Monday Night Combat
This Review is Sponsored by Survivitol and LaseRazor
Posted August 17, 2010
Released recently on the Xbox Live Marketplace (1200 points or $15), Monday Night Combat is a quirky hybrid of a third person shooter and a tower defense game, chock full of multi-player goodness. The developer, Uber Entertainment, has created a game show theme around the presentation, as if this is the reality show of the future. You will immediately notice similarities to Team Fortress in the design and the structure of the character classes. It’s a very entertaining and stylistic presentation for an Xbox Live Arcade title, certainly above and beyond many of the releases in 2010.
While the game can be played offline, the true entertainment value (and possible time-suck) comes when playing a 6 on 6 match online. In Crossfire mode, players earn money during the match to construct towers to eliminate the competition. These towers can slow down the enemy or destroy them with mortars, lasers and rockets. These towers are put in place to protect the Moneyball, the item that your team has to protect. Each of the two bases spawn a never-ending supply of bots controlled by AI and these bots are getting mowed down by the towers if your team is doing their job correctly.
As the tower defense side of the game is being taken care of, you also have to balance the classes on your team and their weapons. Team classes include snipers, tanks, assassins, support staff, gunners and assault forces. For instance, a support staff should be healing tanks and assault players while occasionally calling in air strikes in enemy filled locations. Snipers and gunners should take strategic positions on the map to pick off or mow down the enemies. Assassins have the ability to cloak themselves and kill off pesky human players on the opposite team.
Unfortunately, there are balancing issues with the character classes. Among the matches I played, gunners seemed to be the most powerful class, especially when paired with a competent support player. There’s also a problem with getting players to choose the support staff. Without a smart supporting player, Tanks are just waiting patiently to get destroyed. The learning curve on Monday Night Combat is extremely high and it directly affects the quality of the matches. While Uber has made a series of helpful tutorials, they should be mandatory before playing an online match for those run and gunners out there.
There’s also another mode in the game called Blitz, a way to play against the AI with teammates. (You can also play alone) A team of four takes on waves of the AI bots just like Tower Defense. There’s no opposite team to contend with, only the spawning AI. This mode skews into the ridiculous once you reach the final wave, a never-ending spawn party designed to make you fail. Players will likely get frustrated by the difficulty and move into Crossfire mode permanently. Beyond the modes, the achievement set is fairly standard and simple to complete the majority of it, assuming you can put a team together.
There's quite a bit of fun to be had in Monday Night Combat; assuming you have a competent team at your disposal and enjoy online multiplayer. It can be quite the time waster, if you invest time in learning how to play effectively. The Blitz mode is fairly barebones though and playing offline is simply boring. Check out Monday Night Combat if you are a multiplayer shooter junkie or simply are looking for a shooter to play while waiting for the onslaught of third person shooters in the coming months.
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While the game can be played offline, the true entertainment value (and possible time-suck) comes when playing a 6 on 6 match online. In Crossfire mode, players earn money during the match to construct towers to eliminate the competition. These towers can slow down the enemy or destroy them with mortars, lasers and rockets. These towers are put in place to protect the Moneyball, the item that your team has to protect. Each of the two bases spawn a never-ending supply of bots controlled by AI and these bots are getting mowed down by the towers if your team is doing their job correctly.
As the tower defense side of the game is being taken care of, you also have to balance the classes on your team and their weapons. Team classes include snipers, tanks, assassins, support staff, gunners and assault forces. For instance, a support staff should be healing tanks and assault players while occasionally calling in air strikes in enemy filled locations. Snipers and gunners should take strategic positions on the map to pick off or mow down the enemies. Assassins have the ability to cloak themselves and kill off pesky human players on the opposite team.
Unfortunately, there are balancing issues with the character classes. Among the matches I played, gunners seemed to be the most powerful class, especially when paired with a competent support player. There’s also a problem with getting players to choose the support staff. Without a smart supporting player, Tanks are just waiting patiently to get destroyed. The learning curve on Monday Night Combat is extremely high and it directly affects the quality of the matches. While Uber has made a series of helpful tutorials, they should be mandatory before playing an online match for those run and gunners out there.
There’s also another mode in the game called Blitz, a way to play against the AI with teammates. (You can also play alone) A team of four takes on waves of the AI bots just like Tower Defense. There’s no opposite team to contend with, only the spawning AI. This mode skews into the ridiculous once you reach the final wave, a never-ending spawn party designed to make you fail. Players will likely get frustrated by the difficulty and move into Crossfire mode permanently. Beyond the modes, the achievement set is fairly standard and simple to complete the majority of it, assuming you can put a team together.
Graphics
- This isn’t a great looking game compared to the variety of third-person shooters in existence, but not bad for Xbox Live Arcade. The menu system isn’t as polished as it could be and there’s a smattering of animation effects that are buggy in terms of length. That being said, I didn’t run into any framerate issues that hampered the gameplay.
Audio
- The announcer is terribly annoying after a few matches, basically due to the constant repetition of “catch phrases” and relatively small number of recorded lines. The game’s music is very humdrum, but the sound effects do a great job of bringing life to the different character classes.
Conclusion
There's quite a bit of fun to be had in Monday Night Combat; assuming you have a competent team at your disposal and enjoy online multiplayer. It can be quite the time waster, if you invest time in learning how to play effectively. The Blitz mode is fairly barebones though and playing offline is simply boring. Check out Monday Night Combat if you are a multiplayer shooter junkie or simply are looking for a shooter to play while waiting for the onslaught of third person shooters in the coming months.
Discuss This Game on Our Official VGT Forum