“Robot Combat League,” hosted by WWE wrestler Chris Jericho, debuted Feb. 26 and drew 1.3 million total viewers. It airs at 9 p.m. Tuesdays on Syfy.Howard is used to duking it out with virtual bad guys on Xbox and PlayStation, as the founder of a female gaming organization in Chicago called Sugar Gamers. But nothing could truly prepare her for this grown-up version of “Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em Robots.”
“I’d never really done anything like this before. I’m not a fighter, I’m a gamer,” Howard told RedEye. “It sounded a little bit like the [Xbox motion controller] Kinect, where it mimics your movements, but it’s a totally different experience once you’re actually doing it.”The hydraulic-powered machines are actually operated by teams of two: a fighter (“robo-jockey”) and an engineer (“robo-tech”). Howard was the one throwing the uppercuts for Team Game Over, while Swedish robotics engineer Annika O’Brien controlled the bot’s legs and fixed up broken wires and leaking fluids between rounds like a tech-savvy corner man treating a boxer’s black eye.
The 24 contestants had about two weeks to prepare for bouts, which included participating in some challenges against small sparring bots.”I also played some fighting games like ‘Soulcalibur’ to practice fighting and see moves being executed on screen,” Howard said.