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Old 05-14-2009, 06:08 PM
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O'Borg O'Borg is offline
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You can watch some of the shows on Spike TVs website or just hunt them down on YouTube.

There's a thread on RPGNet about the shows and the general consensus is :
It's a load of bollocks. But it's entertaining bollocks, and in the end, isn't that the best kind? The answer, is no.

Some of the weapons tests are unrealistic - sure a Samurai Yuni can shoot out an eyeball at fifty paces, but only if the Viking Berserker is obliging enough to stand very still whilst the samurai aims. Likewise the sword/axe/club penetration tests are usually verses an dummy fixed to a solid mount and devoid of armour. When whacking someone with a big stick, a significant amount of force is going to be absorbed by your target rolling with the blow or getting knocked on his ass.
There's often a disparity in the quality of the 'experts' that baises the tests - the Apache guys were a world champion knife fighter and a US army knife and unarmed combat instructor. The gladiators had a couple of historians who liked to play with weapons. Same with the Samurai - martial arts experts vs two historical re creationists.
And then there's the childish smack talk between the experts which gets old real fast.

I'm sure the IRA vs Taliban one will be heavily biased, with some 9th generation Irish-American who's never been closer to NI than drinking a pint of Guiness waxing lyrical about those elite, balaclava wearing thugs who regularly got owned by the British Army and Ulster Police is they tried a stand up fight and who's favoured method of attack was carbombing civilians and hoping to catch a couple of bomb disposal guys in the blast or knocking on the door of an off-duty copper and hosing him with autofire in front of his family.