[Leav]

2005 (Triple Play) was my first year and I was completely clueless so I can't really give my opinion of it..

2006 (Aim High) is, I think, almost unanimously agreed upon as the best game ever. with it's important autonomous mode, flying objects, attack-defense periods and fluid game play it made an exciting and fun game to watch and play.

2007 (Rack n' Roll) was OK but the large rack hindered mobility of the robots and made the game slow in the lower levels.

2008 (Overdrive) was pretty cool, however penalties were a major issue deciding many matches and detracting from the game.

2009 (Lunacy) The trailers, while a cool idea, proved cumbersome, and many matches deteriorated into a Katamari Damacy style "ball-of-robots" moving around the field. I think this was mainly due to the lack of multiple focus points on the field itself (such as the goals in 2010) which keep robots spread out.

2010 (Breakaway) Maybe it's just the first and second week regionals, but my feeling is that the bumps slow down the game speed considerably. and mainly create a 3x(1v1) game. we are already seeing the games picking up in elims when teams coordinate strategies better. it remains to be seen how later regionals will transform the game (as they always seem to do) into a more dynamic game with better coordination.

I think we'll indeed end up with robot soccer with more cooperation between alliance robots creating a real team with a goalie, a mid-fielder and a striker.

if you compare it to the last several years, I think that even from this early vantage point Breakaway favors nicely as an exciting game, but it's full potential is only reached when many teams on the field can easily traverse the bump, or when each alliance works together to create a real soccer team.

A Plea to teams:
if you have the time, please try and get your event taped and uploaded to "The Blue Alliance"! so little events are being recorded this year!

-Leav