Robot Wars

They don't make shows like this any more - and that's a great pity. This is a game show where people bring in the robots they have made and fight them while trying to not get killed by the house robots. It's kind of like boxing or pro-wrestling when nobody actually gets hurt so the robots fight violently and then everyone is quite civilized after.

It's entertainment for the whole family. In fact, whole families often run their teams including grandparents and little kids. It's also inspirational to get kids interested in engineering and computers. They have a really funny announcer too.

The USA versions are fun but this is more fun. They have

If you can catch this on reruns, try it. You may well like it.

Oh, my fav's are Razer (of course) and Bigger Brother.

At the moment in Australia we are in the non-ratings period so all kinds of unfamiliar shows are showing up at odd times. Most are dreck, 'Robot Wars' isn't. It's actually one of the most entertaining TV shows I've seen in quite a while. The basic idea is that contestants build their own "robots" (remote controlled fighting machine on wheels) which then battle each other in a ring. The ring contains obstacles, "house robots" which can attack at certain times, and a pit in which you must attempt to push your opponent's robot. Simple concept, but highly addictive viewing! Maybe I'll get sick of it after a few more weeks, but right now I'm hooked. Great fun!

It's a great show, robots fighting each other. Then there are the house robots... very strong robots. All robots have to move through a course and fight each other, at the end of the show there's a finale. The best robot's are fighting each other and the house robots are also there.

Robot Wars (2016) has a lot of potential but the biggest problem is they fill the arena with entirely too much extra stuff with, what I assume is, the intent of making things more dramatic. The problem is that this show is about a battle between two robots and some hazards are desired but when the arena has as many as this one has it really takes away from the actual function of the robots themselves and it forces the robots to not have room to get away and use strategy. I'm also not a fan of the constant replays and edited battles.... The cameras simply don't follow the action the way they should and this also takes away from the actual battle going on.

This show angered me from the start, and the only reason I'm coming out of retirement to review this thing was because it took an all inclusive event started by an ILM employee, and turned it into this faux kid friendly event, complete with three or four supermassive "arena bots" that you could never beat because of the restrictions on design parameters.

I was at the 1995 Robot Wars, I was also at the 1997 Robot Wars where Bio Hazard took out everyone, even the much feared La Machine. I remember Joel Hodgson from Mystery Science Theatre 3000 as the Master of Ceremonies, being freaked out by the 300 pound Snake-bot build by the guy who had built "the Master" the previous two years. I remember Joel Hodgson taking a dollar from the guy sitting next to me and trying to auction it off to the audience during down time between matches. I remember San Francisco's fire inspector looking none-too happy as he quite literally was inspecting the place (at some point it was SRO). None of the energy, none of the excitement, none of the engineering creativity that was at Fort Mason San Francisco from 1995 to 1997 was in this TV show. It simply wasn't.

What this TV show had was "Dave Lister" popping off smiles and kid friendly witticisms in a venue that was so restrictive as to be obnoxious. You had no chance of taking on the in show arena bots, even though that was part of the challenge. And you couldn't use any of the more effective techniques that were developed by the Fort Mason participants.

I'm sorry the creator of the event lost creative control. I'm sorry his idea got sold to some outfit in the UK that did a half baked high-restrictive version of the San Francisco competition. I'm sorry all that creative Bay Area and American energy got truncated in what seems like a revenge plot for the Revolutionary War. And, worse yet, I'm sorry the show got revitalized last year much to the chagrin of all.

If you see blurays or DVDs of this thing for sale, pass them up, and check out the American Robot Wars videos on YouTube.

Avoid this trash.