The 'Shroom:Issue 185/Pipe Plaza

Director's Notes

Written by: Zange (talk)

Hello and happy August! I am currently typing this from my new dorm room!! I've only been here three days and it's already been a wild ride. I swear I've been in half of the main buildings on campus by now because the college keeps dragging me around to different stuff. Makes sense though since I'm technically a "new" student.

Awards happened last weekend and those were great and fun and all of the good things! Though because of that we are missing a few of our normal sections this month, but that's okay! Still all kinds of great reads here.

Imagine this: you want to write for Pipe Plaza (or any other team for that matter) but you have no idea where to start or what to do! Oh noooooo!!! Fortunately, I have the answer for you: just go to the sign up page!

That's all from me this month, so go enjoy the rest of it~

Section of the Month

PIPE PLAZA SECTION OF THE MONTH
Place	Section	Votes	%	Writer
1st	NIWA News	4	36.36%	PanchamBro (talk)
2nd	Roleplay Update	2	18.18%	MightyMario (talk)
2nd	Poll Committee Discussion	2	18.18%	Waluigi Time (talk)

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Mariowiki sections

NIWA News

PanchamBro (talk)

Stay up-to-date with the latest happenings from the NIWA wiki network!

read more

Poll Committee Discussion

Fun With Despair (talk)

The best analysis of the polls around!

read more

Anniversary Announcements

Lakituthequick (talk)

The ongoings of the Mario Awards.

read more

Non-wiki sections

That NIWA List

PanchamBro (talk)

Take a look at some of the strangest articles in NIWA!

read more

Mario Calendar

GPM1000 (talk)

Find out all about this month's Super Mario releases.

read more

Roleplay Update

MightyMario (talk)

MightyMario is providing us with all the latest happenings of the forum roleplays.

read more

What's in a Campaign?

Mustard Machine (talk)

It's back, it's wheely back!

read more

NIWA News

Written by: PanchamBro (talk)

Hey it's me PanchamBro. It's time for this month's NIWA News, a section regarding news with each of the 32 members of the Nintendo Independent Wiki Alliance. We'll be going through staff changes and related wiki news in July. Let's begin!

Staff changes

• Follower of Light has resigned from their administrator roles on Dragon Quest Wiki. They've been extremely helpful with creating a multitude of pages on the Dragon Quest series, and it's sad to see them go so soon. Their contributions will be missed.
• Additionally, Zenithian has been demoted from their bureaucrat, manager, and administrator roles on Dragon Quest Wiki after nearly ten years of inactivity. They've been around when Dragon Quest Wiki was originally "Dragon Quest Dictionary~Encyclopedia" and had helped the wiki in its early days. Their contributions will be missed.
• Ampera has resigned from their staff roles on Fire Emblem Wiki, Lylat Wiki, Pikmin Fanon, and WiKirby in accordance to their resignation from Grifkuba. Their assistance to these wikis will be missed.

Wiki news

There's still time to discuss what Inkipedia's new logo will be. Round 3 can be found here.

With the release of Xenoblade Chronicles 3, Xeno Series Wiki currently has several maintenance categories (225 stubs, 2,390 articles that need to be filled, and 1,310 articles with sufficient images) that needs to be addressed by the end of this year. If you want to provide a helping hand to this growing community, please create an account for Xeno Series Wiki and contribute! The wiki has also recently reached the milestone of 10,000 articles, so congratulations!

Upgrade news: Zelda Wiki has officially moved to MediaWiki 1.37.4 as with many other wikis on Fandom. If you are a reader or editor of Zelda Wiki, please discuss to the wiki or the Discord server if there are any problems. On the topic of Zelda, Zelda Universe, Zelda Wiki's partner, hosted their annual ZUthon event for the Direct Relief charity. From August 11 to August 15, they managed to raise $8,688.03 for Direct Relief. Congratulations to the team at Zelda Universe for this wonderful event!

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Anyways, that's it for any related NIWA news that I could gather for this month's 'Shroom. I'll see you later in my "That NIWA List" article. I'm sure we'll have an Inkling good time. Thanks for reading, and have a great awards month!

Poll Committee Discussion

Written by: Fun With Despair (talk)

Hey there, everyone. Once again, I'm coming to you this month with another 'Shroom section; namely this month's Poll Committee Discussion, the first of our 13th Committee. Before I get into the analysis of the polls that have come and gone during our election and transition period, I'd like to give a shoutout to this year's committee members. They've been announced on the forum, but this is the first 'Shroom to be released since they were appointed towards the end of July, and as a result, some of you readers out there might not be aware of who made it on the committee this year.

Without further ado, give a warm welcome to...

• Waluigi Time (talk)
• Turboo (talk)
• Vruet (talk)
• Ray Trace (talk)
• Raregold (talk)
• Long John Spaghetti (talk)
• TPG (talk)

They'll be working hard to bring you your bi-weekly polls to the main page as expected. We've also got a fancy banner courtesy of TPG. Go check out his Scribble Showdown Awards Event, should you wish to spectate and admire the monocolored madness.

With that out of the way though, I'll get into the 12th Committee's last couple polls before the end of their term and take a look at their results.

Archives

What are your first impressions of Mario Strikers: Battle League? (Electrical Bowser jr. (talk), June 12, 2022‎)

What are your first impressions of Mario Strikers: Battle League?
The game seems decent, but could be better. 37.11% (717 votes)
I do not have any first impressions of Mario Strikers: Battle League. 22.26% (430 votes)
The game seems like a very good entry. 19.67% (380 votes)
The game seems excellent, and is one of the best Mario sports games. 11.90% (230 votes)
The game seems poor and not worth playing. 6.06% (117 votes)
The game seems very bad, and is one of the worst Mario sports games. 3.00% (58 votes)
Total Votes: 1,932

What type of Mario games would you like Nintendo to focus on developing new entries for the most? (Electrical Bowser jr. (talk), June 26, 2022‎)

What type of Mario games would you like Nintendo to focus on developing new entries for the most?
Developing new entries for the main platformer series. 33.93% (495 votes)
It doesn't matter to me as long as Nintendo produces fun, high-quality Mario games. 27.07% (395 votes)
Nintendo should make new games that fulfill several of these options instead of focusing too much on one area. 13.98% (204 votes)
Developing new entries for spin-offs that have not had new entries for a long time. 8.91% (130 votes)
Revisiting games that have not yet had a sequel. 7.88% (115 votes)
Developing new entries for spin-offs that often receive new games. 3.56% (52 votes)
Nintendo should focus more on improving their existing games with content updates and DLC than on new entries. 2.40% (35 votes)
Developing new spin-offs based on entirely new game concepts. 2.26% (33 votes)
Total Votes: 1,459

Nintendo has many IPs other than Mario. Which Nintendo IPs do you play? (Hooded Pitohui (talk), July 10th, 2022‎)

Nintendo has many IPs other than Mario. Which Nintendo IPs do you play?
Kirby 16.65% (3,273 votes)
Pokemon 14.53% (2,855 votes)
The Legend of Zelda 14.17% (2,784 votes)
Animal Crossing 10.79% (2,120 votes)
Splatoon 8.47% (1,664 votes)
Metroid 7.48% (1,470 votes)
Other 7.25% (1,425 votes)
Pikmin 6.36% (1,250 votes)
Fire Emblem 4.52% (889 votes)
Star Fox 4.19% (823 votes)
Xenoblade 3.62% (711 votes)
I don't play other Nintendo IPs. 1.97% (388 votes)
Total Votes: 19,652

Analysis

What are your first impressions of Mario Strikers: Battle League?

Wario, looking far more enthused than your average Battle League player, apparently.

The newest title in the Mario Sports lineup, Mario Strikes: Battle League appears to be joining the ranks of some of the more recent spinoffs in that it's been met with what seems to be a resounding "meh". Our first place option, with close to double the votes of the runner-up, indicates that by and large, people tend to think the game is just okay, with lots of room for improvement. It's also not a great look when that runner-up option was primarily meant for voters who literally do not care about the game and have no opinion at all. That's not to say the game's bad though, as from the rest of the responses, it is clear that Battle League has its fans, with a fair chunk of people voting for the game falling somewhere on the spectrum of "very good" to "excellent".

Though even with all of those votes in mind, that still only brings it out to a total of 31.57% of voters who find the game exceptional, still lower than the 37.11% of voters who find the game flawed. If I had to make a guess, the lack of content in the game at launch in order to make way for Nintendo's recent strategy of slowly-trickling free updates likely plays a large part. It seems to be one of the biggest and loudest complaints about Battle League in general, with most people praising the actual gameplay mechanics themselves. Our most recent poll is actually addressing this issue though, so if you've been burned by this kind of thing before, make sure to make your voice heard (in the 'Shroom at least) and vote while you can!

What type of Mario games would you like Nintendo to focus on developing new entries for the most?

He died waiting for a new mainline title.

In what shouldn't be much of a surprise, the people have spoken and they demand more main series platformers. Not exactly a shocker - they're the heart and soul of the franchise after all, the entire reason it exists. The last entry, Super Mario Odyssey on the Switch, came out a whopping five years ago(!) too, with little Mario content since besides spinoffs and the like. For those at home who aren't in the know, those same five years are the exact span of time between Super Mario Sunshine on the Gamecube and Super Mario Galaxy on the Wii, with even smaller three-year gaps between Galaxy and Galaxy 2, and Galaxy 2 and 3D World after that. Despite this, we haven't heard a word about a new entry yet at all, so it's understandable as to why the majority is clamoring for a new title. We haven't even gotten a 2D side-scrolling entry such as one of the New Super Mario Bros. games, something that, regardless of opinions on the franchise, was at least a thing to tide people over.

There's a decent chunk of people as well though, with an option only 100 votes behind our first place entry, who would be satisfied with anything the franchise puts out as long as it's good. An understandable sentiment, to be sure. Despite the main series being a big draw for a lot of people, it's definitely not all the franchise has to offer. As some of the other options suggest as well, there's a lot of room to be creative when it comes to Mario, and as long as Nintendo pushes out a high-quality title, they don't need to necessarily put all their eggs in one basket. Still, after five years, I can't blame people for being desperate for a new main series entry at this point - whether it be 3D or 2D.

Nintendo has many IPs other than Mario. Which Nintendo IPs do you play?

Kirby doing what his games certainly do not: sucking.

This poll should be pretty familiar to most of you - it's the one that graced the main page for longer than usual as we worked on transitioning the committee over to a new group of members. Fitting too then, that it was a rather broad subject that most people could easily answer. With a whopping 19,652 votes, it may seem ridiculously popular at first glance, but keep in mind that this was multiple choice, and our poll software provider (Crowdsignal) counts each of those as an individual vote to add to the tally.

Interestingly, Kirby of all things seems to be second most popular franchise among our users here. Personally, while the little pink guy has some pretty good games, I'd never actually thought before that he was as popular as he is, but he seems to have had a cultural surge in popularity in general as of late. I won't complain though, it's nice to see a franchise with lots of heart, character, and horrible abominations ripped straight from your worst nightmares succeeding in the way it has.

The other results after that tend to be the usual suspects though. Pokemon (Really, Kirby beat Pokemon of all things?), The Legend of Zelda, Animal Crossing, and a reasonable list afterwards, ending with Star Fox and Xenoblade rounding out the bottom. While Xenoblade seems rather popular in some circles, it doesn't seem to have much of an overlap with Mario in terms of fandom, so that's not a huge surprise. The games share practically no resemblance in any meaningful way. As for Star Fox... Well, I'm surprised to see it beating Xenoblade at all. Does Star Fox even count as a franchise anymore? The poor thing needs to be taken out back and shot already, for its own good.

Conclusion

Anyway, that about wraps up the last stragglers of the 12th Committee's run. We on the 13th Committee hope to bring you a bunch of engaging, fun polls this year, so be sure to keep an eye out. If you haven't voted already for our current poll, be sure to do that now if you're reading this, for literally no other reason than because I told you to.

Catch you later.

Anniversary Announcements

Written by: Lakituthequick (talk)

“You can't spell 'community' without 'unity', and if that's not awards spirit I don't know what is.”

—Zange (talk · Boards)

Good day people! You have tuned in to Augustus' Anniversary Announcements! Everyone is still recovering from the ceremony, which I assure you was another success!

The news

As said above, the Awards Ceremony is a fact! 60 presentations across three categories have been showcased and can be reread at any time! Check out the threads for the Community, Fail, and Mario Awards if you haven't already, or reread them if you have.
Along with the ceremony, there was a chat party in our official Discord server! Feel free to join it and read back on the chat, or check out the logs listed in the General Discussion thread on the forum.

The tournaments

Awards season is nearing its end, so let's check in on the ongoings of tournaments. In this subsection, I will summarise upcoming and ongoing tournaments and update you on their proceedings.

Awards Killing Game: Odyssey

• Forum thread
• S.S. Circinus thread
• S.S. Cetus thread
• Lakituthequick (talk · Boards), Hooded Pitohui (talk · Boards), GBA (talk · Boards)
• June-September
• 26 players

Things have gone awry about the S.S. Circinus and the S.S. Cetus, and the two ships are sinking! The remaining players could submit how they want to escape, and ending stories for both vessels go live the weekend this issue releases. In a week, the merge game will begin, with all surviving players and NPCs joining on the same island.

Panel de Pon Tournament 3

• Forum thread
• Challonge
• Roserade (talk · Boards)
• 13 June
• 11 players

Although the Challonge bracket hasn't been updated in a while, this tournament is still ongoing.

PuyoVS High-Score Tournament

• Forum thread
• Long John Spaghetti (talk · Boards)

Due to a lack of sign-ups, this tournament was unfortunately cancelled.

Super Smash Bros. Ultimate Tournament (Singles and Doubles)

• Forum thread
• Challonge (singles)
• Challonge (doubles)
• Waluigi Time (talk · Boards)
• 15 June
• 8 players / 5 teams

This tournament is ongoing, in the sixth round for single battles, out of seven. Doubles are not following a particular schedule due to its Round Robin format, and is at 8 out of 21 battles as of writing this.

Kirby 64: Checkerboard Chase

• Forum thread
• Pink Cat

The status of this tournament is unknown, having gone without any updates for over two months.

Minecraft

• Forum thread
• TPG (talk · Boards), individual game devs
• 2-6 September

There is no new information about this tournament.
A variety of (mini)games that have been build on the MarioWiki community's Minecraft server. Games include classic staples such as Spleef and Capture the Flag, server originals such as Murderer, Porkchop, and Pit Fight, and games familiar from elsewhere such as Shine Runners and Apples to Apples.
The game's hub is in development by TPG. The full schedule will be released closer to the event itself.

Scribble Deathmatch 2

• Forum thread
• TPG (talk · Boards)
• August-September
• 26 players

A sequel to GBA's Scribble Deathmatch from last year.
The game has started in the week following the ceremony, and its first theme is "Fun and games!", focusing on activities. New this year is the ability to use a Discord bot to receive prompts, allowing players to get theirs without the host needing to be available.

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And that is the end of the section for August. Do check out the awards if you haven't already, and also take a look at the suggestion box if you have feedback about anything anniversary. Until next month, have a nice day!

That NIWA List

Written by: PanchamBro (talk)

In many of the Nintendo Independent Wiki Alliance wikis, there are plenty of articles that are considered unusual to readers alike. Today, I'll showcase these articles from one of the many Nintendo Independent Wiki Alliance wikis.

This section was inspired by Wikipedia's unusual article page, which documents the most unusual articles documented on the site. Unlike Wikipedia however, the selection of unusual articles here will be decided on a case-by-case basis, whether or not the documented material is weird enough to warrant being on this section.

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I'm sure you're familiar with Splatfests, a continously revolving special event in the Splatoon series where you join one of two or three teams and compete against the others in Turf Wars to see who can vandalize the furtherest with ink. It's almost like Portal 2, but you don't have Turrets...or a Portal Gun for that matter. Splatfests can range from simple questions, such as whether you like Cake or Ice Cream, Cats or Dogs, Forks or Spoons, or whether or not The Sound of Music is about musicology or Julie Andrews flexing her vocal muscles. On some occasions, a Splatfest can be a special crossover or promotional event. For the West, the few crossover/promotional Splatfests were Pokémon, Nickelodeon shows, Transformers, Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, and Super Mario Bros. Japan on the other hand had plenty of crossover/promotional Splatfests, and one of these was Newest vs. Most Popular, a Splatfest all about Nike.

For those not in the loop of the world of sports, Nike is a brand that generally makes sneakers to be used for sports. They also had these self-lacing shoes that totally came out back in 2015, at least according to a movie about going to the future. This Japanese-exclusive Splatfest was held from March 24-25, 2018, and the decision was either the Air Max 270 as the "Newest" option or the Air Max 95 as the "Most Popular" option. Players were given replicas of these shoes in the form of Sesame Salt 270s and Sea Slug Volt 95s, perfect names to avoid trademark issues because apparently teaming up with Nike to promote shoes wasn't enough for these shoes to have their original shoe name. Or maybe it's an in-universe thing. During this Splatfest, players would see who can ruin a stage faster by vandalizing Grapplink Girl, the ninth Shifty Station layout. There were three categories to deciding which team would win: popularity, solo wins, and team wins. For popularity, 59.95% of players were in love with the Air Max 270, because who doesn't love buying the newest pairs of shoes, instead of finding an old pair of shoes that still works and has rubber and doesn't causes you to trip? However, their popularity couldn't give decent results on the turf. The "Newsest" team were edged out by the "Most Popular" team by a small margin: 50.15% over 49.85% for solo wins and 50.2% over 49.8% for team wins. In the end, the score was 1-2 between "Newest" and "Most Popular", and "Most Popular" won out. Though ironically, the top player of the "Most Popular" team, もみもみむらりんもみもみむらりん (Momi Mimi Murarin) had White Norimaki 750s as their primary shoes, and they are based off Adidas's Yeezy Boost shoes, a shoe brand that I want to be reminded of in a Nike-sponsored Splatfest. More bizarrely, ※かぷ (※Kapu) was part of the "Newest" team, yet used the Sea Slug Volt 95s shoes to earn 43rd place, which probably didn't help with the "Newest" team to gain ground.

While Japan has a lot of other bizarre promotional Splatfests, this one in particular stuck out the most. While fashion has its place in the Splatoon world, the last thing that a Splatfest should ask its players to vote for are on which pairs of shoes are better. There are merits to having a nice pair of shoes, especially Nike shoes, but I don't think voting on what shoes are better is a suitable choice for a Splatfest. Sometimes it's best to just try out the shoe to see if it works than pure looks. So for an article that describes the promotion of Nike's Air Max products, I'm willing to give this a "good article" status worthy to be on that NIWA List.

Mario Calendar

Written by: GPM1000 (talk)

Hello everyone, GPM1000 here! Welcome back to another month of Mario Calendar. And of course, as you know well by now, it’s a very special month--it’s awards month!! Awards month is a very special month here at The ‘Shroom, and what better to celebrate than another installment of Mario Calendar?

Region Abbreviations

Abb.	Region
ALL	All Regions (JP/NA/EU/AU)
JP	Japan
NA	North America
EU	Europe
AU	Oceania/Australia
SK	South Korea
CHN	China
UK	United Kingdom

Console Abbreviations

Abb.	Console
NES	Nintendo Entertainment System
Famicom	Family Computer Disk System
SNES	Super Nintendo Entertainment System
N64	Nintendo 64
GC	Nintendo GameCube
GB	Game Boy
GBC	Game Boy Color
GBA	Game Boy Advance
DS	Nintendo DS
3DS	Nintendo 3DS
Switch	Nintendo Switch
Wii VC	Nintendo Wii Virtual Console
3DS VC	Nintendo 3DS Virtual Console
Wii U VC	Nintendo Wii U Virtual Console
VB	Virtual Boy
G&W	Game and Watch
64DD	Nintendo 64 Disk Drive
MS-DOS	Microsoft Disk Operating System
CD-i	Philips CD-i
IQ	iQue Player
NVS	Nvidia Shield
ACPC	Amstrad CPC
ZX	ZX Spectrum
Coleco	Colecovision
TI-99	Texas Instruments TI-99/4A

• August 1
  • 1992 (NA): Mario Paint (SNES)
  • 1993 (NA): Super Mario All-Stars (SNES)

• August 2
  • 1982 (JP): Donkey Kong Jr. (Arcade)
  • 2018 (JP): WarioWare Gold (3DS)

• August 3
  • 2018
    • (NA): WarioWare Gold (3DS)
    • (EU): Mario Kart Arcade GP VR (Arcade)

• August 4
  • 1999 (JP): Game & Watch Gallery 3 (GBC)

• August 5
  • 1995 (JP): Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island (SNES)
  • 2004 (JP): Densetsu no Starfy 3 (GBA)

• August 9
  • 2007 (JP): DK: Jungle Climber (DS)

• August 10
  • 1983 (NA): Rain Shower (G&W)
  • 1989 (EU): Donkey Kong Classics (NES)
  • 1994 (JP): Wario Blast: Featuring Bomberman! (GB)
  • 1999 (JP): Mario Golf (GBC)
  • 2004 (JP): Famicom Mini: Super Mario Bros. 2 (GBA)

• August 11
  • 1989 (NA): Alleyway (GB)
  • 2000 (JP): Paper Mario (N64)
  • 2013 (NA): Mario & Luigi: Dream Team (3DS)

• August 17
  • 2012 (EU): New Super Mario Bros. 2 (3DS)

• August 18
  • 1991 (NA): Super Mario World (SNES)
  • 2012 (AU): New Super Mario Bros. 2 (3DS)

• August 19
  • 2009 (JP):
    • Game & Watch: Manhole (DSiWare)
    • Game & Watch: Donkey Kong Jr. (DSiWare)
    • Game & Watch: Mario's Cement Factory (DSiWare)
  • 2012 (NA): New Super Mario Bros. 2 (3DS)

• August 20
  • 1984 (NA): Donkey Kong 3 (G&W)

• August 21
  • 1995 (NA): Mario’s Tennis (VB)
  • 2001 (JP): Wario Land 4 (GBA)
  • 2009 (EU/AU): Mario vs. Donkey Kong: Minis March Again! (DSiWare)

• August 24
  • 1995 (EU): Donkey Kong Land (GB)

• August 25
  • 2008 (NA): Mario Super Sluggers (Wii)
  • 2013 (NA): New Super Luigi U (Wii U)

• August 26
  • 2002 (NA): Super Mario Sunshine (GC)
  • 2004 (JP): Mario Pinball Land (GBA)

• August 27
  • 1986 (JP): I Am a Teacher: Super Mario no Sweater (Famicom)
  • 1992 (JP): Super Mario Kart (SNES)
  • 1993 (JP): Mario & Wario (SNES)
  • 2001
    • (JP): Mario Family (GBC)
    • (NA): Mario Kart: Super Circuit (GBA)
  • 2015 (JP): Ultimate NES Remix (3DS)

• August 28
  • 1997 (EU): Game & Watch Gallery (GB)
  • 2000 (NA): Mario Tennis (N64)
  • 2008 (JP): Captain Rainbow (Wii)

• August 29
  • 1991 (EU/AU): Super Mario Bros. 3 (NES)
  • 2000 (JP): Mario Artist: Polygon Studio (64DD)
  • 2005 (NA): Mario Superstar Baseball (GC)
  • 2017 (NA/EU/AU): Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle (Switch)

• August 30
  • 2019 (ALL): Arcade Archives: Pinball (Switch eShop)

For the most part, there was not much at all that went on this month. There were entire stretches of days that had no games at all, such as August 6-8, 12-16, and 22-23. And to be honest, the releases that did happen throughout the month were relatively light as well. A few standouts, such as the North American release of Super Mario World, did happen, but they were few and far between. Anyways, thank you so much for reading, and have an awesome rest of the month! Happy awards month!

Roleplay Update

Written by: MightyMario (talk)

Hello again! This is MightyMario with Roleplay Update! Let’s see what happened in the Roleplay section in July! Also, make sure to see the Mario Awards on our forum!

New RPs

No new RPs, unfortunately.

Notable Events

• In Mushroom City Car Wash, a Klonoa arc began, featuring characters from Mario & Luigi: Dream Team and the titular character on an adventure in the Dream World. Also, Cayde’s trial ended with The Brain being arrested and Cayde celebrated her 20th birthday at the Car Wash.

New Bans

None. Keep that streak going!

And this was another edition of Roleplay Update! I’m MightyMario and see you in September for more updates!

What's in a Campaign?

Written by: Mustard Machine (talk)

It's time. It's finally time. When I started this section, the first robot I covered was Series 4's Wheely Big Cheese, an iconic robot that didn't really have a great run in Series 4. But at the end, I hinted that in Series 5 it would do something extraordinary. Well, I think it's time we cover that, so, for the first time ever, we're going to be taking a look at a robot we've already covered and take a look at Wheely Big Cheese's Series 5 run.

Just a huge flipper

Built by Roger Plant with team members Jon McGugan and Paul Otten, Wheely Big Cheese first appeared in Series 4 as the successor to Series 3's Big Cheese. Wheely Big Cheese is basically a giant flipper on two wheels. Capable of flipping 800kg, Wheely Big Cheese was the best, strongest flipper Robot Wars had ever seen, but in Series 4 it had some problems, mainly mobility and reliability. For Series 5, Wheely Big Cheese was completely upgraded with a stronger pneumatic system, thicker armor, and an increased top speed. Wheely Big Cheese also now weighed 99kg, almost completely taking advantage of the new 100kg weight limit. Basically, they took the original design for Wheely Big Cheese and just, well, upgraded it. That sounds like a good idea, but let's see how it works out for actual battles.

As a reminder, all pictures are sourced from the fantastic Robot Wars Wiki. If you'd like to watch any of these fights, check out this video. Time stamps are provided in the section.

As a Series 4 heat winner, Wheely Big Cheese was granted a seed and was automatically placed in the competition. As a sign of just how much faith the producers had in Wheely Big Cheese, they gave Wheely Big Cheese the 10th seed, which I think is really high. Like, yes, they made the semi-finals, but they really weren't that impressive, mostly beating bad bots and only escaping the heat final because one of Suicidal Tendencies' tracks locked up in a fight Suicidal Tendencies was dominating. I think it really shows just how impressed people were with Wheely Big Cheese that it was seeded so high, and when you hear the commentary, they talk Wheely Big Cheese up as a serious championship favorite. Placed in Heat H, Wheely Big Cheese would immediately show why its flipper was to be feared. Matched up against a pretty solid mid-tier robot, Wolverine (a robot who would go on to defeat the vaunted Tornado on the live circuit), Wheely Big Cheese faced a fellow flipper. In this fight (1:15), Wheely Big Cheese starts of fairy tentatively, taking some flips from Wolverine as it attempts to get in position. At the start, Wolverine is kind of winning this battle (now, granted, it's only like twenty seconds into the fight.)

More impressive than the entire Series 4 run

But then it happens. The two robots get near the arena wall and, just like that, one mighty flip from Wheely Big Cheese sends Wolverine out of the arena and Wheely Big Cheese into the next round.

In the second round, Wheely Big Cheese was matched up with axe/flipper robot Axe-Awe. In this fight, one of the most iconic moments in the history of Robot Wars would play out. The battle begins (5:00) and the two robots meet in the middle of the arena. Axe-Awe lands a single blow, and then it happens. Wheely Big Cheese gets under Axe-Awe and, with one flip, they send Axe-Awe just out of the arena. Words can't describe this alone. Wheely Big Cheese sends Axe-Awe, a robot that, keep in mind, weights 99kg, at least seven feet in the air. Keep in mind that this doesn't happen, like, near the arena wall. No, Wheely Big Cheese basically hucks this almost 100kg robot out of the arena from across probably 1/3rd of the arena. This is the Wheely Big Cheese's fight. This is a moment that is iconic to Robot Wars, a flip that no robot would ever even coming close to surpassing. When people talk about the strength of Wheely Big Cheese, they think of this fight and the greatest flip robot combat ever saw. I'll leave a link to this fight specifically. If you only watch one thing from this section, it should be this moment.

After that herculean flip, Wheely Big Cheese moved on to the heat final, where they fought an honestly kind-of-surprising opponent in the crab-themed newcomer Crushtacean. Sporting two crab claw-themed crushers that were more for control then crushing ability, Crushtacean scored an upset win over Behemoth (sad :( moment) to make the heat final. In the heat final (7:45), Crushtacean is honestly at a huge disadvantage since there really isn't anything to grab on Wheely Big Cheese, which is essentially a huge flipper. Fearing the flipper of Wheely Big Cheese, Crushtacean starts off on the defensive, ending up in the CPZ of Dead Metal.

Not Killalot, but it'll do.

Wheely Big Cheese goes on the pursuit and, just because it can, nearly flips over Dead Metal before deciding to drive away as Dead Metal sinks its circular saw into Crushtacean. Crushtacean then escapes and hits the pit release tire, lowering the pit. But then Wheely Big Cheese scores three consecutive big flips on Crushtacean, sending it into the air and crashing back down, and, while Crushtacena may be able to run both sides up, the force of crashing into the air ends up severing Crushtacean's aerial, cutting off the crab robot's ability to receive radio transmissions. Because of that, Crushtacean can't move, so they're counted out and Wheely Big Cheese goes to another Series Semi-Final.

In the semi-finals, Wheely Big Cheese was placed against fellow seeded machine and fellow Series 4 Semi-Finalist, the famed ax bot Dominator 2. The (12:00) fight begins with the two robots attempting to size each other up dodging each other's attacks. Wheely Big Cheese strikes first, sending Dominator 2 straight up, again tossing a foe at least six feet in the air. Wheely Big Cheese then lands another flip that, while not having the same hangtime as the last flip, still sends Dominator 2 spinning.

So close…

But then, after just destroying Dominator 2 and looking like they're going to run with this fight, Wheely Big Cheese starts slowing down. Dominator 2 then lands a couple ax blows and Wheely Big Cheese just breaks down. They're then counted out, and it's honestly a shame, because they were the better robot in this fight. If they wouldn't have broken down through no doing of Dominator 2, they would have won.

Now, usually, this is where a robot's competition would end, but Series 5 and Series 6 had a losers' melee in the semi-finals where they took the three robots who lost in the first round of the semi-final episode and placed them in a special melee. The winner of the special melee would be placed into the second round of the semi-finals. So Wheely Big Cheese gets a second chance at life in a match against always- the-bridesmaid-never-the-bride Firestorm and Series 2 champion Panic Attack. At the start of the fight (17:21), Firestorm correctly figures out that Wheely Big Cheese is its strongest opponent (remember, Firestorm is 4-1 against Panic Attack overall, with its only "loss" to Panic Attack being when it drove itself into the pit during the Series 7 first round all-stars match, where all four robots decided to attack the house robots instead of each other). Firestorm immediately gets under Wheely Big Cheese, pushing it around the area and into one of the arena walls. This fight really kind of shows the design flaw of Wheely Big Cheese, because Wheely Big Cheese just can't get under Firestorm. They're not mobile enough and Firestorm is just too low to the ground.

If only this fight was Wheely Big Cheese vs Panic Attack

Wheely Big Cheese does manage to land a pretty decent flip on Panic Attack, which basically knocks out Panic Attack (not that it was much of a factor before that), but Wheely Big Cheese just can't do anything to Firestorm, and after missing a flip, Firestrom drives them into the wall repeatedly, slamming and flipping them into the wall.

It was always gonna be like this.

After this, while Wheely Big Cheese wasn't officially immobile, they never reenter the fight. Instead, they basically hover around the arena wall before being counted out after finally going immobile (Firestorm would win the fight in a "judges' decision").

This would be the last time Wheely Big Cheese would compete in Robot Wars. Frustrated at having to repair all the damage to his machine with no financial support from the show (as well as being annoyed at how low the royalties were from the Robot Wars merchandise) Roger Plant decided to retire from the show and never return. It's a shame that Wheely Big Cheese went out how it did, because it was absolutely beating Dominator 2 and should have won that fight. It would have if it hadn't broken down for seemingly now reason. Now, granted, had it won it wouldn't have gone any further because its next fight would have been against Hypno-Disc and I already saw that fight in Extreme 1 (spoiler alert, Hypno-Disc easily sliced off the wheels of Wheely Big Cheese). But still, it would have been great to see Wheely Big Cheese get out of the first round of the semi-finals.

I think Wheely Big Cheese is a very interesting robot, because it's always talked about as a favorite, even in the losers' melee, despite being the lowest seed in the fight. I think it's because Wheely Big Cheese is just the ultimate boom or bust robot. When it works, as shown in the heat, Wheely Big Cheese truly was one of the best robots in the field. But a lot of the time, sadly, Wheely Big Cheese just didn't work. It's an iconic robot for sure, but I just don't think it was ever going to realistically win the championship without, like, a super favorable bracket. That's going to be it for this month. Join me next month as we look at another robot.

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