Monday Night Combat XBLA – Review – Xbox 360

Sports fans have Monday Night Football but with a new game from Uber Entertainment and the second last addition to the Summer of Arcade, gamers can now say they have Monday Night Combat. Monday Night Combat is a new arena based shooter that puts a slight twist on the third person shooter genre. Monday Night Combat has everything a futuristic sport should have – intense team based arena combat, cash, fame, endorsements, and of course bacon.

Gameplay: The interesting thing about Monday Night Combat is that at first glance, you can tell it is a third person shooter. However, the game actually has tower defense elements as well which I guess technically makes it a third person tower defense shooter. The element of tower defense mixed with other gameplay elements isn’t new, as games like PixelJunk Monsters and South Park Tower Defense Play allowed you to run around, attack, and collect gold while creating towers. With that said, it’s the first time I’ve seen a third person shooter with these elements and I must say it actually works great.

In the single player mode called Blitz, players are required to defend a money ball in the center of an arena while defeating waves of AI robots that are coming from all directions to destroy a central money ball. Just like a tower defense game, enemies spawn from a point on the edge of the map and follow a path to the money ball. Along the path are locations for towers to be set up. Towers can be upgraded three times for a maximum of 3 levels. Each level increases the tower’s firing distance, power, and rate of fire. In order to buy and upgrade these towers you need to collect gold. Killing bots will award you gold and occasionally the MNC mascot, Bullseye, will trod around the map which, when shot, will give you additional money as well as drop bacon and juice. Bacon gives you a 1-2 point bonus for things like speed and rate of fire until you die leaving the bacon on the map for someone else. When you fill your juice bar and activate it, you act as a killing machine that can kill anything in your path with ease for a limited time. Blitz has 5 difficulties each with a different set of rounds and tougher bots. There is even an infinite one that allows you to see how long you can keep your money ball safe. One thing that I thought was missing was a quick overhead map option. When you die and are waiting to respawn, you get an overview of the map but occasionally I wanted to push a button and view the map to see where the bots were coming from. Additionally, Blitz can be played with up to four players both locally and online with an Xbox Live Party. However when switching between modes, the party doesn’t stay together requiring you to re-invite after it has been chosen.

When starting a match, you’ll notice that Monday Night Combat is a class based shooter which allows gamers to pick and choose a combat style that is right for them. The classes are Assault, Tank, Assassin, Support, Gunner and Sniper. Assault is your basic shooting class, Tank is the heavy weapons specialist, Assassin is the sneaky, cloaking, stab in the back type, Support heals teammates and towers while also sucking health from enemies, Gunner is the machine gun specialist, and sniper is the trapping, headshot killing machine that picks off unsuspecting enemies from afar. For those that want to customize their class a bit more, there is an option to create a custom class. Creating a class costs money so you won’t be able to do it right from the start. Custom classes allow you to choose your own sponsors which act as perks or enhancements to your main attacks. Things like increased health, running speed, increased clip, rate of fire, and even specific class enhancements.

Graphics/Audio: Prior to the games’ release, I watched all the videos related to this game. The first thing that came to mind is “wow, this game looks and sounds amazing”. Using the Unreal engine, Monday Night Combat is graphically one of the best looking XBLA games I’ve seen to date. As well, the animations are smooth and, depending on the character, they are funny such as with the taunts. Apparently most, or at least 2000 of the animations, were done by hand by one animator. That’s impressive. Throughout the whole match you will hear a humourous and very talkative announcer that constantly talks about the match. With that, Uber Entertainment nailed the presentation providing a realistic combat arena experience.

Multiplayer: The heart of Monday Night Combat is the six on six online multiplayer mode called Crossfire. In this mode, six players are required to not only protect their own moneyball from enemy AI bots and an opposing force of six human players but also escort their own AI bots to destroy the opposing money ball. At the back of each base is a safe and shielded spawn point. This is available in Blitz as well. While behind the shields, players can quickly upgrade their character safely before going out to arena. When starting a match, players are given a minimum amount of gold to get them started with some basic upgrades. After that, you must kill enemies to gain more gold. This mode, like Blitz, requires strategic thinking, teamwork, and communication. If you aren’t careful, you might get overwhelmed with bots guided by some smart human players. If needed, there are ejectors located around the map that will destroy any bot within its radius. As well, there is an annihilator at the center of the map that will do great damage to bots and I think even human players. It is especially useful for taking down Jackbots. Everything on the map requires the use of money. So for instance something as simple as a jumpad can only be activated by paying. This is where the strategy part comes in because you need to decide whether you want to upgrade your character, towers, or use other items on the map that require money.

Overall: The whole time I couldn’t help but think I was playing Firefight from Halo 3: ODST or Horde from Gears of War 3. Although those games don’t have towers or a central object for the enemy to destroy, the waves in which the bots would spawn felt very similar. Overall, Monday Night Combat is a great addition to the third person shooter genre. The tower defense elements are interesting and are there as a massive aid to defend your base. It’s kind of disappointing too that the Blitz mode only has one map while Crossfire as four. I know it is planned, but hopefully we will see some new maps for both modes as well as some more gametypes; maybe some straight up death match with no bots or money ball. For those that like massive stat tracking, that’s here too. I was surprised by what kind of stats I saw. In the end, 1200 MS points might seem like a bit much but if you were looking for a new shooter this summer, Monday Night Combat is definitely the one to get.

Pros:
-Graphically good looking
-Mascot head as avatar award
-Hilarious and talkative announcer
-Shielded spawn points to prevent spawn killing
-Custom classes
-Massive stat tracking
-fun team based combat within an arena

Cons:
-Only one Blitz map, four for Crossfire
-Party doesn’t stay together when switching modes
-No quick overview map option in blitz. Only shown when you die.

Overall score: 8.5/10

An XBLA copy of this game was provided to the reviewer for reviewing purposes from the publisher.

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