Monday Night Combat
Encyclopedia
Monday Night Combat is a downloadable third-person shooter
video game developed by Uber Entertainment. It was published by Microsoft Game Studios on the Xbox 360
and by Uber Entertainment and Valve Software for Microsoft Windows
. It was released on August 11, 2010 on the Xbox 360 as part of Microsoft's 2010 Xbox Live Summer of Arcade and is distributed through Xbox Live Arcade
. It was released on January 24, 2011 for Windows via Steam.
MNC is a class-based third person shooter game in which two teams are pitted against each other in a fictional combat sport similar to tower defense
and Dota. The competitors on each team are clones, and the goal is to destroy the other team's Moneyball, a stationary objective which houses the team's money, while protecting their own. It is presented to the player as the Monday Night
sport of the future.
The game was well received by critics, averaging 79.24% at GameRankings and 79 out of 100 at Metacritic
, two video game aggregate
websites. Reviewers were generally universal in praising the quality of the game in comparison to the cost. The game's graphics and art style were also praised. Critics noted that the six character classes were well suited to the tower defense style of gameplay. As of October 2010, Monday Night Combat has sold over 225,000 copies on Xbox Live Arcade.
. Its background is that of a futuristic replacement for Monday Night Football
in which cloned soldiers battle against each other for money.
The game is played in one of two scenarios, each one a variant on the traditional Dota
game type with some elements of tower defense
mixed in. The first is Crossfire, in which teams of up to six compete online to destroy the other team's Moneyball, a stationary shielded object guarded by its respective team. The first team to destroy their opponent's Moneyball is declared the winner. The second gameplay scenario is known as Blitz. In Blitz up to four players work together to protect their team's Moneyball against increasingly difficult waves of robots. Blitz can be played alone, in two-player splitscreen
or with up to four players online.
Players can choose between one of six classes, each with their own unique abilities and weapons. The Tank and Gunner classes focus on heavy weaponry. The Support class is similar to Team Fortress 2s engineer and medic, providing support for their team by healing teammates, and repairing robots and turrets. The Assault class plays similarly to the standard soldier class found in other games, and is patterned as a well-rounded class for players. Snipers can be used as long range support, but can also use their secondary weaponry when in close proximity to enemies. Finally Assassins are focused on stealth and mobility and can use their abilities to sneak up on enemies, dispatch them, and then quickly escape.
As players destroy robots and make kills they are rewarded with cash, which can then in turn be used to buy upgrades, improve the defense of their base, or send specialty robots against the other team. Players can also earn cash by attacking the sport's mascot, Bullseye, which occasionally appears on the field. Another thing that players accumulate as they play is Juice. Filling the Juice gauge allows the player a brief period of super-powered abilities they can use to attack the other team. Additionally, bacon
is infrequently dropped by the mascot or robots when attacked. Bacon serves as a powerup for the player, giving them boosted abilities until they die or the round ends. Churro
s were added to the first downloadable content
pack, and give the player a temporary health boost and regenerate the player's skill abilities.
Steam and will contain the core game and the Spunky Cola Special content. Ekanayake further revealed in an interview with PC Gamer
that the PC version of the game will have full support for the Unreal development tools, allowing players to create fan-based modifications and levels.
Giant Bomb
chose MNC to play on Justin.tv
during its weekly Thursday Night Throwdown. After news of this reached the official Uber Entertainment Twitter account, Uber Entertainment creative director John Comes and developers Logan DeMelt and Bob Berry joined the stream. They offered advice to the four players competing in a match of Blitz, gave developer insight to making the game and distributed a few free copies of MNC.
The game was created by a team of sixteen developers, but began with six developers in a two bedroom apartment. For the first year of development the game was known under the code name of Hostile. During a presentation at Williams College
, developers Uber Entertainment revealed much of the game's development process. It began with whitebox testing in Epic Games
' Unreal Engine 3
to lay out basic gameplay, game flow, the game's over-the-shoulder camera, and more. Placeholder models and effects were then added to adjust the shader
system and to discover what assets can be shared amongst characters and classes. Arenas were then built with basic shapes to lock down scale and overall level flow. This would then serve as a base for the final level design.
In order to simplify and streamline development time, three base character skeletons were shared amongst the six character classes. Characters were modeled then multiple texture maps were applied. Specular and normal map
s were added to the model prior to the main texture map. The texture map was then added with any team-colorized sections painted in greyscale tones. A team color mask is then applied to give the character a team-aligned texture. Robot characters also have multiple texture maps to signify damage received. The music for the game was composed by Cris Velasco of Monarch Audio.
Monday Night Combat features an on the fly update system. Instead of the game being patched to correct issues, most game-wide variables are controlled on the server level, allowing Uber Entertainment to make tweaks to things such as character speed, weapon damage, match length and game difficulty. This allows for fine tuning without the need to download an additional patch for the game. MNC dynamic update system is hosted on Microsoft's Title Managed Storage. Title Managed Storage is an allocated space on Xbox Live servers for developers to use. Uber Entertainment placed a text document on the server which stores any values they want to be able to adjust dynamically. When a change needs to be made, the value is changed in the text file, and instantly the gameplay is tweaked.
On August 29, 2010 Uber Entertainment revealed via their official blog that a title update for the game was being tested. This update would fix gameplay bugs related to character classes, multiplayer, and general gameplay. They also revealed at that time plans for three downloadable content
packages and further stated that the first of the three packages would be free to consumers. The blog post also revealed the figurine
statues available for purchase as part of the game's promotions. On October 13, 2010 a title update was released, which fixed multiple issues and made various gameplay tweaks.
The first downloadable content package, entitled Spunky Cola Special, was officially announced over a week long promotion in October 2010 known as the Monday Night Combat Halloween Unmasking. The free content consists of two new arenas, one devoted to Crossfire mode and the other to Blitz. Also included are several bug fixes and additional features. Spunky Cola Special was released December 1, 2010. In an interview, Chandana Ekanayake revealed that Uber found top ranking players playing Blitz for 6-8 hours without failing, something the game was not intended to do. According to Ekanayake, to accommodate those players the downloadable content also included "a tougher Super Sudden Death challenge as well as updated the round clocks to include four digits up to round 9999." Ekanayake further stated that Uber would be focusing on additional content and updates for Monday Night Combat players.
, two video game aggregate
websites. Both sites report a majority review scores of 70% and higher. As of October 2010, Monday Night Combat has sold over 225,000 copies on Xbox Live Arcade. That number rose to over 293,000 at the close of 2010. Most reviewers agreed that the game was well worth the price of 1200 Microsoft Points. GamePro
called the game "equal parts wacky, polished, and just downright fun." Game Revolution
agreed, calling Monday Night Combat "so much unadulterated fun." Official Xbox Magazine
called it a "great third-person shooter with Monday-night-football flair." It received Gamasutra
's award for Best Downloadable Console Game for 2010.
Game Revolution stated the gameplay was an improvement over Team Fortress 2
. GamePro also stated the Team Fortress 2 veterans "should definitely enjoy the very obvious similarities." Official Xbox Magazine felt that the game's six character classes were well balanced and that each class presented usefulness to players. PALGN
praised the cartoon
art style and over the top commentary by the game's announcer. They went on to call the MNC a "stylish, streamlined, expertly crafted third person shooter." IGN
noted the game's fun multiplayer modes, stating that both cooperative and versus modes are "good fun if you get a crew together."
Official Xbox Magazine criticized the fact that the game only comes equipped with two modes and four arenas. GamePro agreed, stating with a low number of robot types and very few maps that "the action will eventually lose some luster over time." IGN reviewer Daemon Hatfield expressed surprise and confusion in regards to attacking Bullseye, the Monday Night Mascot for cash, calling it "one of the most bizarre gaming events I've recently witnessed." Game Informer
expressed similar thoughts, saying "this guy is so annoying that it's impossible not to smile while shooting him." Destructoid was critical of the character classes, calling them unbalanced. GameSpot
was critical of the game's announcer, stating that they found the commentary annoying. They also went on to criticize the limited tutorial, stating it leaves the player "to read up [in the] How to Play section of the pause menu."
The Spunky Cola Special downloadable content was generally well received. Griffin McElroy of Joystiq
praised the fact that the content was released free of charge. Destructoid
's Jordan Devore agreed, and stated it was a "smart move for a game that shouldn't segregate its audience." The reviewer from XBLAfans praised the amount of content given in Spunky Cola Special. The reviewer called the new arenas "relentless" and "fast paced". Also praised were the addition of churros as a powerup, the additional voice lines for the game's announcer, and the 47 additional protags; markings to indicate a player's clan
or affiliation.
Third-person shooter
Third-person shooter is a genre of 3D action games in which the player character is visible on-screen, and the gameplay consists primarily of shooting.-Definition:...
video game developed by Uber Entertainment. It was published by Microsoft Game Studios on the Xbox 360
Xbox 360
The Xbox 360 is the second video game console produced by Microsoft and the successor to the Xbox. The Xbox 360 competes with Sony's PlayStation 3 and Nintendo's Wii as part of the seventh generation of video game consoles...
and by Uber Entertainment and Valve Software for Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal...
. It was released on August 11, 2010 on the Xbox 360 as part of Microsoft's 2010 Xbox Live Summer of Arcade and is distributed through Xbox Live Arcade
Xbox Live Arcade
Xbox Live Arcade is a type of video game download distribution available primarily in a section of the Xbox Live Marketplace, Microsoft's digital distribution network for the Xbox 360, that focuses on smaller downloadable games from both major publishers and independent game developers...
. It was released on January 24, 2011 for Windows via Steam.
MNC is a class-based third person shooter game in which two teams are pitted against each other in a fictional combat sport similar to tower defense
Tower defense
Tower defense is a subgenre of real-time strategy computer games.The goal of tower defense games is to try to stop enemies from crossing a map by building towers which shoot at them as they pass. Enemies and towers usually have varied abilities, costs, and ability costs...
and Dota. The competitors on each team are clones, and the goal is to destroy the other team's Moneyball, a stationary objective which houses the team's money, while protecting their own. It is presented to the player as the Monday Night
Monday Night Football
Monday Night Football is a live broadcast of the National Football League on ESPN. From to it aired on ABC. Monday Night Football was, along with Hallmark Hall of Fame, and the Walt Disney anthology television series, one of the longest running prime time commercial network television series...
sport of the future.
The game was well received by critics, averaging 79.24% at GameRankings and 79 out of 100 at Metacritic
Metacritic
Metacritic.com is a website that collates reviews of music albums, games, movies, TV shows and DVDs. For each product, a numerical score from each review is obtained and the total is averaged. An excerpt of each review is provided along with a hyperlink to the source. Three colour codes of Green,...
, two video game aggregate
Aggregate data
In statistics, aggregate data describes data combined from several measurements.In economics, aggregate data or data aggregates describes high-level data that is composed of a multitude or combination of other more individual data....
websites. Reviewers were generally universal in praising the quality of the game in comparison to the cost. The game's graphics and art style were also praised. Critics noted that the six character classes were well suited to the tower defense style of gameplay. As of October 2010, Monday Night Combat has sold over 225,000 copies on Xbox Live Arcade.
Gameplay
Monday Night Combat is a shooter played from a third person perspective. It combines a class-based character selection system with team-based objectives in the style of Defense of the AncientsDefense of the Ancients
Defense of the Ancients is a custom scenario for the real-time strategy game Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos and its expansion, Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne, based on the "Aeon of Strife" map for StarCraft...
. Its background is that of a futuristic replacement for Monday Night Football
Monday Night Football
Monday Night Football is a live broadcast of the National Football League on ESPN. From to it aired on ABC. Monday Night Football was, along with Hallmark Hall of Fame, and the Walt Disney anthology television series, one of the longest running prime time commercial network television series...
in which cloned soldiers battle against each other for money.
The game is played in one of two scenarios, each one a variant on the traditional Dota
Dota (genre)
The Dota genre is a sub-genre of real-time strategy video games, characterized by their likeness to Defense of the Ancients, a custom scenario for Warcraft 3 drawing from both real-time strategy and role-playing game influences. Compared to traditional real-time strategy games, elements such as...
game type with some elements of tower defense
Tower defense
Tower defense is a subgenre of real-time strategy computer games.The goal of tower defense games is to try to stop enemies from crossing a map by building towers which shoot at them as they pass. Enemies and towers usually have varied abilities, costs, and ability costs...
mixed in. The first is Crossfire, in which teams of up to six compete online to destroy the other team's Moneyball, a stationary shielded object guarded by its respective team. The first team to destroy their opponent's Moneyball is declared the winner. The second gameplay scenario is known as Blitz. In Blitz up to four players work together to protect their team's Moneyball against increasingly difficult waves of robots. Blitz can be played alone, in two-player splitscreen
Split screen (computer graphics)
Split screen is a display technique in computer graphics that consists of dividing graphics and/or text into non-movable adjacent parts, typically two or four rectangular areas. This is done in order to allow the simultaneous presentation of related graphical and textual information on a computer...
or with up to four players online.
Players can choose between one of six classes, each with their own unique abilities and weapons. The Tank and Gunner classes focus on heavy weaponry. The Support class is similar to Team Fortress 2s engineer and medic, providing support for their team by healing teammates, and repairing robots and turrets. The Assault class plays similarly to the standard soldier class found in other games, and is patterned as a well-rounded class for players. Snipers can be used as long range support, but can also use their secondary weaponry when in close proximity to enemies. Finally Assassins are focused on stealth and mobility and can use their abilities to sneak up on enemies, dispatch them, and then quickly escape.
As players destroy robots and make kills they are rewarded with cash, which can then in turn be used to buy upgrades, improve the defense of their base, or send specialty robots against the other team. Players can also earn cash by attacking the sport's mascot, Bullseye, which occasionally appears on the field. Another thing that players accumulate as they play is Juice. Filling the Juice gauge allows the player a brief period of super-powered abilities they can use to attack the other team. Additionally, bacon
Bacon
Bacon is a cured meat prepared from a pig. It is first cured using large quantities of salt, either in a brine or in a dry packing; the result is fresh bacon . Fresh bacon may then be further dried for weeks or months in cold air, boiled, or smoked. Fresh and dried bacon must be cooked before eating...
is infrequently dropped by the mascot or robots when attacked. Bacon serves as a powerup for the player, giving them boosted abilities until they die or the round ends. Churro
Churro
A churro, sometimes referred to as a Spanish doughnut, is a fried-dough pastry-based snack that has disputed origins. Churros are also popular in Latin America, France, Portugal, Morocco, the United States, Australia, and Spanish-speaking Caribbean islands. There are two types of churros in Spain....
s were added to the first downloadable content
Downloadable content
Downloadable content is official additional content for a video game distributed through the Internet. Downloadable content can be of several types, ranging from a single in-game outfit to an entirely new, extensive storyline, similarly to an expansion pack. As such, DLC may add new game modes,...
pack, and give the player a temporary health boost and regenerate the player's skill abilities.
Development and marketing
Monday Night Combat was announced for the Xbox 360 via Xbox Live Arcade on January 15, 2010. It was shown in April 2010 at PAX East in Boston, Massachusetts with a playable demo. It was also shown in June 2010 at the Electronic Entertainment Expo with another playable demo. The Xbox 360 version was released on August 11, 2010 via Xbox Live Arcade. The possibility of the game coming to other platforms as hinted at during an interview with Executive Producer Chandana Ekanayake. The PC version of the game was announced December 14, 2010. Uber Entertainment conducted a public beta testing session which started December 16, 2010 for consumers who pre-ordered the game. It was officially released on January 24, 2011 via the digital distributorDigital distribution
Online distribution, digital distribution, or electronic software distribution is the practice of delivering content without the use of physical media, typically by downloading via the internet directly to a consumer's device. Online distribution bypasses conventional physical distribution media,...
Steam and will contain the core game and the Spunky Cola Special content. Ekanayake further revealed in an interview with PC Gamer
PC Gamer
PC Gamer is a magazine founded in Britain in 1993 devoted to PC gaming and published monthly by Future Publishing. The magazine has several regional editions, with the UK and US editions becoming the best selling PC games magazines in their respective countries...
that the PC version of the game will have full support for the Unreal development tools, allowing players to create fan-based modifications and levels.
Giant Bomb
Giant Bomb
Giant Bomb is an American video game website and wiki that includes gaming news, reviews, commentary, and video, created by former GameSpot editors Jeff Gerstmann and Ryan Davis in collaboration with Whiskey Media...
chose MNC to play on Justin.tv
Justin.tv
Justin.tv is a website created by Justin Kan, Emmett Shear, Michael Seibel and Kyle Vogt in 2007 that allows anyone to broadcast video online. Justin.tv user accounts are called "channels", and users are encouraged to broadcast a wide variety of user-generated live video content, called...
during its weekly Thursday Night Throwdown. After news of this reached the official Uber Entertainment Twitter account, Uber Entertainment creative director John Comes and developers Logan DeMelt and Bob Berry joined the stream. They offered advice to the four players competing in a match of Blitz, gave developer insight to making the game and distributed a few free copies of MNC.
The game was created by a team of sixteen developers, but began with six developers in a two bedroom apartment. For the first year of development the game was known under the code name of Hostile. During a presentation at Williams College
Williams College
Williams College is a private liberal arts college located in Williamstown, Massachusetts, United States. It was established in 1793 with funds from the estate of Ephraim Williams. Originally a men's college, Williams became co-educational in 1970. Fraternities were also phased out during this...
, developers Uber Entertainment revealed much of the game's development process. It began with whitebox testing in Epic Games
Epic Games
Epic Games, Inc., also known as Epic and formerly Epic MegaGames, is an American video game development company based in Cary, North Carolina. Its most recent success has been the Gears of War series of games, although it is also known for its Unreal Engine technology. It is the parent company of...
' Unreal Engine 3
Unreal Engine 3
Unreal Engine 3 is a computer game engine developed by Epic Games. It is the third generation of Unreal Engine, designed for DirectX 9/10/11 personal computers , the Xbox 360, the PlayStation 3, the PlayStation Vita, the Wii U, Android and OpenGL-based operating systems such as iOS and Mac OS X...
to lay out basic gameplay, game flow, the game's over-the-shoulder camera, and more. Placeholder models and effects were then added to adjust the shader
Shader
In the field of computer graphics, a shader is a computer program that is used primarily to calculate rendering effects on graphics hardware with a high degree of flexibility...
system and to discover what assets can be shared amongst characters and classes. Arenas were then built with basic shapes to lock down scale and overall level flow. This would then serve as a base for the final level design.
In order to simplify and streamline development time, three base character skeletons were shared amongst the six character classes. Characters were modeled then multiple texture maps were applied. Specular and normal map
Normal mapping
In 3D computer graphics, normal mapping, or "Dot3 bump mapping", is a technique used for faking the lighting of bumps and dents. It is used to add details without using more polygons. A common use of this technique is to greatly enhance the appearance and details of a low polygon model by...
s were added to the model prior to the main texture map. The texture map was then added with any team-colorized sections painted in greyscale tones. A team color mask is then applied to give the character a team-aligned texture. Robot characters also have multiple texture maps to signify damage received. The music for the game was composed by Cris Velasco of Monarch Audio.
Monday Night Combat features an on the fly update system. Instead of the game being patched to correct issues, most game-wide variables are controlled on the server level, allowing Uber Entertainment to make tweaks to things such as character speed, weapon damage, match length and game difficulty. This allows for fine tuning without the need to download an additional patch for the game. MNC dynamic update system is hosted on Microsoft's Title Managed Storage. Title Managed Storage is an allocated space on Xbox Live servers for developers to use. Uber Entertainment placed a text document on the server which stores any values they want to be able to adjust dynamically. When a change needs to be made, the value is changed in the text file, and instantly the gameplay is tweaked.
On August 29, 2010 Uber Entertainment revealed via their official blog that a title update for the game was being tested. This update would fix gameplay bugs related to character classes, multiplayer, and general gameplay. They also revealed at that time plans for three downloadable content
Downloadable content
Downloadable content is official additional content for a video game distributed through the Internet. Downloadable content can be of several types, ranging from a single in-game outfit to an entirely new, extensive storyline, similarly to an expansion pack. As such, DLC may add new game modes,...
packages and further stated that the first of the three packages would be free to consumers. The blog post also revealed the figurine
Figurine
A figurine is a statuette that represents a human, deity or animal. Figurines may be realistic or iconic, depending on the skill and intention of the creator. The earliest were made of stone or clay...
statues available for purchase as part of the game's promotions. On October 13, 2010 a title update was released, which fixed multiple issues and made various gameplay tweaks.
The first downloadable content package, entitled Spunky Cola Special, was officially announced over a week long promotion in October 2010 known as the Monday Night Combat Halloween Unmasking. The free content consists of two new arenas, one devoted to Crossfire mode and the other to Blitz. Also included are several bug fixes and additional features. Spunky Cola Special was released December 1, 2010. In an interview, Chandana Ekanayake revealed that Uber found top ranking players playing Blitz for 6-8 hours without failing, something the game was not intended to do. According to Ekanayake, to accommodate those players the downloadable content also included "a tougher Super Sudden Death challenge as well as updated the round clocks to include four digits up to round 9999." Ekanayake further stated that Uber would be focusing on additional content and updates for Monday Night Combat players.
Reception
Monday Night Combat was well received by critics, averaging 79.24% at GameRankings and 79 out of 100 at MetacriticMetacritic
Metacritic.com is a website that collates reviews of music albums, games, movies, TV shows and DVDs. For each product, a numerical score from each review is obtained and the total is averaged. An excerpt of each review is provided along with a hyperlink to the source. Three colour codes of Green,...
, two video game aggregate
Aggregate data
In statistics, aggregate data describes data combined from several measurements.In economics, aggregate data or data aggregates describes high-level data that is composed of a multitude or combination of other more individual data....
websites. Both sites report a majority review scores of 70% and higher. As of October 2010, Monday Night Combat has sold over 225,000 copies on Xbox Live Arcade. That number rose to over 293,000 at the close of 2010. Most reviewers agreed that the game was well worth the price of 1200 Microsoft Points. GamePro
GamePro
GamePro Media was a United States gaming media company publishing online and print content on the video game industry, video game hardware, and video game software developed for a video game console , a computer, and/or a mobile device . GamePro Media properties include GamePro magazine and...
called the game "equal parts wacky, polished, and just downright fun." Game Revolution
Game Revolution
Game Revolution or GR is a gaming website created in 1996. Based in Berkeley, California, the site includes reviews, previews, a gaming download area, cheats, and a merchandise store, as well as webcomics, screenshots, and videos...
agreed, calling Monday Night Combat "so much unadulterated fun." Official Xbox Magazine
Official Xbox Magazine
Official Xbox Magazine is a monthly video game magazine which started in November 2001 around the launch of the original Xbox. A preview issue was released for E3 2001, with another preview issue for November 2001. The magazine is bundled with a disc that includes game demos, preview videos and...
called it a "great third-person shooter with Monday-night-football flair." It received Gamasutra
Gamasutra
Gamasutra is a website founded in 1997 for video game developers. It is owned and operated by UBM TechWeb , a division of United Business Media, and acts as the online sister publication to the print magazine Game Developer...
's award for Best Downloadable Console Game for 2010.
Game Revolution stated the gameplay was an improvement over Team Fortress 2
Team Fortress 2
Team Fortress 2 is a free-to-play team-based first-person shooter multiplayer video game developed by Valve Corporation. A sequel to the original mod Team Fortress based on the Quake engine, it was first released as part of the video game compilation The Orange Box on October 10, 2007 for Windows...
. GamePro also stated the Team Fortress 2 veterans "should definitely enjoy the very obvious similarities." Official Xbox Magazine felt that the game's six character classes were well balanced and that each class presented usefulness to players. PALGN
PALGN
The PAL Gaming Network is an Australian based video game news and reviews website that focuses on the videogame industry and culture in PAL territories, particularly Australia and the UK. It was launched in 2003 by a group of PAL forum members on the IGN message boards who were disenfranchised by...
praised the cartoon
Cartoon
A cartoon is a form of two-dimensional illustrated visual art. While the specific definition has changed over time, modern usage refers to a typically non-realistic or semi-realistic drawing or painting intended for satire, caricature, or humor, or to the artistic style of such works...
art style and over the top commentary by the game's announcer. They went on to call the MNC a "stylish, streamlined, expertly crafted third person shooter." IGN
IGN
IGN is an entertainment website that focuses on video games, films, music and other media. IGN's main website comprises several specialty sites or "channels", each occupying a subdomain and covering a specific area of entertainment...
noted the game's fun multiplayer modes, stating that both cooperative and versus modes are "good fun if you get a crew together."
Official Xbox Magazine criticized the fact that the game only comes equipped with two modes and four arenas. GamePro agreed, stating with a low number of robot types and very few maps that "the action will eventually lose some luster over time." IGN reviewer Daemon Hatfield expressed surprise and confusion in regards to attacking Bullseye, the Monday Night Mascot for cash, calling it "one of the most bizarre gaming events I've recently witnessed." Game Informer
Game Informer
Game Informer is an American-based monthly magazine featuring articles, news, strategy, and reviews of popular video games and associated consoles. It was formed in August 1991, when FuncoLand started publishing a six-page magazine, free in all its retail locations...
expressed similar thoughts, saying "this guy is so annoying that it's impossible not to smile while shooting him." Destructoid was critical of the character classes, calling them unbalanced. GameSpot
GameSpot
GameSpot is a video gaming website that provides news, reviews, previews, downloads, and other information. The site was launched in May 1, 1996 by Pete Deemer, Vince Broady and Jon Epstein. It was purchased by ZDNet, a brand which was later purchased by CNET Networks. CBS Interactive, which...
was critical of the game's announcer, stating that they found the commentary annoying. They also went on to criticize the limited tutorial, stating it leaves the player "to read up [in the] How to Play section of the pause menu."
The Spunky Cola Special downloadable content was generally well received. Griffin McElroy of Joystiq
Joystiq
Joystiq is a video gaming blog founded in June 2004 that has since become one of the most successful sites within the Weblogs, Inc. family of weblogs. It is the centerpiece of WIN's own network of video gaming blogs, which also includes a blog dealing specifically with the popular MMORPG World of...
praised the fact that the content was released free of charge. Destructoid
Destructoid
Destructoid is an independent video game-focused blog based in San Francisco, California that was founded in March 2006. It has since grown into one of the most widely read video game sites on the Internet, reaching more than 3 million unique visitors per month...
's Jordan Devore agreed, and stated it was a "smart move for a game that shouldn't segregate its audience." The reviewer from XBLAfans praised the amount of content given in Spunky Cola Special. The reviewer called the new arenas "relentless" and "fast paced". Also praised were the addition of churros as a powerup, the additional voice lines for the game's announcer, and the 47 additional protags; markings to indicate a player's clan
Clan (computer gaming)
In computer and video gaming, a clan or guild is an organised group of players that regularly play together in a particular multiplayer games. These games range from groups of a few friends to 1000-person organizations, with a broad range of structures, goals and members. The lifespan of a clan...
or affiliation.