Quote:
Originally Posted by boiler
Only one objective? I can count four completely different ways to score in Overdrive, as compared to '07 (one and a half), '06 (two and a half) or '05 (three and a half) [I consider climbing a ramp or simply driving your robot to a certain location at the end of the game as halves]. The variation in robot design is far greater than last year's game, and I would argue the drive trains/manipulators used in OD are the most elegant across the board, as compared to past years' designs.
The pits seemed to be a much friendlier place - a horde of workers fixing a broken robot was not nearly as commonplace as it has been in the past. People could walk around, check out different designs, and ask questions without fear of getting in the way or impeding progress. I think this was due largely to the monodirectional and mostly offensive-minded flow of the game. While defense did play a large part in the game (moreso than most people realize), the damage inflicted was not nearly as destructive as in the past.
One thing I think could be improved was the Hybrid mode. While the concept was cool (controlling the robot with a TV remote), the physical size of the game and arena made it so the majority of spectators missed out on that feature. Also, depending on the robot's orientation, sometimes the lap counters interfered with the IR receiver. I understand that's all part of the game challenge and there are ways around it, but when trying to make the non-teleoperated period rookie-friendly, there's no need to throw in extra difficulties.
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I wasn't talking scoring objectives, i was moreso pointing towards building objectives. For instance, in 2005, you could build a robot that could place tetras... that was about it. In 2006 you could build a robot that could shoot or dump. (2 objectives). In 2007, there were ramp bots and tube bots (2 objectives). This year, technically there was hurdlers and lap bots, but in the end, a hurdler could easily become a lap bot if need be. Every robot was capable of doing 4 or 5 laps and the top could do 8-12. That isn't much of a difference.
In 2007, the thing I liked was that you could go one of two completely different approaches. The objectives were completely unrelated. 2006, dumping and shooting were pretty related, in 2005, there really was only one objective. This year, the only real decision having to be made was how to hurdle rather than something like, should we lift or should we score tubes.
I agree that it was nice to see a game where there was a large variety of robot scoring mechanisms, but in the end, it got a little repetitive.