What else is there to do on Monday Night?

Hello world. It has definately been a while hasn't it? Well either way I'm finally back with a review for one of Microsoft's big arcade games, Monday Night Combat. The game takes heavy influence from Team Fortress 2, in that all the characters are very cartoony, based on stereotypes, and that it has a very well balanced and creative class system. The main mode of the game is called Blitz, where you and up to 3 other friends defend a giant "Moneyball" (how awesome would it be to have one of those?) from waves of robots, setting up four different kinds of turrets to help you along the way. There are four difficulty settings, but there isn't a good balance with them though, as Exhibition (10 rounds minimal resistance) is very easy while Season (20 rounds, medium difficulty), which is the next up in the difficulty chart, will kick you back to your momma until you've got a solid team working with you. But once you do, the game is immensely addicting and fun to play. Assault, Gunner, Tank, Support, Sniper and Assassin round out the classes, and they all benefit the team in unique ways, as each class has three skills unique to them. These skills can be upgraded as the Assault is a generic soldier, who has a particularly effective Dash move. The Sniper is what you would expect with a nice melee move where he turns his gun into a bomb, Gunner is a lumbering brute, Tank is built to defend with short range attacks, Assassin can cloak and has the coolest grapple move in the game, and Support can heal and also hack and deploy a turret of their own. Oh and he also has a wickedly cheesy Italian accent, so I went with him most of the time. Also, a custom class system can be unlocked, and it lets you choose three upgrades to the main class archetypes. It works well, and adds a small bit of the now standard Modern Warfare style leveling system. There is one other mode, but I didn't find it near as fun. It's called Crossfire, and two teams fight to destroy each others Moneyball with support from robots of their own. It works o.k, but the matches seemed much less organized and it wasn't as satisfying as the well put together tower defense concept behind Blitz. As I said before, the game's art style is ripped straight from Team Fortress 2, and it looks good most of the time, with cartoony visuals that stand out from most shooters. Also the robot designs are immensely generic, but there are a good variety for you to fend off. Monday Night Combat also has a mascot named Bullseye, who can take a ridiculous amount of bullets but gives out money and bacon. Yeah bacon, it essentially is a Superman button that upgrades everything. Wish my bacon could do that, cause then I could take on Superman and Captain Marvel without breaking a sweat. There is also Juice, which is essentially the same thing except you get it from killing enemies, but the trade off is that it is limited in time and power. Overall, Monday Night Combat is a satisfying buy, and you'll get a lot of value and fun out of your Monday Night sessions.
Final Score: 8.5 out of 10

-Smith

The most epic of epic adventures in the epic history of epic epicness (no not a Scott Pilgrim review)

Ok guys, so I just found out about one of the most awesome things ever in the history of video games. I can't believe I had never heard of this before, I mean its awesome. So as with any epic adventure it starts a long long time ago.....in 1982. Back then the Atari 2600 was the thing to own, it was the premiere gaming console on the market, so with Atari essentially owning the video game market in homes, they decided to hold a contest. But not just any contest, the greatest contest in the history of gaming. They decided to release a series of four games, titled Swordquest, and each game would be based around one of the four elements. The first was Earthworld, the second Fireworld, the third Waterworld, and the fourth was supposed to be Airworld. The point of each game was to find clues, and you found the clues by collecting and dropping numbers in certain rooms that were molded after mythological systems (the Zodiac signs, the Tree of Life, and the Chakra system). Each game came packaged with a comic book which was necessary to finding all the clues. Now here is where the contest part comes. The first 50 people to get all of the clues right for each game would be invited to Atari headquarters, where they would be challenged to an all new game. The first person to solve that would win a prize. These prizes are insane. The winner of Earthworld (who ended up being a guy named Steve Bell), won the "Talisman of Penultimate Truth". Just rolls off the tongue huh? anyway the Talisman was made of 18K solid gold and had 12 diamonds and every single one of the twelve birthstones of the Zodiac embedded in the front, and had a freaking sword made of white gold on the front. Holy cow! Like seriously, when have video games ever garnered a prize like that?! But that's only the first one. The winner of Fireworld (who ended up being a guy named Michael Rideout) won a "Chalice of Light". It was a huge goblet made of gold and platinum and was covered in citrines, diamonds, green jade, pearls, rubies, and sapphires. Oh and both of these prizes were valued at $25,000. Now after this it all went downhill. Now if you noticed this contest started in 1982, and we all know what happened in 1983, the entire video game industry crashed. Thank E.T for that one. Anyway Waterworld was made but the contest for that game never happened. The winner was supposed to receive a "Crown of Life" which was made of gold and studded with diamonds, aquamarines, green tourmalines (?!?), rubies and sapphires. Airworld was never even made but the prize exists. The prize was a "Philosopher's Stone", which was a huge ball of white jade in a case made of 18K gold with diamonds, emeralds, citrines, and rubies embedded in it. But it doesn't end there. The contest was supposed to have a final round, in which the winners of the previous four games would compete for a "Sword of Ultimate Sorcery", which was an actual sword with a 18K gold handle encrusted with jewels and a pure silver blade. The sword was valued for $50,000 dollars. Like is this contest awesome or what?! However, what became of the last three prizes that were never given out? They exist, they were on display at the contests that actually happened and we have pictures of them. But they were never given out, so who has them? Is that how Atari survived all these years without making any good games? Do they have a vault of secret jewel encrusted mythological swords and objects? Well the accepted theory is that the man who bought Atari in 1984, Jack Tramiel, has all both the crown, stone, and sword, and some people even say they've seen the sword in his living room. Either way, the fate of the prizes remains unknown, and the greatest treasure in video game history is lost for eternity.......

-Smith