I really enjoyed playing Monday Night Combat (MNC). I enjoyed playing it on the Xbox Live Arcade, and I enjoyed playing it on Steam. I have very fond memories of the game. When Super MNC was announced, I was excited; when I heard about all of the changes Uber was making, I was wary. I tepidly signed up for the beta anyways.

I didn’t enjoy Super MNC at first. After participating in the beta for 60 hours, everything suddenly clicked. I would later go on to play Super MNC for over 200 hours; I actually played Super MNC more than I played MNC. In fact, Super MNC is my third most-played game of all time, with World of Warcraft and Halo 2 coming in at first and second, respectively. There were typically over 1,500 players online in Super MNC at a time, with peaks of 2,500 players, putting it among the top 50 games played on Steam.

I haven’t touched Super MNC since May, and having 200 players at peak hours is a rarity these days. What happened? I can’t speak for the thousands of players who have moved on, but I can tell you why I stopped.

Uber Entertainment rolled out Super Blitz mode for Super MNC. I love it. It’s fast, frantic, and chaotic fun. I never really cared for Blitz mode in Monday Night Combat because it was too slow and too easy. Super Blitz mode fixes those issues, and adds a bunch of new stuff.

For the uninformed, Blitz pits Pros versus Bots. Bots will come out and march down a lane toward your Moneyball, and your team has to defeat them. As defeat the bots, more bots and varieties of bots come out from additional lanes. The game ends when your Moneyball is destroyed, which is inevitable. On average, matches will run for 18 minutes.

Being a fan of new stuff and trying new things, these are my notes for players unsure about playing Super Blitz. (Hint: just play it, you’ll love it.)

Uber Entertainment recently rolled out a new Pro character, Artemis, for Super Monday Night Combat. She’s a mutated woman from the Outland who uses an energy-based bow and radioactive-themed debuffs. She’s a sharpshooter with a kit that makes her great for focus-firing with her teammates.

I don’t like it.

I’m not opposed to Uber adding more sharpshooters, per se. Before Artemis, the only sharpshooters were the Gunslinger and the Sniper; sharpshooters were the last role to have only two playable characters. Enforcers have Cheston, the Veteran, the Gunner, and the tank. Strikers have Megabeth, Karl, and the Assault. Defenders have Leo, Combat Girl, and the Support. Commandos have Wascot, Captain Spark, and the Assassin. More variety and parity is a good thing.

So what’s not to like about a new Pro? Much, actually.

In Monday Night Combat, I often played Tank and Assassin.¹  I was pretty good.  Not the best player, but I was definitely above average.  MNC was a lot of fun because it was fast-paced and action was spread across the entire map—which in turn meant I used the entirety of the map when I played.

Then I started playing Super MNC in November, and I found it to be lacking.  It was slow, action was always too far away, and very little of the map matters.  In fact, I’ll go as far to say that SMNC is the worst game ever.  It’s certainly worse than MNC.