Monday Night Combat
Developer: Uber Entertainment
Publisher: Microsoft Game Studios
Price: 1200 Microsoft Points ($15)
Platform: Xbox 360 (XBLA)
Release Date: XBLA - August 11, 2010
Tower Defense is gaming's genre infant and it shows: Endless number of clones, each waves difficulty increases as time goes on and of course at the end pure achievement bliss.
For that main reasoning, Uber Entertainment's newest game Monday Night Combat takes a huge jump forward to this genre and I have to admit it is pretty exciting. It's like nothing you have seen before and yet, in its borrowing of game mechanics and elements from a vast majority of similar and other well-known titles, it is immediately familiar and set to go.
To hold off the offense , you assemble turrets in predefined build locations using what limited however much funds you have. They automatically fire upon attackers when anything enters their range, and can be upgraded using money you earn from the enemies they take down. Survive a set number of increasingly challenging waves without losing all of your Moneyball base points and the game is won.
The game uses Title Managed Storage to allow developer Uber Entertainment to make tweaks to class balancing without the need for a title update.
The game's first ingenuity is in casting the player not as some disembodied mouse cursor, clicking on build points like an abstract strategy god, but rather as a soldier, on the ground, running in between and around the turrets and attackers. You essentially act as a turret with legs, able to line up shots on bots as in any third-person shooter, yet also tasked with running up to build points and building static turrets to provide back-up.
All of this is made yet more interesting by the fact the game supports up to four players working together. With six character classes to choose between, each with their own strength and weaknesses, the raw number of different factors in play dwarves that of most Tower Defence games, even as the core objective remains constant.
The combination of AI units and player competitors in battle is unusual yet wonderfully effective, discouraging camping and providing a continual focus.The game demands its players to organise themselves effectively, deciding who is going to cover which bot path, and on what element each member is to spend their money on. If a multiplayer version of Plants vs. Zombies combined with Gears of War's Horde mode sounds appealing then rest easy: you're home.
Blitz Mode, with its five challenges scaling from ten waves of attackers to infinity, is interesting and well balanced enough to stand alone. However, the package is elevated from fascinating to essential by the inclusion of Crossfire mode.
Here the fundamentals laid out by Blitz remain the same, except two teams of four players are pitted against each other. Now the task is a dual one: defend your base from the waves of enemy bots, and chaperone your own bots as they progress toward the enemy base.
Character classes that previously seemed like a neat, but perhaps unnecessary addition become a core component of the experience, the cat's cradle of factors in play most heavily influenced by the character class composition of each team and each player's efficiency with their character.
There are six classes to play as, each of whom has three special moves in keeping with their build and approach.
The 'Assault' is the all-rounder, with moderate offense and defence. His remote-detonated bomb skill is useful for laying traps, while his assault charge can be used to slam opponents from the play area, or just as a plain evasive manoeuvre.
The 'Tank', as his name suggests, is a heavy built entity with a 'Product Grenade' that, when upgraded, plasters advertising over the enemies' screens, temporarily obscuring their view.
The 'Assassin', the most popular character class on the game's servers right now, is lithe and fast. She has a useful cloaking ability to hide her from being seen, which can be used in conjunction with her dash move to sprint into enemy territory undetected.
The 'Support' can upgrade turrets to increase their range and fire rate, while his Air Strike can prove invaluable in laying down a blanket of fire when enemy bots have invaded your base.
Turrets are limited to four types, each with a different build cost and effect.
The 'Gunner' is one of the most useful classes, somewhere in-between a 'Tank' and 'Assault', with a fast, powerful minigun that can be upgraded to a dual version of itself. Using the Gunner Deploy ability, you can set up in a prime spot and (at the cost of being able to move) increase the amount of damage you can take and deal.
Finally, the 'Sniper' makes up for his weak defense with the ability to lay traps around a sniping position and, of course, a long range rifle that can take down most targets in two clean shots.
While the classes appear like carbon copies of those perfected in Valves Team Fortress 2, a game from which Monday Night Combat also borrows a number of its visual cues, in play there are key differences. Add to this the option to purchase custom character classes as you build your cash reserves through playing the game online and the tactical options available become dazzlingly broad.
Bots come in a variety of shapes and sizes from tiny buzzing irritations, to giant behemoths that plod heavily towards your base. The metagame is simple but enjoyable. As you meet predefined criteria in play, so you unlock callsigns that can be attached to your gamertag and that pop-up on an opponent's screen when you kill them, in the Modern Warfare 2 style. These tags must first be unlocked, by performing prescribed feats, and then purchased before they can be used, and there's fun to be had in trying to catch 'em all.
HOW DOES IT LOOK? Monday Night Combat is far from the most attractive game on XBLA. It's character designs are derivative while the primary color setting is live, animated and noisy, a feeling intensified by a witless, jabbering commentator.
HOW DOES IT SOUND? Music is mediocre, with the casual repetitive sound effects and voice acting. The commentators in the background are fun, and hilarious at times but when playing this game more than a couple of times it gets tiring.
HOW DOES IT PLAY? It's fun, fun, fun, until the very last drop. Because, there will be a point where you play this game and then look at the clock and 6 hours has passed by and you didn't even know what happened.
HOW LONG WILL IT LAST? MNC, is going to last you however long you want it to last you. It's an XBLA game, and it will be one of those top games along with Lara Croft, Hydro Thunder, Splosion Man, etc. It depends on the person, and how fast they get tired of a game. I myself, won't mind playing it right now to be honest.
HOW IS IT PRESENTED? The presentation clothes for this game are nothing short of beautiful. This is a game designer's game, one that cherry-picks ideas from gaming's contemporary landscape and melds them together into something at once fresh and familiar. There will be a need for class balancing as the weeks roll by – that much is true of any team combat game – but even in this initial guise the experience sparkles, offering a worthy distraction no matter what the day of the week and providing a significant step in the evolution of Tower Defense.
Final Verdict:
Full Price with a side of Bacon!
Sunday, August 29, 2010
I just got 5600 points for my B-day, I'm definitely making this one a priority.