Monday Night Combat Review

Monday Night Combat looks and acts much like Team Fortress 2, but trust us, there's more to this shooter than you may initially expect.

At first glance, Monday Night Combat (MNC) is a tough sell.  Even the mention of another online shooter has me rolling my eyes and wondering when this trend is going to end.  Then you consider a visual aesthetic and class-based system that can easily be compared to Team Fortress 2 (TF2).  After you get over the initial reactions, however, you begin to see that MNC has more to offer than just killing one another and given the fact that class-based shooters are scarce and TF2 gets very little play time on consoles, it's not half bad.

I'm not quite sure when MNC is supposed to take place, but the gist I get is that humans against robots or humans and robots in teams fighting for money has gone mainstream.  The entire world of MNC is presented like a major sporting event on ESPN, complete with mascots, sponsors, breaks and a witty announcer.  When you are playing alone or in co-op mode against an onslaught of bots, appropriately named Blitz, the idea is to prevent them from destroying the money ball in the middle of the map so that you can take all that cash home for yourself.  In the multiplayer 8-on-8 mode, Crossfire, which will most likely be the most popular mode to keep you coming back, two teams working with bots try to destroy each other's money ball and the winner takes all.

Much like all class-based shooters you have a group of six different characters to pick from and each class has its own strengths.  The assault class, for example, is a balanced class that has a rapid fire gun along with various special abilities like temporary flight and bombs.  Assassins, on the other hand, use stealth and close proximity combat to get one hit kills if they can remain undetected.  Each class takes some time to get used to and even longer to master, but they seem relatively balanced at this point.  You don't have to depend on your own, or in most cases your team's, characters and abilities alone.  Across the battlefield there are a bunch of turret posts, launching traps and special jump pads to help you be as effective as possible at protecting your money ball.  In addition, currency you collect on the battlefield can be used to build/improve defenses as well as upgrade your character, so choose your spending wisely.