mechanism that served a secondary purpose of enabling it to take a bow at the end of the battle. Very cool.

      --
      "Our opponent is an alien starship packed with atomic bombs," I said. "we have a protractor"
    12. Re:Didn't it sort of get bogged down? by mikael · · Score: 1

      Maybe have some type of robot Olympics where the goal isn't to mash each other up, but to get around various obstacles. BBC also used to have the cartoon series "Ludwig" and the "The Great Egg Race" which would be a similar theme. That usually involved trying to transport an egg in some way without harm.

      http://www.bbc.co.uk/archive/g...

      There are international maze exploration competitions:

      https://www2.meijo-u.ac.jp/~ic...

      --
      Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
    13. Re:Didn't it sort of get bogged down? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      There's a comptetition for school kids a bit like that: http://www.firstinspires.org/

    14. Re:Didn't it sort of get bogged down? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I used to watch airplanes take off at the airport before 9/11 and recently I started again.

      I was expecting more technological improvements after such a large gap of time, but it was mostly kerosene, turbofans, wings, flaps. There was even a Boeing 747, like the ones from 1969.

      I'm willing to bet you are a programmer. Guess what? Technology has plateaued in many, many areas, and your son will likely not see the same kind of rate of change in improvements you saw as a kid.

    15. Re:Didn't it sort of get bogged down? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Well, except that you are missing the obvious Darwinian principle at work here - those "innovative" robots were simply not as well suited to the game. People discovered that there was a singular best solution to the problem, Those other robots were not innovative - they were inferior for the task at hand.

    16. Re:Didn't it sort of get bogged down? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It hasn't plateaued, the visible, low hanging fruit has been had. /Boeing 747 engineer

  4. So it's like Battle Bots? by Last_Available_Usern · · Score: 1

    I'll be curious to see this, but I hope they do a better job with the filler material than Battle Bots did. The matches were actually really good, but pretty much everything between them was a complete joke. Even the guy who counted down the match start was was over-the-top corny with his weird amalgamation of ring-side boxing presenter and the voice at the match start for Mortal Combat.

    1. Re:So it's like Battle Bots? by Rei · · Score: 1

      Second. Why Battlebots decided to emulate WWF is beyond me.

      --
      He's the sort of person who would sell the Red Cross to Dracula.
    2. Re:So it's like Battle Bots? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Okay, so you think time flows that way, do you? Interesting.

  5. Drone Wars ? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Upgrade the technology.

    1. Re:Drone Wars ? by Rei · · Score: 2

      Letting drones compete would be a nice twist. I'm not sure how one could fairly handle letting drones compete with non-drones, though - seems like an either-or situation. Unless... hmm...

      Other: Uneven floors and obstacles would be good, and could be varied, even with their own weather - a boulder-strewn badlands, a rainy forest, a post-apocalyptic hellscape, an icy barrens in a blizzard, etc. Maybe get rid of some of their old constraints, such as no fire-based or fluid weapons (although their arena would need be able to be able to handle it). Fire would not just be aesthetically pleasing but open up brand new optimization constraints on defensive techniques, and fluids like adhesives, solvents/corrosives or lubricants could also lead to rather interesting battles. Ranged weapons would be nice, within limits of course. Maybe simply replace the prohibition on ranged weapons to "no weapons that make use of an explosive charge" so that you don't just get a bunch of people mounting handguns to RC cars... maybe also set a maximum projectile velocity and/or kinetic energy too. Hmm, you know, if you allowed some degree of ranged weapons and had a realistic ceiling height, you might be able to fairly compete drones with non-drones. Otherwise you can still use weapons on a tether, but that's a lot harder.

      --
      He's the sort of person who would sell the Red Cross to Dracula.
    2. Re:Drone Wars ? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Given how "well" the DARPA robotics challenge went I don't know how practical that would be. Many of the robots didn't even seem to have the capability to stand down pat.

    3. Re:Drone Wars ? by Rei · · Score: 1

      Oh, another possibility for rule relaxation: they could allow electrical weapons, but only very low voltage (no limits on current). So it'd be quite possible to protect sensitive electronics (it takes voltage to get past electrical insulation), but robots will still be able to burn through each other with electricity.

      Corrosives, if allowed, would probably have to have a requirement that they can't, in reaction with common metals and plastics, outgas anything dangerous. Flammables (and robots in general) should probably have a requirement about a minimum time they would take to burn up if everything flammable was ignited at once - you don't want anything too violent going on. Any uncertainties should come down to the opinion of a judge. No chemical should be allowed that reacts violently with water (or whatever fire extinguishing system they use).

      Hmm, water hazards in the battle arena... that'd be neat.

      The more varied the weapons, the more difficult it'll be for a robot to defend against all possibilities. And some weapons may prove most effective in combination. Maybe a weapon that cuts small holes in a foe's armour might not be good on its own, and maybe a water gun might not be great on its own, but punch a hole on a robot and then get the robot wet, and well, your results may be quite different ;) I'd think that the most effective combinations would be like that - one to get you past the armor (spinning blades, hammers, vises, etc), and then one to damage the insides through the holes (fire, water, corrosives, etc). And wouldn't that be more satisfying to the audience, a multi-pronged attack ending with a robot frying its foe from the inside? :)

      --
      He's the sort of person who would sell the Red Cross to Dracula.
  6. Matilda ! by Punko · · Score: 2

    Hopefully, they bring the house robots back, as they provided a lot of character to the show

    --
    If only we could fall into a woman's arms without falling into her hands
    1. Re:Matilda ! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Hopefully, they bring the house robots back, as they provided a lot of character to the show

      Everyone knows that Sgt Bash was the hottest thing in the arena. Even Sir Kill-a-lot.

  7. No logo? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Slashdot no longer has a logo graphic in the upper-left corner of the page. What's the problem?

    1. Re:No logo? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Never mind, it seems to have been fixed now.

  8. Junkyard Wars by GreenEnvy22 · · Score: 2

    Now we just need Junkyard wars to return and I can relive my youth!

    1. Re:Junkyard Wars by spaceyhackerlady · · Score: 1, Insightful

      No, thank you. A really fun concept, but after a while it had gotten repetitive and it was time to move on...

      ...laura

    2. Re:Junkyard Wars by Richard_at_work · · Score: 2

      Or more commonly known as Scrapheap Challenge over here in the UK - another show exported to the US (yup, we had it first) :)

    3. Re:Junkyard Wars by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I will forever remember the long brothers from that show.

    4. Re:Junkyard Wars by Kiaser+Zohsay · · Score: 1

      AKA Scrapheap Challenge.

      --
      I am not your blowing wind, I am the lightning.
    5. Re: Junkyard Wars by bestweasel · · Score: 1

      Created by a (gulp) woman, Cathy Rogers.

    6. Re:Junkyard Wars by radish · · Score: 1

      I loved that show but it was getting absurd towards the end. I remember one episode where they had to build something like a steam powered boat? Anyway one of the teams "found" a perfect condition, shiny brass steam engine just sitting inside a rusty truck in the middle of the junkyard. Over time it became less "build a machine from scrap" and more "build a chassis from scrap and attach the magic thing we planted".

      --

      ---- Den ene knappen er powerknapp, den andre er Bender voice knapp "Bite My Shiny Metal Ass"

  9. divisions and unscripted? by smoothnorman · · Score: 1

    If there aren't carefully designed divisions, for example: autonomous versus wired puppet, this is doomed. If we can't somehow be assured events are unscripted, (the winner being assigned beforehand), then this is doomed just like the previous scripted (saucy?) puppet show. Final blather: if a 'win' is "smoking lump" then my solid block of titanium on a roller-skate will never lose, so a referee must be an actual agent of decision, or else, (yep) it's doomed.

    1. Re: divisions and unscripted? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That's all taken care of in the classifications,

      The heavyweight championship (the televised competition) was for remotely controled robots up to 100kg (lighter bits had other weight classes), walkers could be double the weight, they had to be remote controlled and br designed to fail safe in the case where signal was lost.

      There was victory by immobilisation in the time limit, or a panel of judges which awarded points based on style, control, damage and aggression.

      Projectiles and emp/electrocution based weapons were banned.

      Robots could split into multiple 'cluster bots' but had to start as a single machine, and if any individual bot was immobilised, they whole cluster would be eliminated.

    2. Re: divisions and unscripted? by Hognoxious · · Score: 1

      I thought tethered projectiles were allowed? I remember coming up with a bastard of a harpoon but it never made it past the beermat stage.

      --
      Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
    3. Re: divisions and unscripted? by dpidcoe · · Score: 1

      Tethered was allowed, but there are quite a few challenges to using them that make them a less than ideal weapon system:
      1) Getting enough power behind a projectile to do damage (a lot of those robots are using quarter inch steel armor) without using explosives. Entangling isn't allowed, so a magnetic tow line or similar is out (also, if you're planning on towing them around the ring, there are better ways than launching a harpoon).
      2) If you figure out 1), now you need to figure out how to make a tether that won't break under those forces if you miss.
      3) If you get 2) worked out, what happens if that tether gets tangled in something?
      4) If all the previous issues are worked out, what's your contingency for losing the projectile? Is there even enough weight and space allowance left over to do anything other than watch your robot be smashed?

    4. Re: divisions and unscripted? by Hognoxious · · Score: 1

      I could answer those questions, but then I'd have to kill you.

      [whisper] There might be a ballista in there somewhere [/whisper]

      --
      Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
    5. Re: divisions and unscripted? by dpidcoe · · Score: 1

      So did you run the numbers to see how much kinetic energy the projectile could deliver? Did you compare those numbers to what you'd get with a pair of ballista powered hammers that swing around and smash together in the front?

  10. Quadcopters by rlp · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I'd like to see them include quadcopter vs quadcopter battles.

    --
    [Insert pithy quote here]
    1. Re:Quadcopters by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1

      Drone wars!

    2. Re:Quadcopters by wasteoid · · Score: 1

      and ranged weapons

    3. Re:Quadcopters by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Kind of reminds me of the "dogfights" that the local RC aircraft club used to hold in my area. Each plane would have a plastic/paper streamer about 3 ft in length attached to the back. They would fly around trying to shave off as much of another planes streamer as possible without losing their own. Once in a while someone would get too close and one or both planes would fall out of the sky (one from trashed rear end, one from a broken propeller). One time the chasing planes propeller somehow got caught up in the target planes streamer and was pulled in like a high speed winch, there wasn't much left of either.

    4. Re:Quadcopters by nevermore94 · · Score: 1

      The silly US show "What Could Possibly Go Wrong?" did one really good episode where the 2 guys each built their own octocopter and armed them with paintball guns and smoke bombs and then had to pilot them via onboard cameras and essentially did a race along an outdoor course where they were trying to disable each other to win. Although hitting each other with their paintball guns on such a big course proved to be quite challenging, I thought that single episode was far more entertaining than most of the Robot Wars type shows. I think having to pilot the robot via onboard cameras really added an interesting new dimension to the battle. With some refinement upon their 2 dudes in a garage designs, they could really have something there.

      --
      Nevermore.
  11. So record and watch later by Bruce66423 · · Score: 1

    I entirely agree the fillers were junk - but it can be treated as adverts should be.

    1. Re:So record and watch later by dpidcoe · · Score: 2

      They could make the fillers a lot less junkey though. It's a show about engineering and destruction, not human interest stories where they praise a retarded design because it was built by a pink haired girl or whatever.

      Get some of the bot builders to talk about what they built.
      Get some people (possible even two people, I hear there's a pair that might have recently been made available after a certain network canceled a certain show) to test some of the design elements in a controlled environment (e.g. "can this spinning hammer with hardened steel spike used by robot X punch through the half inch low carbon 1040 steel robot Y is armored with?" or "how long will this torch need to be applied to this chassy design before it heats up enough to damage components?").
      Do some sponsored material from soildworks/mouser/autocad/mcmaster/etc. talking about cool stuff their products are used for besides designing robots.
      Get some of the builders to show off other skills tangential to the robot (I notice that ability to drive it well seems almost as important as design).
      Hell, I bet a 3d printing agency could make out like a bandit if they bought commercial time to be a series of tutorials on how to prep a 3d model for 3d printing and made partially started models of all the bots available on their website.

  12. Real, actual robots? by Catmeat · · Score: 1

    Does 10 years worth of technology mean we can have actual robots warring? Or will it still be a bunch of pseudo-aggressive, violent affectated radio-controlled cars?

    1. Re:Real, actual robots? by bobm · · Score: 1

      Yeah, my problem is that it's not robots but just RC cars with fancy bodies. Pretty boring to watch without a lot of fast forwarding.

      Of course I grew up on CRobots (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crobots) and never really got into RC cars, real cars are enough of a time-sink.

  13. I have one problem with this by PinkyGigglebrain · · Score: 1

    As much as I enjoyed the show there was one thing that always bugged me. And that was the simple fact that the machines were NOT robots in the true sense of the word. They where ROVs, operated by their builders. True robots would have been autonomous, able to take offensive and defensive actions based on their current environment and the actions of their opponent. Preferable with some form of remote kill switch for safety of course. I know I'm just nit picking and I just wanted to get that off my chest for once. Thank you for your patience. That said it would be cool if they brought the show back.

    1. Re:I have one problem with this by radish · · Score: 1

      I get what you're saying, but we have plenty of things called robots in the real world right now, and the vast majority of them don't have much (if any) autonomy. I'm thinking of things like production line robot arms. It's true that they're not being remotely operated by a person in most cases (although some are, e.g. the bomb disposal bots) - but it's only pretty recently we've seen real autonomy (e.g. self driving cars).

      --

      ---- Den ene knappen er powerknapp, den andre er Bender voice knapp "Bite My Shiny Metal Ass"

  14. Meh, so what... by kheldan · · Score: 1

    One of the Big Three networks also brought this back. It was less than memorable. I'd condense an hour show down to about 10 minutes total runtime by fast-forwarding through all the pointless yakity yakity yak and just getting down to the destruction derby -- but even that was so predictable as to be a bad joke. Even good booze couldn't save it for me. The whole concept has been completely played out, it's been made clear which designs are superior to all the others, they win reliably, and aside from random failures and flukes (which are few and far between) it's ho-hum boring as hell now.

    TL,DR: Bored now, nothing to see here, move along..

    --
    Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
  15. This could be good... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    But I'd rather see the US/Japan mech showdown coming next year!

    1. Re:This could be good... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Fake and gay, having a pilot inside means no total destruction

  16. Purpose-Built Arena by hoofie · · Score: 1

    I notice that the Media Centre states that there will be a purpose built area in Glasgow. You don't need one - George Square on a Saturday Night will be full of piss-heads fighting...... [Note : I was born in Glasgow and spent half my life there so I can say what I like about it].

  17. Grrr by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Did the BBC learn nothing from that documentary called The Terminator?