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Kongregate adds downloadable, free games to browser-based roster
Kongregate now hosts downloadable, free games, as well as its standard fare of browser-based titles. The first three downloadable games on Kongregate are Super Monday Night Combat, Bomb Buddies and Smashmuck Champions, all available right now.Kongregate will drop more downloadable games in the "coming weeks," and they are all integrated into existing social services. Players must sign into Kongregate to launch the games, and each one now available earns players 10 points."Our players are looking for increasingly sophisticated games," says Jim Greer, Kongregate CEO and co-founder. "Adding downloadable titles brings a new level of gaming to hardcore players looking for high-definition graphics with more options and content to select from."What previously set Kongregate apart from digital distributors is its focus on in-browser entertainment. Now it's inching closer to Steam territory, but still has its own flair in offering only free games for download. It's kind of like a tomcat slowly slinking into another's alleyway, and now we just wait for the hissing to begin.
The rules have changed: Wrapping up Super Monday Night Combat
As free-to-play games are constantly changing, traditional reviews can't really do them justice, so Joystiq relies on a series of unscored review diaries to record our experiences with them. Today brings part three of our Super Monday Night Combat diaries. Read parts one, two and three if you haven't! Monday Night Combat fused class-driven warfare with tower defense in 2010, heavily focusing on frenetic, fast-paced combat. While Uber Entertainment meant for the game to favor teamwork, the mechanics and character balance allowed players to eschew teamwork for lone-wolf play. Monday Night Combat was still a fun endeavor, but Super Monday Night Combat and it's methodical, team-oriented gameplay is what Uber Entertainment meant to unleash the first time around.To quickly recap, Super Monday Night Combat has teams of pros escorting A.I. bots to the enemy "Moneyball." The first to destroy the opposing Moneyball wins. It sounds simple, but players have to watch out for giant chickens, murderous mascots, and weather controlling blimps, all while defending turrets from relentless bot waves. While MNC nailed the campy, satirical tone – with its characters poking fun at consumerism and the spectacle of sports – SMNC improves on this by adding more original character classes. In addition to archetypical classes like "assault," essentially the traditional soldier class, we also have zany choices like Leo – as in the actual Leonardo Da Vinci.These classes are not only better balanced, but designed to fulfill specific roles, such as the position-holding defenders and the player-harassing commandos. These roles work with the overall design mandate of the game, which encourages players to work together and focus on the objective.%Gallery-132035%
Amazon announces Game Connect, new free-to-play game service
Amazon is launching a new games service titled Game Connect, not to be confused with its GameCircle service for Kindle Fire. Game Connect has been introduced with the express purpose of helping its users "discover a new category of free-to-play and MMO digital games." Existing Amazon users can link their Game Connect account to unlock rewards, a list of which can be found over here.The first handful of games included in Amazon's Game Connect service launch are Battlestar Galactica, World of Tanks, Pandora Saga, Stronghold Kingdoms and Super Monday Night Combat. More games will presumably be added as the service grows and develops.
The rules have changed: Paying for Super Monday Night Combat
As free-to-play games are constantly changing, traditional reviews can't really do them justice, so Joystiq relies on a series of unscored review diaries to record our experiences with them. Today brings part three of our Super Monday Night Combat diaries. Read part one and part two if you haven't! With free-to-play games, the big question always boils down to, "How free is it, really?" Super Monday Night Combat is no exception. Fortunately, the folks at Uber Entertainment engineered Super Monday Night Combat so that players don't have to drop any money. To date, after over 100 hours of playtime, I've spent around 8 or 9 dollars – and they were completely unnecessary expenditures.%Gallery-160114%
The rules have changed: Classes in Super Monday Night Combat
As free-to-play games are constantly changing, traditional reviews can't really do them justice, so Joystiq relies on a series of unscored review diaries to record our experiences with them. Today brings part two of our Super Monday Night Combat diaries. Read part one if you haven't! The key to winning in Super Monday Night Combat – aside from teamwork – is to play to your character's strengths. While customization options such as endorsement slots and products help tailor characters to different styles of play, each character is still married to overt roles.The game features five types of classes: commandos, strikers, enforcers, defenders, and sharpshooters. Trying out each of the class types to find what you work best with is highly recommended. Here's a short primer on each of the class types, as showcased through my favorite character in each category.%Gallery-132035%
Steam Trading comes to Super Monday Night Combat, hats and costumes in tow
If you were home schooled through Kindergarten, or grew up as a single child, the concept of sharing may be foreign and difficult to understand, but allow us to break it down for you: By giving someone something they want, there's a good chance you'll receive something you want in return, either immediately or down the road!It's a system that's worked well for millennia, and now it comes to Uber Entertainment's Super Monday Night Combat in the form of Steam Trading support, which allows Steam users to trade in-game items. To celebrate, two Super MNC hats ("Gunslinger Hat" and "Assassin Helmet") are now available in Team Fortress 2, earned by achieving levels five and 20 (respectively) in Super MNC. Conversely, TF2 costumes have been added to Super MNC: An Engineer's uniform for CombatGirl and a Soldier uniform (plus rocket launcher skin!) for Megabeth, unlocked at levels 10 and 15.
The rules have changed: Suiting up for Super Monday Night Combat
As free-to-play games are constantly changing, traditional reviews can't really do them justice, so Joystiq relies on a series of unscored review diaries to record our experiences with them. Today brings part one of our Super Monday Night Combat diaries. In the future, the American dream is a crowd cheering a brutal battle for cash, prizes, corporate endorsements and bacon. Can't have the American Dream without bacon, after all. At least, this is the world Uber Entertainment has created in Super Monday Night Combat, the follow-up to 2010's (regular) Monday Night Combat. The premise is still the same: Opposing teams of 'pros' must escort regularly spawning A.I. bots to the enemy Moneyball, first team to destroy the enemy Moneyball wins. Bots are the only thing that can take a Moneyball down, but they have to survive through a staunch line of turrets, vicious arena bots and of course, several classes of aggressive (and perhaps insane) opposing players.These classes all have special skills and abilities specific to their role, from the whimsical, Italian support class who can heal and place defensive turrets, to a giant gorilla in a pinstripe suit that can hurl flaming barrels. There's a mascot that can be beaten, shot and otherwise maimed for power-ups, announcers trying to sell products to the audience, and a weather-controlling blimp that can turn the tide of an entire match for the right price. All typical sport stuff, really.%Gallery-132035%
Super Monday Night Combat dev explains premature distribution, future updates
Super Monday Night Combat developer Uber Entertainment has been working long hours the past couple of weeks, ever since the premature distribution of its free-to-play MOBA. With a small break in the madness, we finally got Super MNC Executive Producer and Art Director Chandana "Eka" Ekanayake to answer a few of our questions about how the early launch happened, and what's next for the game."The reason for the early launch was because we messed up on beta invites to a large pool of original Monday Night Combat players. To test out our server infrastructure, we wanted to send out a massive invite wave to players of MNC on PC. Players received a notice saying that they were accepted into the beta but actually weren't," Eka told Joystiq over the weekend. "So, instead of making players of our first game happy, we managed to deliver something that wasn't there and made them feel like they were lead on. We tried fixing it, but it just lead to more confusion, so working with Valve we decided to set the game open. It wasn't an accidental leak by any means but it was a result of us trying to make things right with our player base."Eka didn't share raw numbers on how many players have signed up for Super MNC since launch, but says the studio is "happy" with the turnout, especially since they didn't have any lead time to market the game. He feels many folks don't realize the game is out ... or that it's free. Asked if any of the marketing plans for the game were disrupted by the early launch, he matter-of-factly stated, "Yes, all of them."%Gallery-132035%
Super Monday Night Combat accidentally hits Steam, dev rolls with it
Super Monday Night Combat is live and free to play on Steam right now, even though it's technically still supposed to be in beta. The launch came as a surprise to developer Uber Entertainment, but it's decided to embrace the release, and Super Monday Night Combat is now a thing that you can play. Uber Entertainment's Ekanaut explains what happened on the official forums:"We did a bunch of invites over the weekend and there was some wonkiness on how the messaging went out with lots of confusion which resulted in more silliness. We decided to just open it up. There will be an announcement about it on Steam soon."Wonkiness leads to confusion; confusion leads to silliness; silliness is the path to a speedy Steam release. So, surprise! Go play some Super Monday Night Combat, because you totally can.
Super Monday Night Combat trailer covers the sport's evolution
Super Monday Night Combat, a hybrid of shooters and the MOBA genre, is going for a far more strategic and methodical experience than the run-and-gun of its non-super predecessor. We will have a preview of our experience with the new title soon, so check out this overview of how the sport is changing in the meantime.
Super Monday Night Combat introduces 'Karl,' a new Pro
Uber Entertainment recently showed Shacknews one of the new Pros that will be thrown into the mix in its upcoming free-to-play shooter, Super Monday Night Combat: The dreaded Karl. He's a monocle-toting mechanical man who resembles the Assault archetype from the first game -- a jack-of-all-trades; especially when those trades require him to see really, really well out of one of his eyes. He's also a decommissioned reconiassance cyborg created by oblivious upper-class engineers, as well as a downtrodden divorcee, having recently split from fictional supermodel Jazelle Pivovarova. We now know and care more about Karl than most of our immediate family members. Sorry, guys, maybe if you all had endearing back stories and even-more-endearing eyepieces.
Uber Entertainment explains Super Monday Night Combat's lessened lethality
Later this year or early next year, Uber Entertainment's going to try and thread a fairly dangerous needle. The studio, which saw success with its very first product, the XBLA and PC shooter Monday Night Combat, is trying to branch the franchise out into the increasingly populated free-to-play space. To do so successfully, it'll need to maintain its community's good will with some substantial -- but not too substantial -- changes. "Super Monday Night Combat is going to be the same basic world," Uber Entertainment creative director John Comes explained to us at PAX last week. "We still have the same kind of lightheartedness, with the announcer and the mascot -- that same happy, fast, punchy game." The development team won't leave the formula entirely untouched, however. "Some of the balance has changed," Comes added. "Mainly, the lethality has been lowered a bit, which we've found makes for more frantic fights."%Gallery-132035%
Super Monday Night Combat prepares for freemium fight
Super Monday Night Combat, launching sometime on PC in the "next several months," is a freemium pseudo-sequel to Uber Entertainment's class-based shooter. Speaking with Kotaku, Uber says that the gameplay will essentially remain the same, with teams escorting their robotic minions to destroy the Moneyball for cash and glory. Super MNC will wander off the established expectations of the first game with all-new levels that don't resemble futuristic arenas, and avoid the propensity for one-hit kills found in the original. "People tend to live a little bit longer [in the new game.] There's a lot more tactical battles, so the gameplay is a little bit more intense," said Creative Director John Comes. The company is also shifting the way turrets and bots operate to encourage more teamwork. The original Monday Night Combat was a fantastic game that suffered from a severe case of launch hiccups on XBLA, but eventually found its footing as a PC title. A freemium version of MNC sounds like a great idea, especially if Uber supports it with the type of solid updates and robust systems we've seen it deliver to the original version.
