2008 Game- Overdrive

[Tetraman]

Originally Posted by artdutra04

Now this year, not only do we have racing, but now we have rules that encourage us to try cool mechanical designs for manipulating the huge trackballs without worrying that the game will degrade into a defensive pushing match, a la Stack Attack.

My personal opinion, is that Overdrive will be fun and exciting. There is however, the issue that Nascar gets laughed at: six robots performing one motion each for 2 minutes. To me, there is no innovation in waiting for other robots to make mistakes. I realize there will be new technology in drive trains and grips...to that I have no doubt. But it's not like we haven't done that before. And rookie teams only have to make an order off a website for the newest and most powerful assembly, something veterans had to actually build and design which was innovation.

This leads me to say that defense will be huge. Just as big as it was in Rack n' Roll, and similar to Rn'R, no one will find it until the third week of regionals when defense strategy comes to light:

Red alliance with three top scorers and blue with two. Red wins so long as they don't screw up more than four passes. The other blue robot can do a "Stop Go Stop" defense. Stopping in front of an opponent, start the 6 seconds, move out of the way and than get back into the way. This can mess a team's tempo. Being able to keep balls away from opponents will just as big, maybe even bigger.

My personal opinion is that this game, as solid as it is, still lacks something that makes it thrilling to watch over and over again.