Class based shooters are a dime a dozen these days. You get some characters who specialize in offense, defense, and support. It doesn't help that the shooter market is saturated with competitors. But Uber Entertainment manages to stick out from the crowd by throwing in something almost everyone has played at some point or another: tower defense games.
Monday Night Combat takes place in a mysterious future where the blood sport of the same name is the most popular past time in the world. Two teams, compromised of clones with weird and fantastic DNA (the Assassin for example, somehow has the DNA of John Wilkes Booth), compete in two different games with live ammunition: Blitz and Crossfire.
Blitz is your typical Gears of War horde mode except instead of simple survival, you must also protect your moneyball, which is exactly what it sounds like. Robots stream out of their spawn points in an attempt to tear your precious moneyball to pieces. The hook is that in addition to playing as one of six unique classes, you can also build one of four different turrets with money earned from destroying these bots and upgrade them further when needed. It's every bit as fun as any other horde mode, with the strategic fun of tower defense gameplay added to balance out the sheer number of bots that will eventually try to overwhelm you.
Crossfire takes the Blitz formula but pits you against another team along with their bots. In addition to playing this shooter well, building turrets in important locations and keeping your defensive line is just as important as knowing how to aim correctly with the right thumbstick. Actually, if no one on a given team pays attention to the tower defense portion of the game's strategy, keeping enemies out of your base is significantly harder. Crossfire is easily the heart of this multiplayer only game, and this is also where the class dynamics and match ups really come to life.
The classes are the silent but deadly Assassin, the showboating Assault, the blue collar Tank, the Hawaiian stereotype Gunner, the Italian stereotype Support, and the Sniper who basically embodies everyone with a mic on Xbox Live (“At least somebody's doing their job!”).
Each class, in addition to having specific weapons, defense, and speed, also have three special skills they can use which need to recharge after each use like a charging tackle or the ability to turn invisible. Midgame, you must choose between building and upgrading turrets or upgrading your character's skills. With upgrades not carrying over if you decide to switch to another class during a game and unlimited ammo, you're encouraged to learn the nuances of a given class in order to better help your team win.
I for example, enjoy playing the Assassin. But playing as this nimble killer requires a different mindset to be successful. Instead of opening fire with no thought like you would in Modern Warfare 2, I always have to approach from behind for the Assassin's signature one hit kill assassination. If I can't, the Assassin's superior mobility allows me to escape most situations to try again. This is usually a better idea than trying to finish the job like I might in other games. The Assassin is very weak in direct combat and is better off trying again from a different angle rather than engaging in one on one combat.
Job well done Assassin!
This is the thing I love most about Monday Night Combat. All the classes are genuinely useful in some way and all of their skills and weapons serve a purpose. Think about games like Halo or Modern Warfare 2. There are weapons people never use because they're simply outclassed in all areas by another superior weapon. If you've played MW2, then you know most of the people who want to win use the ACR assault rifle and almost never touch the F2000 rifle for reasons of accuracy. But in Monday Night Combat, every class is useful and who you play is up to general preference, whether you want to headshot noobs the classic way as a Sniper or want to support your team and hack turrets as the Support.
Of course, there's nearly no single player side to this game. If you hate the competitive aspect of gaming, the people of Xbox Live in general, or simply lack a number of open minded friends, your mileage will vary on Monday Night Combat. Uber also isn't a big group, so there are bound to be problems.
Latency is a problem in every few matches but is so gamebreaking in ways most other online shooters seemed to have smoothed over. Host migration also rarely ever works whenever the host rage quits. And outside of enjoying the game for what it is, there's very little to do after you've played a couple hundred games of Crossfire. You earn money but don't do much besides unlock protags (think MW2's callsigns) and custom class slots. Your replayability will vary but it's generally a lot like how you might enjoy a game like Left 4 Dead. There are only a few maps but your interactions with other players will be different every time.
But trust me when I say that Monday Night Combat's polish and attention to game balance is truly remarkable for being a $15 game that was developed by a 16 man team. Where most gamers in competitive multiplayer games find things they can do that breaks the balance or the intended nature of how the game is played, MNC has many checks and balances in its design that allows it to rival the likes of other full priced retail games like Modern Warfare 2.
