The co-op mode is a wave based survival mode where players need to protect their money ball from the AI robots. The game will spawn these robots of various sizes and players need to work together to survive. There’s six different modes in co-op, all are nearly identical, save for the difficulty and the number of waves - the last having infinite waves. As the waves progress the sheer number of robots increase, and the on the screen count of these are incredibly impressive. We’re talking hundreds of guys you need to destroy and avoid - so there’s a definite strategy to turret placement and class selection.
Blitz is incredibly intense, but a blast to play. There were many a time we were screaming at each other for help, calling out locations because the next big robot spawned in, or making teammates aware that our money ball had a swarm of robots wailing on it trying to break it down. Co-Op is fully featured as well with drop-in/drop-out support and the really nice thing - it’ll scale to the number of players. Both of these features are very welcomed in a mode like Blitz where matches can last for extended periods of time.
Sadly co-op is only playable on one map, though the map itself has different configurations depending on the wave you are on. With Crossfire sporting at least a half dozen maps this was kind of a disappointment.
Overall the game really excels at its presentation - a light hearted, almost comedic, futuristic gameshow with over the top action and a strong focus on winning big money. Outside of these modes, that money can be used to purchase Pro Tags that you’ve earned from accomplishing certain tasks in the game. There’s 370 tags associated with milestones and awesome things you’ve done. Up to three of them are then applied to a custom class giving you the bonuses associated with them. For instance I ended up creating a custom Assault class that was able to regenerate health thanks to a Pro Tag I earned in co-op for surviving a certain number of waves.
There really is a lot to talk about when it comes to Monday Night Combat, and believe it or not, I didn’t get to mention everything here. There’s still player endorsements, the Monday Night Combat Mascot, persistent stats, bacon and more to deal with. While MNC isn’t perfect, there's some issues with lag and performance, Uber Entertainment seems to be on the money ball with updates and tweaks. They’ve already announced that they can play balance on the fly without patching the game, and from playing with the developers it sounds like they are really interested in listening to community feedback. There’s an incredible amount of depth here with plenty for both co-op and competitive multiplayer fans alike.
Verdict
Co-Op Score
Overall
The Co-Op Experience: Team up in Blitz mode where you must defend your money ball against waves of AI enemies. Money earned from destroying the robots can be used to upgrade your character during combat or building different turrets around the base. Players can team up two on a box and play online for four players total.
Co-Optimus game reviews focus on the cooperative experience of a game, our final score graphic represents this experience along with an average score for the game overall. For an explanation of our scores please check our Review Score Explanation Guide.