(Now with a rotating panel of judges)
Wireless Wonder vs. Wedge of Doom
Wireless Wonder vs. Wedge of Doom
The judges say: 29-16 victory for Wedge of Doom
The fans say: 35-10 victory for Wedge of Doom
Shin: Hard to doze off during this battle, that it was! Who knows? Maybe Wireless Wonder would have an effect on the battle if Wedge of Doom didn't have...his...wedge. Or something. Oh, well! This was a pretty obvious battle from the get-go!
Both robots were reasonably aggressive...well, highly aggressive. Part of me says Wireless Wonder should've gotten the bigger of the two halves in Aggression Points, except for the fact that the Rookie-Driverness made Wireless Wonder drive into the hazards way too many times. It might just be my nitpicking, but Wedge of Doom, while not coming in quite as many times as Wireless Wonder, still usually got most of his hits in and made use of them.
Neither bot was really even damaged. Even as many times as Wireless Wonder went over the killsaws and such. But for that same reason he gets hardly any Damage points. I think he got a FEW reasonable smacks into Wedge of Doom, so I decided to be nice and throw in one.
As for Strategy...well...it's hard to determine any kind of strategy on Wireless Wonder's part since he was flying all over the place for a good chunk of the fight. He couldn't push Wedge of Doom to any hazards because of, um...Wedge of Doom's...wedge...he didn't really have the torque, obviously, as he literally toppled over Wedge of Doom every time he smacked into him at a high speed. Wireless Wonder just...repeatedly ran around the box, smacked into Wedge of Doom...toppled over Wedge of Doom, run around the box, rinse and repeat...at least Wedge of Doom got Wireless Wonder on the Pulverizer and the hazards and such. You could tell what HE was doing. Wireless Wonder is just...insane.
Will: Wireless Wonder was absolutely all over the place in this fight. However, Wedge of Doom gets the edge in aggression because Wedge of Doom was actually making clear attempts to attack Wireless Wonder. Wireless Wonder seemed to be zipping around aimlessly, running into WoD's wedge and into hazards. The hazard damage leads to Wedge of Doom's damage edge, as Wireless Wonder did no major damage to it, and strategy goes to Wedge of Doom as well. Zipping across the floor in hopes of hitting something is not an effective strategy.
Xrayspex: Wedge of Doom dominated this fight. For the aggression points, the vast majority of the hits were initiated by Wedge of Doom. There were a few times though where Wireless Wonder ran head on into Wedge of Doom with the jaw-like metal attachments, so I gave Wireless Wonder an aggression point.
For damage, Wedge of Doom sent Wireless Wonder flying a number of times but didn't appear to cause any major damage. Wireless Wonder spent a lot of time driving into the hazards, but self-inflicted damage doesn't score points. Since both robots had minor damage I gave them both two points, and then the extra point went to Wedge of Doom for having less minor damage.
Wedge of Doom's strategy was to push and put hits on the opponent with the wedge. There's also a lifing arm, but it wasn't needed as the wedge alone was effective against this opponent. I still don't know what Wireless Wonder's strategy was. It appeared to consist mostly of running away and driving at random into all the box hazards. Neither of these scores strategy points so all the strategy points go to Wedge of Doom.
The judges say: 26-19 victory for S.O.B.
The fans say: 36-9 victory for S.O.B.
Scott: I thought that after the Son of Whyachi vs. BioHazard fight, they instituted a rule saying that if one side of your drive is lost, you're declared incapacitated. I can't find the rule, though, so maybe I'm mistaken. Anyway, if that's the case, I would judge that S.O.B. lost by TKO. But since I'm here to assign scores, I guess that's what I'll do.
Twin Paradox was having a lot of trouble with its drive, so by default, that's going to affect its Aggression score. S.O.B. clearly initiated the majority of the attacks and was more effective in its attacks than Twin Paradox. Twin Paradox did put in a couple of attacks, though, so it wasn't a shutout. But it was worth 4 points to S.O.B.
I tried to figure out what Twin Paradox's strategy was before it quit working properly. Unfortunately, I'm not sure what it was. The driving seemed more defensive than offensive, even when its disk was spinning. Plus it kept driving into S.O.B.'s dustpan. S.O.B., on the other hand, had a clear strategy that it carried out very well. When both bots quit working properly, neither had a strategy, so that cancels itself out. Since S.O.B. started with a clear strategy and Twin Paradox never successfully executed any strategy, S.O.B. gets all of the Strategy points.
I'm trying to put off doing the Damage score. Clearly, both bots were hurting, but how much damage was actually inflicted by the opponent? S.O.B. lost its right side while pushing Twin Paradox around. I don't consider the act of existing a damage-causing maneuver (I know others feel differently, and it's not outlined in the Judges' Guide), so I'm ruling it as self-inflicted. I'm not sure what happened to Twin Paradox, or even how it happened. It's hard to tell at what time it started driving all crazy. I'm going to give Twin Paradox the benefit of the doubt and say that that also was self-inflicted. Okay, so here's what's left: Twin Paradox took out a chunk of S.O.B.'s armor, S.O.B. put some scrapes in Twin Paradox's armor, and Twin Paradox pushed S.O.B. over the saws. Those scrapes don't amount to much, and while the chunk of armor didn't affect S.O.B.'s performance, it was more damaging than the scrapes. So Twin Paradox gets the edge there. Rough fight.
Shin: Did S.O.B.'s saw do more damage than I thought it did to Twin Paradox? Because I have no idea what the hell Twin Paradox was doing for the later half of that fight. You'd think it's common sense to rip S.O.B. apart with that nice, working blade, especially if S.O.B.'s sputtering around with smoke about! That's why I'm questioning the damage here...it was pretty obvious S.O.B. put a lot of nice scratches on the top of Twin Paradox. But those scratches are pretty much all I can come up for as to why Twin Paradox just blatantly didn't take any advantage of the fight when he had a chance.
S.O.B. took pretty good care of itself for most of the fight, only a slight few killsaw contacts. Sure, he was smoking up a storm later on, but it's not like he died from it. It could've been a lot worse had Twin Paradox ACTUALLY DID SOMETHING...but it never did come to that.
Strategy was also pretty clear-cut. S.O.B. wanted to trap Twin Paradox and make mincemeat out of him with the sawblade. And for a good chunk of the fight, that's exactly what happened. I think it was pretty wise for S.O.B. to back down after he was beginning to smoke; you have to be careful with crap like that. It left S.O.B. as live open bait, yes, but Twin Paradox's strategy was like...nonexistent. I can't think of any excuse as to why Twin Paradox just decided to spin around in circles when he could've been carving up S.O.B. to all hell. Or why, very much later in the fight, S.O.B. decided to use his BACK END to push S.O.B. around, when it was ridiculously obvious that the blade was still working! Stupid things like that just aggravate me, sorry...it was like Twin Paradox was off in La-La Land the whole time.
I tossed in a point for Aggression for Twin Paradox because he was actually hitting S.O.B. at the very end of the fight. Sure, he could've been doing A LOT BETTER WITH THE WEAPON, but hey. A hit's a hit. S.O.B. pretty much made Twin Paradox his bitch before he smoked up, so it's obvious who was controlling most of the fight. Geesh. This was a frustrating battle...
Will: Sony Online Bot was clearly more aggressive throughout most of the fight. While something did burn up inside it, Twin Paradox did little to take advantage of the situation. Also, while S.O.B. did lose something later in the fight, that damage didn't seem related to any hit that Twin Paradox inflicted. S.O.B. clearly dominated this category, but I score it realistically since the judges' guidelines do consider this part loss "damage". Strategy goes to S.O.B. hands down. Twin Paradox did little or nothing to save itself from S.O.B.'s attack, and did nothing after Twin Paradox slowed down at the end of the fight.
I give Comedy Central a 0 for their Carl the Mascot segment. What the #$%@ was that?