User blog:CrashMegaraptor/Top 10 Good Robots with Bad Declines

Over the years, there have been many robots in Robot Wars that we, the viewers, have come to know and love. We especially like the competitors who do really well, shoot to stardom, become famous literally overnight. These are the sorts of robots who reach the Grand Final of the championship, and maybe even win, on their first attempt. These are the sorts of robots you'd call "All-Stars". I guess in a way, they're a lot like celebrities.

Unfortunately, just like celebrities, when these amazing robots start to decline, you will notice, I guarantee it. Robot Wars evolves, and what might have been the cutting edge of robot design one series may well go into the next series completely blunted. It's actually very rare for any robot to have a consistent performance from one series to the next...the only obvious example I can really think of is Firestorm, so it is nice to see a good robot return the following series and perform just as well, if not better. It's also quite disappointing and I'd dare say upsetting when it performs worse. Some robots start off great and then slowly slip down the slide into "meh" territory. Others show a promising career ahead of them and then throw it all away.

The following ten robots are all good robots, some of them are even considered "great", or at the very least, were considered great. How successful they were at any given time may vary, but they all have one thing in common - they had a pretty sharp and unfortunate decline.

Number 10
I have to wonder, does this really count? Is it really fair to claim a robot declined based on the performance of a completely different robot by the same team? It's probably not in the long run, but I think it goes a little deeper than that. As far as I'm concerned, making upgrades to an existing robot that was good is one thing, but making a sequel to a robot that was good is pretty much playing with fire, and if you're not careful, you're going to get burned.

If you want examples, just look at Roadblock and Mace. It's pretty clear that they are superior to their successors and have a far better track record. But it's not that simple. Beast of Bodmin wasn't a bad robot by any means, and it was certainly moving in the right direction even if it didn't perform. And whilst it was very disappointing, Gemini was still very effective when working properly and did actually fix a major problem with the original Mace. In concept, Beast of Bodmin and Gemini were legitimate improvements of their predecessors, not really enough to make this list. The successors to All Torque don't get that lifeline.

The easiest way to describe All Torque is to think of Tornado before Tornado became a thing. It was pretty much the powerhouse of the Second Wars, built for strength and superior pushing power. It has reliability issues, but I'd be surprised if it didn't. And I'd go as far as saying it was pretty much perfect for the series it competed in. It had great strength, good speed and was even able to best Matilda in the Joust, a trial she had dominated without fail otherwise. It took King Buxton, who was basically the "always someone better" bot, to take it out, and even in Series 3, All Torque proved to be very effective. Now invertible, it quickly dispatched Crippler and I think it was very unlucky to lose to Thing 2 the way it did.

Now, why anyone would want to take a design with such potential and throw it down the toilet, I don't know. But I think it's fair to say that Small Torque was a MASSIVE step-down from All Torque, and unlike Beast of Bodmin or Gemini, had very little in the way of redeeming features. The worst problem is that it completely sacrificed the one thing All Torque was great at in favour of a tiny little disc attached to an equally tiny robot. And just as bad reliability, that didn't help. I'd be more forgiving if this was just a one-off thing, like Shadow of Napalm for example, but no, they then made Fighting Torque, a massive pyramid with a crazy useless arm that fell apart whenever it swung and was helpless once flipped over, which was often because it was so tall. How can it get any worse? Oh, that's easy, it got SWALLOWED BY A GODDAMN HIPPO!! MADE OF PLASTIC!! Does that spell it out for you?

It's such a shame, really. You talk about Team Torque back in the early series, and no doubt it'd be praised as the robot that really should have done better than it actually did. Do it now, and nobody even remembers All Torque, they just groan at how useless their last few robots were...which had virtually none of the traits that made the team so successful in the first place. I'm no expert with robot building, but if I had any advise..."stick with what you know works. It'll save you so many problems."

Number 9
Who here remembers the first two series of Robot Wars? Like, really REALLY remember them? If I had to hazard a guess, I'd say the answer is probably very few. I think the biggest issue with that is that they were SO different to what would come later on. Nowadays, it's all about flashy weapons. You had flashy weapons back in Series 2, sure, but most of them fell in the Gauntlet or Trial because their drivers were useless. Those series were when it was pretty much mandatory to be a good driver. Goodness knows how well Stinger would have done back then.

It does also change considerably what constituted as a champion-winning robot too and provided significant surprises. I bet people who didn't know any better would be legitimately surprised to find out that Plunderbird was a legitimate threat. I mean, yeah, it failed kinda badly in Series 1, but if our Audited version of that series was anything to go by, it should have done well, and could have done had it been more in the style of modern Robot Wars. Luckily, we did get to see exactly what Plunderbird 2 could do and it was pretty impressive. Not very flashy, but it didn't need to be. Its bulldozer blade could counter any low ground clearance and its strength was insane. This looked like a robot that could have done quite well had it not fallen so soon in the semi-final Gauntlet.

Where did it all go wrong? Well, I think Series 3 was a bit of a fluke. If it had been working properly, it certainly would have beaten Thermador. Scutter's Revenge...not so sure about. It probably would have put up a good fight, though. However, like All Torque, I think the main issue is that the International Wreck Crew just sacrificed what made Plunderbird good in the first place - its brute strength and bad attitude. In favour of what, a dinky claw that worked once? Money well spent. Also, I think another major issue was the fact they pretty much kept Plunderbird's same body design for pretty much its entire career. You had these robots being constantly updated and yet Plunderbird had pretty much the same body style from Series 1. And when you have powerful flippers and spinners, that's really a recipe for disaster. It was really a combination of not working to its strengths and a lack of upgrades that really killed Plunderbird.

But, either way, knowing the team, I don't think they really minded. Or cared. They were just there for a laugh. They were the perfect pantomime villains of the show. Take notes, Foxic!

Number 8
When trying to figure out how bad a legitimately good robot has declined over the years, you tend to look to the robots that made their debut with a bang. The vast majority of the robots on this list, and quite a few others I considered but didn't make the cut, showed up on the scene and absolutely dominated, requiring the absolute best at the time to take it out, if they could at all, before slowly dropping down the ladder in later series to the point where it seemed just about anyone could beat them. That scenario clearly wasn't the case for Disc-O-Inferno.

I think it's fair to say that, out of all the robots that arrived in Series 4 eager to ride off the success of Hypno-Disc, Disc-O-Inferno was easily the worst. Mazakari may have had a terrible weapon, but at least it had staying power. Warhog may have had terrible reliability, but at least it caused damage. Disc-O had both of the bad qualities and none of the good ones. It was an utter joke, and not in the good way. So, needless to say, when I learnt it'd be appearing in Robot Wars Extreme, in what was meant to be the team's last appearance, I wasn't exactly expecting much. Oh, but "much" I got.

Until the 2016 series ramped it up a notch, I'd personally argue the Annihilator was the hardest competition to really compete in, and I will always respect a robot that does well, especially if they're actively taking part in the action, like Arnold A. Terminegger for example. And Disc-O didn't just "actively take part", it dominated! I know the second Extreme annihilator gets some flack for there being a lack of all-star robots - I mean, you had Fighting Torque, Napalm...Disc-O had to get through Comengetorix and Velocirippa to get there, none of which are saying much. But at the same time, you have former champion/legend Panic Attack, alongside both Steel Avenger and Spirit of Knightmare, who are both a lot better than some people keep insisting. But aside from one scare when it got completely shut-down, Disc-O was pretty much the driving force in the entire annihilator, causing pretty severe damage all around, in a competition it wasn't expected to do well in, let alone win. It deserved that victory.

Then came Series 6. Quite unexpectedly, Disc-O makes its triumphant return. I'm not upset by that at all, and certainly when it rips into Behemoth easily. But come the second round, I notice...it just doesn't feel like the same machine that was causing so many troubles in the Annihilator about a year ago. It certainly isn't causing as much damage to Killer Carrot, and then it suddenly burns itself out over the flame pit. This isn't the Disc-O that practically dominated that Annihilator. Never mind the fact the disc is now only spinning at one-third of the speed from before. And then when it does win, it gets bossed around by Bigger Brother and puts up virtually no resistance whatsoever. Not a surprise, but the disc barely even functions. Maybe Series 7? Nope...not only is it denied a seeding in favour of MING, but it's then dumped into the pit within seconds.

I will say this right now, I did consider Fluffy, functionally a very similar robot to Disc-O, for this list, as it had a pretty similar combat record to Disc-O. It certainly had a pretty sour decline, but I think the reason I didn't include it was purely because it never really hit any heights before it suffered its decline. I think what really makes this worse for Disc-O-Inferno is when you remember that the height it reached, winning the Annihilator, was meant to have been its swansong. Who knows what might have happened if they'd quit when they were ahead?

Number 7
Here's a fun fact - I'd originally planned to make this list about two years ago, certainly long before the reboot was announced. I'd already had a planned list of which robots I'd feature, and ranking in at number 1 at the time was Behemoth. With the 2016 series, I feel that putting it as high as I originally planned was not only a mistake, but no longer an issue. That being said, there's no way I can't put it in here, for a very specific reason.

This goes back to what I said earlier about a robot starting off good and then slowly going bad. This applies to Behemoth to a degree, but oddly it feels like a complete paradox. The main issue here is that Behemoth did its best when it was at its worse. Think about the original Behemoth for a moment. It was a very small box-robot with a tiny lifting scoop that didn't lift very high. It had decent pushing power for what it was worth, but it was extremely flimsy, nothing like the Behemoth you'd see in future series. And yet THIS Behemoth, arguably the worst of all the versions, reached the top eight in Series 2. Looking back, it probably wasn't even supposed to win its heat - if it wasn't Razer, then it was likely Bodyhammer, one of those two was arguably "meant" to win. Behemoth was certainly meant to win its heat in Series 3, though. After the previous series, it received a MASSIVE makeover, an increase in size, lifting and overall toughness. The only thing it kept was its strength, and considering how high that was, that's saying something.

So, the question is, why is it that Behemoth, who gradually improved every single series, just seemed to get worse and worse? The combat record pretty much speaks for itself. Overall stronger than before? Gets flipped over by a floor dildo-I mean, arena spike! Adds a srimech? Just gets clobbered by robots with higher-impact active weapons! Adds an axe to gain more aggression points? Is completely out-maneuvered by faster combatants! Gains a much needed speed boost? Just gets torn apart by Disc-O-Inferno and bossed by Bigger Brother? Thrown into more forgiving opponents like Chompalot or C.V.? Removable link goes "NOPE!" and jumps ship! Fixes that problem? The robot goes bloody psycho when Mute touches it wrong!! Do you guys see the problem I'm having here? How is Behemoth simultaneously getting better and getting worse at the same time?

The good news, however, is that with the reboot, Behemoth has managed to recapture some of its glory days again, pretty comfortably reaching the heat final before losing to Carbide, which is pretty much the only reason I've dropped it down several places from my original placing. I honestly don't think it was ever going to actually beat Carbide, and it's hard to say for sure just how competitive it'll remain in the long run, but the fact that it can finally self-right in a reliable manner and it still shows signs of being a tough robot to beat make me slightly optimistic for the future. Who knows? Maybe it'll finally win a heat again come 2017? It deserves better than its only heat victory being from a toy bulldozer.

Number 6
You may be reading this blog for whatever reason and asking yourself "Crash, why are you specifically stating that these robots had a "bad decline"? Surely there's no such thing as a good decline, right?" (don't lie, I do read the comments). To which I say "Hey, I'm bad at making titles, OK? I'd like to see you do better!" but I also say "technically, there is and it's actually pretty easy to prove."

I mentioned Roadblock right at the beginning of the list, and I feel its a perfect example of a robot that declined gracefully - a "good decline" if you will. After winning the first series, it placed 3rd in the second, and then Beast of Bodmin finished in the top eight before the team retired. It's a pretty high final position to finish in all things considering, the drop in quality isn't that big and to be honest, it was fighting some robots it would always struggle to beat. Another example is Stinger. I mean, yes, it suffered a massive drop from third place to losing in the heat final, but it still fought on fairly well, even the following series despite losing the heat final again. King Buxton is another example of this...or, at least, it would be if it had retired after Series 5.

Y'know, going off on a limb here, I'm kinda saddened. King Buxton has been one of those robots that has always come back, and yet you rarely ever see it being mentioned on Top 10 lists, like, at all. It could just be I have a soft-spot for it, being one of the first robots I ever saw, but still, can King B get a little bit of love? For once? I'm sure it would have gotten more love back in Series 2. Credited as a dark horse, it performed extremely well throughout the series and was frankly unlucky to be drawn against Roadblock, arguably the worst robot it could have faced. It was still performing pretty well in Series 3, and could probably have won the heat, were it not for the fact it was drawn against a rather vengeful 101. Still, not bad so far, but here's where it starts to get sour.

Come Series 4, King B had modifications and still looked reasonably potent, but its reliability issues, a big problem it had had throughout the previous series, played up and it ultimately lost to Atomic, who by the way had just broken its own flipper off at that point. Considering its performance in the Tag Team Terror, however, I feel that was just a fluke. The real problem starts to come around come Series 5, when it becomes clear that King B is not merely declining, it's becoming completely outclassed. Unlike Stinger, who declined, yes, but still remained extremely competitive despite everything, King B just really struggled. It's fair to say it would have lost to Dominator 2 anyway, but in all of its fights for Extreme 1, even in its sole victory against Draven (which people were expecting it to lose), it wasn't working properly. This was bad enough, but King B continued to show up in later series, which I liked, don't get me wrong, but it was always the same - proceed through the first round pretty easily, get completely dominated in the second round because your opponents are vastly superior. I think it was this that made me realise that King B had slipped from what might have been a "good decline" to what I can safely call a "bad decline" - it just wasn't as much fun seeing it anymore when everything was pretty much the same. I mean, ask yourself this - if Rick or Glitterbomb had gone through the first round instead of King B, how different would the heat have been, even if not the overall results? More than you might think is my guess.

Number 5
With filming of the 2017 series now underway as of my writing this particular segment, it's time to throw in many speculations, and ask many questions we have in mind. There's always a lot of them going around and it's always fun to speculate. I myself have a lot of questions on my mind. "Will the new series be good?" Most certainly. "Can we expect many more surprises?" I'm willing to bet my account on it. "Should I have held off until the next series before making this list?" Probably, but I've put this list off for way too long as is.

But then there's some questions that can't be easily answered. For example, "Can the round robin format really work in the long run?" "Isn't the cold weather going to play havoc with pneumatics again?" "Will we ever see Razer again?" I mean, lets be fair, death by if-I'm-going-down-you're-coming-with-me would be a pretty awkward way to make your final appearance. But the one that bugs me the most, because evidently I have nothing better to do with my life..."What the Hellbent happened to Storm 2?"

Now, you may be wondering if indeed Storm 2 really qualifies for this list in context because, unlike many of the other robots, we had over 10 years worth of a gap between Series 7 and the 2016 reboot. Obviously, it would be foolish to assume that robots that were awesome all that time ago would still be just as awesome now, and that's pretty much why I didn't really set my hopes too high on the returning veterans for the most part, aside from hoping they'd do well enough and being pleasantly surprised if they did. Storm 2 was no exception. However, the reason I'm having it on here runs deeper than that.

I think its fair to say, in the original series, Storm 2 was AWESOME! It may have been just a simple rambot, but dude, the machine was practically on steroids. When it slammed robots into the arena wall, it caused them to bounce off extremely violently, and in one case caused them to bounce straight out of the arena. This was the kind of robot that genuinely had to be seen to be believed. Some people may have called it boring, but honestly, no, I'm not seeing that. It's fitting that this robot was originally intended for BattleBots, so the sources claim, because it was clearly a robot meant to win, not merely compete.

So, when the 2016 series came along, I was looking forward to seeing Storm 2 again. Now, to make it clear, I knew it had been over 10 years since Series 7, and I knew full well Storm 2 had no been performing as well in more recent years. That would be one thing. My big issue here, and the entire reason I'm mentioning it on this list, is that it didn't feel ANYTHING like Storm 2. For me, Storm 2 was all about its speed and raw power. Neither of these were present. It was just SO slow! Too slow in fact to really be effective. Yeah, it got underneath other robots, but it could barely do anything to them. It barely beat Eruption and couldn't even beat a limping Apollo, let alone a fully functioning one. Now, Team Storm have explained why the robot is the way it is now, and I do understand that, but there's no way you can expect me, and the other people who actually like this robot, to not see it as a mere shell of what it was originally. I think that sums it up for me, really...Storm 2 is a shell of what it was. Still, it seems I'm not the only person who thought that, as Team Storm have said they are going to try and bring that speed and brute strength back should the 2018 series ever become a thing. We can hope....

Number 4
So, going back to the discussion I had with King B. I previously stated that, were it not for continually coming back and trying again, I would have claimed it had had a "good decline". I'd like to stick with that theme because, were it not for some rather questionable choices, I would have said that Panic Attack also had a "good decline". It didn't....

In many ways Panic Attack is a lot like Behemoth. Well, aside from the colouring and the fact they have less-than-stellar srimechs - I'm more referring to the fact that the most successful version of the robot was arguably not the best version. Unlike Behemoth, the original version of Panic Attack was not the worst, but we'll get to that when we get to that. It's funny though when you consider Panic Attack very nearly messed up completely in Series 2. Yeah, its heat was pretty good all around, but it almost messed up completely in the Semi-Final Gauntlet and was very lucky to get through, let alone win. To be fair, it was equally as lucky the following series, as X-Terminator was by far the superior robot and really should have won. However, I can't deny that Panic Attack deserved its success in the end, so I'll let that slide.

So, despite its success, Panic Attack definitely had a rocky first few years. However, it was by Series 4 that the former champion had really become something to watch, and you felt confident that it could continually and consistently control battles. Kim Davis had improved considerably as a driver and Panic Attack's lifting forks were so much more effective than ever. Not to mention its skirts made it pretty much impossible for anyone except the lowest of ground clearances to get underneath. Now people feared Panic Attack, and rightly so. It's just a shame it didn't perform as well over the next few series, although to be fair it was stuck against the worst possible opponent in Series 4, and was suffering from some pretty poor glitches in Series 5. That's certainly a decline, but I wouldn't have said it would have been enough to call it a "bad" decline.

....and then we get Panic Attack Gold. This thing. This ruddy thing. I could write an entire review on how many issues there were with this version of Panic Attack and it'd probably be as long as this segment alone! It was a massive set-down from the previous Panic Attack in every possible way, and had that version of Panic Attack had competed, it would have performed so much better. Kronic likely wouldn't have flipped it, and it would have been much quicker disposing of A-Kill. Could it have beaten Terrorhurtz? Not sure really, although I suspect that it probably would have lasted a lot better. Maybe gone to a judges decision. Yes, that version returned for Series 7, but I feel the damage was already done by then, and it was always going to struggle anyway. And this is actually looking aside the fact it had a new driver, although I do feel Kevin Pritchard is rather underrated, not to mention the completely ridiculous choice of replacing the srimech with an anti-axe pad...in a series with no good axes and where half the robots had flippers! Hindsight's always 20-20, I guess. Either way, Panic Attack was always going to struggle in Series 7 regardless of what it had, and when you consider it was the only champion to make another appearance and never reach a grand final again, that's very disappointing.

Number 3
In the past, I've stated my beliefs that Series 3 was the only series of UK Robot Wars where the Grand Final was between the two best robots in the competition. I still stand by that claim because, to be honest, I'm not really sure where I stand with the 2016 series, and whether Apollo and Carbide really were the best robots in that competition, especially when you consider TR2. If only we had that three-way rumble, that would have been awesome. But back on topic. There's no question in my mind that both robots in the Series 3 grand final were the best of that series, and easily deserved to be in the top two. So, let's talk about Hypno-Disc, shall we?

There's a reason Hypno-Disc is one of the most famous robots in the entire history of Robot Wars, and it's not hard to see why it was the first competitor to be made into a toy, getting priority over robots like Chaos 2 and Panic Attack. It really caused a stir in its first battle, and the moment its fight against Robogeddon ended, it was clear a star was born. Unlike Razer, the "star" of the previous series so to speak, Hypno-Disc actually delivered and not only made it out of the heats, but through to the grand final...even though it wasn't really in the most ideal of situations. But, nevertheless, it's pretty clear it deserved its top 2 spot even despite the issues...issues that were pretty much gone by the time of Series 4. It was here that Hypno-Disc was truly at its best. That much should be clear. Five rounds, four trashed robots and one robot who was in quite a state by the end and probably would have been dead were it not Wild Thing who is virtually unkillable. It was a pretty unlucky shot that took it out against Pussycat, but overall, Hypno-Disc had still lived up to nearly all its expectations. It truly was a star amongst stars.

So, come Robot Wars Extreme, we're all excited to see what it can do. Since this is Robot Wars Extreme, we're expecting some extreme carnage. And we get that...for one battle and one battle ONLY! The most annoying part about Hypno-Disc's entire Extreme campaign is the fact that, for its Mayhem, there was talk that Hypno-Disc would be beaten and that Wheely Big Cheese and Ming 3 were legitimate threats. But after that battle that it convincingly won, every other tournament it participated in, they were like "Oh, Hypno-Disc's gonna win, no question whatsoever!" What happens? It bombs out of the All-Stars, struggles to do anything in the Annihilator before just giving up in the third round, loses to a robot made of WOOD and puts up such a poor performance in the Wild Card Warriors that the producers just decide "screw it" and just hide any evidence that it exists in the trash chute somewhere. I mean, REALLY! It has taken THIS big of a downfall.

I'll be honest here, after seeing Hypno-Disc's terrible run in Extreme, I honestly had little hope for it in Series 5, especially given how impressive Atomic and Bulldog Breed had been in Extreme. Then Series 5 does happen and I'm genuinely surprised that Hypno-Disc does really well, causes quite a bit of damage to Atomic and actually makes the Grand Final again, losing only after arguably THE best Robot Wars battle of all time to Bigger Brother, at least according to the wikia. Maybe I was wrong to doubt it? But then you look into Extreme in more detail and you notice that the majority of Hypno-Disc's fails actually took place AFTER Series 5, and that frankly makes it even worse. You want more proof? Just look at how underwhelming it was in Series 6 and ESPECIALLY Extreme 2. Barber-Ous caused more damage than Hypno-Disc did. I mean, yeah, Hypno-Disc won the heat and was arguably the strongest robot in that heat...a heat that seemed tailor-made for it to win, mind you. But either way, it certainly wasn't performing the way it had done in previous wars.

I think the biggest frustration with Hypno-Disc's appearance in Series 6 was that, like Extreme 1, the hype really killed it. Throughout the heat, you heard comments on how it wasn't as strong as it used to be, but the moment it won the heat, the semi-finals were talking about how great it was again, and how it would easily win, despite losing to the same robot that beat it the previous year. That sounds EXACTLY the same as Extreme 1...worry about one fight it ends up dominating, overhype it in battles it ends up losing. I know the Rose family have stated interest in bringing back Hypno-Disc for the new series, but frankly, I think I've seen enough of it. I mean, you lasted all of 20 seconds in your last ever battle, and that was some 14 years ago. The arena and robots aren't as forgiving now.

Number 2
Looking back over the earlier choices, I think it's fair to say that for a lot of these robots, what caused their biggest downfall was, for lack of a better description, "old age". These robots may have been great back in the day, but time and an ever increasing jump in overall quality means that it's often hard to keep up. This ultimately affected a lot of the robots already mentioned, like King B, Hypno-Disc and especially Panic Attack. The only way to keep up with this ever demanding tournament is to improve. Whether for better or for worse, robots developed, they changed, they evolved, pretty much because they had to. Not all of them, though....

Given what I said about Hypno-Disc earlier, you probably already know who I'm talking about, but it's hardly a robot I can ignore. If there was ever a sentence to describe Chaos 2, it would be "ahead of its time". When it burst onto the scene in Series 3, literally, it quickly became clear that it had a major step up on nearly every other robot in the series. Its flipper was quite unlike anything ever seen before, it was fast, difficult to get under and had one of the greatest drivers in the history of the show. It wasn't simply a case of it being better than the other robots in Series 3, it was more a case of nobody could touch it. Except for Razer, of course. There's always someone better, after all.

Irregardless, after easily dominating every one of its opponents in Series 3 and becoming UK champion, Chaos 2 returns for Series 4, and you see just how ahead of its time it really was. What really stands out are the modifications made between the series. Think about it. Roadblock was rebuilt from the ground up for Series 2. Panic Attack went through four rebuilds for Series 3. Chaos 2...arrived for Series 4 completely unchanged. No modifications whatsoever. What happened? It still utterly dominated, with only one small scare against Stinger. A year had passed, robots had greatly improved now that the focus was entirely on battling and everyone was prepared for this, and yet Chaos 2, unchanged from the year prior, still utterly dominated everyone. It was the undisputed king of the 80kg era of Robot Wars, the only robot to win two UK series, and in a position where the only way you could beat it were to be Razer or to team up with four other robots at once. Life was sweet.

And then came changes. Weight changes, to be exact. Robot Wars, in their infinite wisdom, decided to increase the weight limit from 80 to 100kg, to encourage goodness knows how many more insane new designs, and give robots even more of a chance to evolve and make changes, which most of them did. Many looked pretty much unrecognizable. Did Chaos 2, who had been pretty much untouchable beforehand, make any changes? Well, lets be honest, we all know the answer....barely. A few changes with the gas bottles and rams, but at the end of the day, it still weighed in at a mere 83kg, only a few kilos heavier than it already had been. But we were promised a lot more powerful flips, so there's that. And it had a perfect (I.E. Champion's fodder) heat to make it through in Series 5. What could go wrong? Well, quite a lot as it turned out. It's hard to say exactly what the problem was with Chaos 2 in Series 5, but its performance speaks for itself. Not only did it seem to run out of gas far quicker than it used to, but its flipper was now so powerful that it kept flipping itself over. And after barely gaining a heat victory that should have been handed to it on a silver platter, it really struggled in the semi-finals. And once Bigger Brother, a robot that had continually evolved since its own conception, finally ended its reign as champion, one thing was made abundantly clear - the advantage Chaos 2 previously had was gone.

There was no way I couldn't include Chaos 2 in a list like this, especially given it was actually bought up in the Sixth Wars, when Chaos 2 returned, almost completely unchanged from its first ever battle against Crocodilotron way back in Series 3. I think Craig Charles said it best - all the other robots had moved on, but Chaos 2 had stood still. And that really showed during its heat. Yeah, strong in the first battle, but struggled against Crushtacean and a combination of too much power in the flipper and being unable to land a follow-up flip soon enough meant that Dantomkia was able to throw it clean out of the arena - quite humiliating and ironic given Chaos 2 was the inventor of that action. It's truly a sad end for a robot that was so ahead of its day, and now was just way behind...probably best I don't remember its last ever battle in Extreme 2. For respect.