Favorite FIRST Game

[=Martin=Taylor=]

What has been your favorite FIRST game?
Which game did you think was...

>Most fun to watch
>Most fun to play/operate
>Had the best autonomous mode
>Sufficiently challenging (not unfair to rookie teams)
>Had the best challenge (pushing boxes, shooting balls)
>Generated a wide variety of diverse designs

I don't want to know what game your team did best at, I'm just curious to know which game was everyones favorite.


I've seen four years of FIRST games (Stack Attack, Raising the Bar, Triple Play, Aim High), all of which were good, but some were definitely better than others. My personal favorites have been Stack Attack and Aim High, both of which were exiting to watch and offered large open playing fields, allowing robots to zoom about unobstructed.

Also, what made that game great? Why did you like it.

[Joe Matt]

In order, my favorite three from the past 5 years of involvement....

1.) AIM HIGH
By far the most amazing game, it had it all, and didn't involve PVC goals on casters! It was different! Periods! Shooting above the player stations!

2.) Stack Attack
Boxes are fun, plus we won two regionals.

3.) Triple Play
No balls, three robots, cool ideas. Really neat.

I can say that I did not care for Raising the Bar, it was a rehash of previous years, and frankly, seeing more balls and PVC goals made me roll my eyes.

[aallen88]

FAVORITE GAME EVER---

RAISING THE BAR.

For me it was the most exciting to watch. Robots climbing up ramps and trying to hang, capping 2x balls on goals, HP's throwing balls in those goals. It was a chance for the HP's to make some really big plays.

I didn't really enjoy Stack Attack because I felt like it ended up being king of the hill wins all.

Triple Play I enjoyed, not as much going on though.

I really did like Aim High this year. At first I didn't think so, but once you got a hang of the game, it was quite exciting and "different".

But Raising the Bar was still my absolute favorite!

[Freddy Schurr]

Raising the Bar was the best game by far . Old school: 2 Robots on the field competing and many possibilities to win a match

Stack Attack was also a good game.

[Cory]

Out of the ones I've competed in: 2004/2002

Out of all the games I've seen a decent amount of: 2004/2000/1999

[Jeff Waegelin]

2000, for sure. I only saw one off-season event that year, but that game was amazing. It had fairly simple scoring, it was pretty well balanced, exciting to watch, and had a great "finishing move" with the original hanging bar. All together, it made for a great game to watch, and a great game to play.

[Koko Ed]

My favorite is the 2004 with it's diverse scoring and robot diversity.

[Jessica Boucher]

2000 hooked me. It's still my favorite.

As a side note, according to a demographic profile of ChiefDelphi forum members in the past year (4/05-4/06), the average rookie year is 2002. This may skew things towards the later years.

[=Martin=Taylor=]

Originally Posted by Jessica Boucher

2000 hooked me. It's still my favorite.

As a side note, according to a demographic profile of ChiefDelphi forum members in the past year (4/05-4/06), the average rookie year is 2002. This may skew things towards the later years.

I know. koko Ed suggested that I include all the games so as to let people talk about what the old games were like. Personaly I'm quite interested; someone has already voted for Torriod Terror, which I know absolutly nothing about.

[Billfred]

I'm somewhat intrigued by the 1993 game, Rug Rage. Simple game, easy to understand, and it's the most water that FIRST has ever had on the field.

And I'm sure I'll be bludgeoned by many people (or more than I have already) for saying it, but I'd love a crack at Diabolical Dynamics (2001). The notion of having to work together with your alliance partners, instead of just three robots doing their thing, just feels like fun to me.

Aim High was a hoot as well, but I have to give my nod to FIRST Frenzy. Three ways to gain points (balls, 2X ball, bar), lots of action, fun to watch, and you could tell who's winning. It remains my favorite.

[Andy Baker]

Originally Posted by Billfred

... but I'd love a crack at Diabolical Dynamics (2001). The notion of having to work together with your alliance partners, instead of just three robots doing their thing, just feels like fun to me.

It was... interesting. Many things have changed since them, not just the game. Get this:

This was back when teams did not know who their alliance partners were for the upcoming qualification matches. For instance, you knew that you were in match 61 or 62, but not exactly which one. So, this meant that you had to scout and pre-plan with 7 other teams for that match, not just 3.

The field quers would bring 8 teams into a corral, and then they would look at their secret match sheet and pull 4 of you ahead for the upcoming match. At that point, you had about 4-5 minutes to plan the entire match.

This was back when 2 coaches were allowed for each team.

Needless to say, this 4-5 minute strategy planning session did not always go as teams wanted it to. On the field, only 1 team could physically balance the bridge... but all 4 teams might have wished to show that they could do it.

There was much debate. Stronger personalities (and louder people) were heard, and salesmanship had to be put forth in order for your team to get the chance for the balance job. Many of these strategy planning sessions got to be arguements, since the pressure was on.

So... at the end of the year, people complained "too many coaches were on the drive teams!"... and "no more adult coaches!" Also, other people complained "why can't you just tell us who our alliance partners are on Friday morning?" In 2002, both changes happened, as only 1 coach was permitted in the box, and we all knew our qualification lineups on Friday morning. Since then, these strategy meetings have gone much smoother. The most important improvement was not the omission of the 2nd coach, but rather the information about which teams you are partnered with.

Andy B.

[abeD]

Yea I agree, at least in qualification matches strategy sessions would usually evolve to a "I know you can do it but we can do it better!!" type of dilema.

As for my favorite game, I would have to go with 2004, so many ways to score, so many sweet robot designs (the variety was incredible), and it was also my "peak" (senior year of high school) in FIRST.

On a more sentimental note 2002 because that was my last year going to nat's at epcot and I'll remember that for a long time.

[Katie Reynolds]

Though I wasn't really involved in FIRST then, both 1999 and 2000 looked like awesome games. I'd love to see them (or something similar) repeated now!

As for games I've been around for, 2002 has my vote for everything. It was a great game, difficult but not impossible, had a lot to do, and was very viewer-friendly!

[Tetraman]

All time favorite was Tripple Play. But I will agree that the best was raiseing the bar. Thhere was more to it so there was more to think about and robots were different. I also liked Co-Operation. But I had a blast as the Tetra human player, so I'm one sided.

[AmyPrib]

Hands down.... 2004.

I have watched video from every year of FIRST, I have seen all the games. Didn't experience all of them, but have watched them. Very edge of your seat type of action, with the 2x capping, or the hanging on the bar, or shooting those balls into the goal at the buzzer... whooo!

The amount of diversity in robot design and strategy was simply amazing. Your robot could do EVERYthing, or it could do ONE thing extremely well, and you were STILL a top contender. I think that would definitely be an interesting game these days with 3v3. With 3 main tasks, you could have a robot alliance each with a unique functionality.

The automode was good - not too weak, not too overbearing. I don't recall much of a trend of winning automode leading to winning the match, or vice versa. There was a choice of things to do, terrain variety (small/big steps), so many different designs for manipulating 2x or small balls, as well as different designs for hanging..... And the all-in-one robots were just awesome.

Oh yeah, and it was pretty specatator friendly, and pretty visual as to who was winning.

The only drawback was the amount of human player interaction. Many people thought it was too much - and it may have been just a bit too much. But, it was insanely exciting to watch, on video and in person. So to go from that to 2005 where there was essentially one task, and lack of robot diversity was sorta disappointing..

Anywho.. 2004..