At a glance...

Monday Night Combat review

Heyooo! The sound of the announcer courses round the stadium, the fans cheering you on as an army of robots descend upon you....wait, robots? I'm not talking about your standard sports game here, this is Monday Night Combat, created by Uber Entertainment and another release in the Xbox Live Summer of Arcade.

The basic premise is simple; protect your team's robots whilst they charge towards the opponent's base. Once there they will attack a large orb in the sky, the money ball. When they've brought down the shields, the money ball is ripe for the taking, and a sustained burst of fire from you will bring it down, and you'll be rewarded with plenty of cash for your troubles. It's a pleasant jumble of your favourite online action games; part Team Fortress 2, part tower defence.

Why tower defence, you ask? Dotted around your base are a number of defence points; heading over to any of these will allow you to build a defensive tower, for a little cash of course. These help take down the armies of robots that will be descending upon you for the duration of the match, but they can also help take down opposing players too. Each tower can be upgraded three times and a multitude of different types can be created. Additionally, players can purchase their own swarms of robots to unleash against the enemy base. These are are tied to your class, so if you are the assassin, then your robots have the cloaking ability, etc.

And the classes? There's a good range of types depending on your choice of skills. There's the aforementioned assassin and the sniper class, fairly weak characters but can take many of the others out in a single blow. The tank and gunner classes provide a good bulky defence or attack and can turn themselves into turrets for improved damage, although that causes them to be fixed to the spot. The other classes add a little randomness to the mix; there's the support role, which can heal people and create miniature towers anywhere on the map, and the aggressive assault class with its flying and remote detonator charges. Each of these have their own strengths and weaknesses, but if none of them wet your appetite then there's always the option to create your own custom class. These allow you to take any of the existing classes and add your own twist by improving health recovery, accuracy or other statistics. Whilst it's not enough to completely change the dynamic of the game, having your own personal take on your favourite class may often give you the competitive advantage you need.

How do you earn cash? This is probably the most confusing aspect of Monday Night Combat; where your score comes from. There are the obvious kills and assists that contribute to your income, additionally, some of the bots drop cash when they get destroyed. How your actual score gets calculated however, is much more of a mystery. In the end though, this never matters, as you're having too much fun playing the game.

What sets Monday Night Combat apart from other competitive shooters is its theme. Set in an extreme sports world, this takes the concept of arena battles quite literally. Each level is its own stadium with crowds spectating from a safe distant. Billboards line the arenas advertising a variety of fictional products, from the delicious GRENade to the worrying Skill Pill. This game has character, something that is evident as soon as you begin the game. This is a world of sports gone mad with hyper commercialised battles with crazy characters. This is embodied in the voice of the commentator who shouts out various one liners throughout the match or the game's mascot, an overweight superfan who likes to parade around the map. If you manage to spot him, quickly taking a few pot shots will make him drop cash onto the floor.

Uber Entertainment could have easily have left the game with just the obligatory team vs. team modes, however, they've gone the extra mile and provided a selection of extra gameplay types to choose from. Even better, you can play all of these modes with a friend, as split-screen is provided, a welcome change in an era where most games force you to play online only. The game also features a ranking system which fans of most online games will be familiar with. The more cash you earn during matches, the higher your rank goes up. Additionally, killing opponents in unique ways will award you with highlights, these can be assigned to your character and will popup on the enemies kill cams when you frag them. Again, the humorous theme continues through the ridiculous descriptions they use such as "Flapjack Master" or "Outta My House".

Despite this running on Unreal Engine3 , there is none of the usual texture pop-in or other such noticable issues whilst running the game. The biggest problem is trying to connect when joining a match. There were a few times when the matchmaking system kicked me out immediatly due to host migration or there were times when the lobby failed to load altogether and the game got stuck trying to send me back to the menu. It's early days and the game is still finding its way on Xbox Live so I'm willing to forgive them on this instant; a few days later and most of these issues hadn't reoccurred. In addition, Uber Entertainment revealed the techniques behind some of their online system which allows them to tweak gameplay for balance reasons without having to go through the process of Microsoft Certification to apply a patch. This sort of clever strategy indicates that they've thought ahead as far as these things are concerned.

These issues aside, this is a throughly enjoyable game. The map rotation may be a little on the small side but the game is charming and very entertaining. Once you begin your first match with the crowd cheering on and the announcer complementing you on your latest takedown, its enough to get your blood pumping and leaves you wanting more. This game more than justifies its 1200 Microsoft Points (£10.20) price tag and we look forward to meeting you head-to-head in the arena. Heyoo!

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