So Team Fortress, Defenders of the Ancients ( Warcraft 3 DOTA) and the Terran from Star Craft, were sitting at home watching monday night football and decided it was time to do the romance dance. That kids is basically how Monday Night Combat was made.
Don’t be fooled by the title, this is a 3rd person shooter set up in hero driven tower defense with little bit of sports commentary. Character classes are similar to a Team Fortress: a tank, assassin, sniper, assault, gunner, and support. All of which have unique abilities mapped to three buttons, and are pertinent to strategy of defeating different classes and AI you encounter. Both teams have a “money ball” that is located in middle of their home base. Once it takes enough damage the game is ended. This can be achieved by players or AI that eventually floods the enemy’s base if they aren’t protecting their bots.
There are three different game types: local blitz, xbox live blitz, and crossfire. The blitz modes are basically the same as a horde mode or firefight, waves of enemies you defend against by yourself or co-op with friends. Personally, I think crossfire is where it’s at.
Being dropped into the middle of a tower defense was a little overwhelming at first. Large robot controlled AI push across the map. You can use some of your money to build upgrades, add turrets, etc. Killing Mobs, (AI characters) is a great way to earn quick cash to invest in more defenses. Also killing players and AI works towards a power up ability similar to rage of the gods where your guns and health become immensely increased for a short period of time. Its a pretty simple system once things are leveled out (which seemed relatively quick to me) it just comes down to skill, teamwork and strategy. But when have xbox live players ever worked together in strategic fashion? I can count on 2 hands the amount of times I have truly worked together as a team with other live games. It’s best played with your friends (or me: add ajaxkidd with a BSR mention in the subject)
Liked:
- pretty solid gameplay with little or no gameplay lag.
- The the abilities are fun and replay value is really high.
- Customization keeps me playing along with a scrolling friend score board even on the main screen.
- This game definitely satisfies the shooter in me and is right up there with other 3rd person pvp like World of Warcrafts battlegrounds , Gears of war 2 and, Modern warfare’s 3rd person mode.
Disliked:
- The leveling system caps pretty early. One you reach level 3 in all of your abilities your completely maxed. Which does create balance, but I personally would like to see what happens when the level 10 armor maxed tank encounters a level 10 damage dealing gunner However, in the name of balance and solidity its only levels to three, sad face.
- The tutorial video was boring and slow paced. I think I ended up backing out of it.
- When you check the different class options to see what abilities are mapped out and figure out functionality it’s kind of lacking.
- The guns seem to have issues with using rumble, sometimes it rumbles and sometimes it doesn’t. When there is a lot going on s it can be hard to tell if I’m actually shooting or not, but that’s just me nit picking.
While not quite as balanced as some AAA titles, this game is definitely worth its weight in content and at a 15 dollar price point it is well worth the money.I’ll be online with this for quite a while.