Video Game / Monday Night Combat

The Pit Girl, finishing up a day's work before she goes to her night job at the local Hooters.

"Welcome to Monday Night Combat. For those of you about to die for our entertainment, we salute you."

—Mickey Cantor

Monday Night Combat, developed by Kirkland, WA based Uber Entertainment is a Third-Person Hero Shooter released on Xbox LIVE Arcade during the second annual "Summer of Arcade;" it was later released on PC via Steam. Taking place 20 Minutes into the Future MNC revolves around a futuristic Blood Sport of Clones versus Bots with the same popularity, syndication, marketing potential and overblown spectacle of the NFL.

MNC's gameplay itself is a sort of blend of Team Fortress 2's class-based system, traditional Tower Defense games and DOTA's "hero versus hordes of enemies to destroy an objective" gameplay. The six classes (The Assault, The Support, The Gunner, The Assassin, The Tank and The Sniper) all have their own distinct play-style with unique abilities and equipment with each one filling a particular role during a match. Really, there just aren't any other games like it.

The first wave of DLC was released on December 1st, 2010, adding a new map for Crossfire, a new map for Blitz, a new mode for Blitz, more private match options, more protags, more intros and loading screens, the option to reset your level to get a new icon, and churros. Unfortunately, the developers dropped support for the game, and later shut the game down permanently in response to Europe's new data privacy laws making the game too expensive to be compliant.

A PC version was released on January 24th, 2011, and wouldn't you know it? There were tie-in aesthetic items for both MNC and Team Fortress 2!

All matches in MNC revolve around one thing: the Moneyball, a large, shielded metal orb that the players have to protect from damage at all costs. In its normal form the Moneyball is impervious to all damage, but Bots have the ability to take out its shield and make it vulnerable by exploding on it(or just shoot it in the case of Jackbots). In order to protect it the players have to fend off the enemy by defending their base with a variety of turrets (built from turret "nubs" around the base) and other traps and obstacles. If a team fails to protect their Moneyball it will explode into a shower of coins, signaling their defeat and the end of the match.

The two basic gametypes are:

• Blitz, a cooperative mode that can be played either solo or with up to four players where the goal is to protect the Moneyball from swarms of Bots for a set number of waves. There are six different modes of Blitz; Exhibition, Season, Playoff, The Scramble, Sudden Death and Super Sudden Death, with each one having progressively more waves and enemies per wave as well as a noticeable rise in difficulty in terms of a Bot's health and damage-dealing ability. Sudden Death and Super Sudden Death have no end; they are basically endurance/survival modes.
• Crossfire, a competitive mode between two teams of six where each team controls one side of an identical base and must both protect their own Moneyball while escorting Bots to the enemy base so they can destroy the enemy's Moneyball. In this mode, along with the usual turrets, players can purchase Bots to send and attack the enemy team (with each class being able to purchase a different type of Bot). The first team to destroy the enemy's Moneyball wins, and failing that the match goes into a two-minute Overtime where both Moneyballs become vulnerable and all players get a boost to all their stats.

A sequel, called "Super Monday Night Combat", was released April 18th, 2012. It featured new classes, added new ones at semi-regular intervals, and had more of a focus on the strategy and leveling of Dota than MNC. It was free-to-play, with optional things such as cosmetics that you could pay for. Super MNC had an extended beta period, at first as a closed alpha available to MNC's top players, eventually becoming an Invitational (Read: Closed-beta). To coincide with the integration of Steam Trading new Team Fortress 2 items were released and were tied to achievements rather than pre-order.

Super Monday Night Combat had three gamemodes:

• Super Crossfire: SMNC's replacement for Crossfire mode. The influence from Dota is much heavier, with reduced lethality, skill upgrades being based on traditional levels rather than straight up income, non-rebuildable turrets, and generally a more strategy-based game-type. But the basic goal remains the same: Push your bots to the enemy Moneyball to get its shields down, dealing with the turrets and enemy Pros that stand in your way.
• Turbo-Cross: A much faster-paced game mode than Super Crossfire that plays more like the original MNC. Turrets are rebuildable, Pros and bots hit harder and move faster, Juice gives you full health upon activation, and all of MNC's turrets are available for building. The trailer can be viewed here.
• Super Blitz: It's the players versus GG Stack, who takes great joy in making you suffer. The only setting available at the moment is Infinite Rounds, with bot waves becoming larger and stronger as time goes on. The current Blitz map has two floors and every hazard in the game available for use. You can also purchase through money and Combat Credits special items called Blitz Weapons, which are only available in Blitz, that have better stats. Also available for purchase through money or CC are Blitz tokens, which can be spent in Blitz to heal your turrets or some Moneyball health.

There was also a "Training Camp", a playground in which new players could mess around, get a feel for Pros, and hit various buttons on the map to be given information on specific mechanics of the game and what role they play (In regards to Super Crossfire).

Super Monday Night Combat received its last update on March 15, 2013. Like Monday Night Combat, it was shut down in May 2018 due to the development costs of becoming compliant with Europe's new privacy laws far outweighing the money that the game was bringing in.

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This game provides examples of:

• Affectionate Parody: The same basic "Spectator Blood Sport" premise of Unreal Tournament if it was run by the NFL if the XFL had survived and managed to buy out the NFL.
• Airborne Mook: Buzzers.
• And That's Terrible:
  Mickey Cantor: If you've got a few hundred in cash, the Annihilator's available, wink wink, huh? Sounds like my personal relationships... sadly.
• Armor Is Useless: The Blitz uniforms give every pro extra safety gear, but don't impact damage taken at all.
• Ascended Meme: In SMNC, the Assassin gained the "Leap" ability, which propels her into the air and features the visual effect of a puff of smoke underneath her. Fans deemed this the "magic fart", which has since been referenced by GG Stack and one of the Flair items.
  • A lot of class-specific comments made by GG play on similar Ascended Meme's or at least Catchphrases.
  • Ever since he was introduced, fans compared Leo to Batman due to his glider wings — Leonardo da Vinci's sketches of a flying machine with bat-like wings inspired one of Bob Kane's earliest Batman concepts. Leo's "the Talon" uniform features him dressed as a bird-themed superhero, and shares that theme and name with one of the newest Batman villains.
• Baby Factory: GG Stack mentions the "Dame Of The Game" prize: One "lucky" female audience member is selected at random, given a bouquet of flowers, and then shipped off to an offworld colony to help with repopulation.
• Black Comedy: The vast majority of the inklings of the world in the time of Monday Night Combat is humorous grimness.
• Blood Sport: One of the more lighthearted examples of this trope.
  • And there is actually no blood at all, the game being rated Teen by ESRB.
• Boom, Headshot!: Specialty of the Sniper (sometimes spoken by him) and invoked by name as a ProTag for making ten headshot kills in a match. Continued proudly with the Gunslinger in Super MNC, who is focused on getting as many headshots as fast as possible.
• Bottomless Pits: Every arena is suspended in the air, so if you get forced off, you die. The pit isn't bottomless, but the effect is still the same.
  • Averted for the most part in the tutorial, where a glass floor is installed around the training arena to catch any trainees sent flying.
• Bragging Rights Reward: Protags, which are small banner images earned by doing certain things in-game.
• Bread and Circuses: Judging by the Crapsack World noted below, this appears to be MNC's role in-universe.
• Bread, Eggs, Milk, Squick: The Assault's lineage and likes are... strange.
  Notable DNA: Riddick Bowe, Princess Diana, David Beckham, Benny Hill
  Likes: Gallery openings, Old Spice, Egyptian silk, VIP rooms, slapping bald men on the head
• Berserk Button: Don't ask the Assassin questions or joke about her being mute (or unwilling to speak. No one knows).
• The Cameo/Intercontinuity Crossover: In a moment of Lampshade Hanging, the PC release of MNC has Team Fortress 2 items and vice-versa. The TF2 items are from a Mann Co. Supply Crate opened by Juicebot^note  originally named Fruit Fucker (from Penny Arcade), justifiably changed with regards to its appearance in a T-rated game.
  • Juicebot may also appear alongside or replace Bullseye when the latter is scripted to spawn. Juicebot gives less money than Bullseye, but gives much more juice per strike as well as dropping juice boxes much more often.
  • Just in time for PAX East 2011, the Assassin can wear the Cardboard Tube Samurai's clothes which also turns the katana into the aforementioned cardboard tube complete with sounds of cardboard when it hits someone.
  • In Super Monday Night Combat, Combat Girl and Megabeth can unlock costumes that turn them into Rule 63 versions of the Engineer and the Soldier.
• Cast of Snowflakes: Just like that other game each of the six character classes has a distinct look, personality, and assortment of weapons and abilities.
  • Taken farther in Super MNC, which so far has more than doubled the character roster with completely unique characters.
• Character Customization/Competitive Balance: A peculiar mix. Once players earn enough money to unlock custom class slots^note Roughly three or four average Crossfire matches for an average player on the first class, but increasingly more. for the other five custom class slots with the final slot requiring $250,000., the customization is very well balanced; though some combinations are better than others. The customization is limited to the base class and three endorsements, one of each level. Roughly, gold endorsements are twice as good as not having them, silver endorsements are a 50% boost, and bronze endorsements are a 25% boost. And you can't stack two endorsements of the same type.
  • Taken in a somewhat more in-depth direction in Super MNC. You now have Endorsements and Products. Endorsements are still stat boosts, but are stacked into a set rather than chosen for static benefits. The more of a certain type of Endorsement you have in a set, the greater the benefit and also greater downsides if you stack many high-level Endos into one set. Products are essentially Perks, allowing up to three at once and giving some form of passive or active benefit at usually no downside (Such as teleporting you to spawn when near death).
• Cherry Tapping: Melee attacking (pressing the right stick) is so low in DPS that you get a protag for killing (or rather, finishing off) someone with it called "Humiliation". It does gives a reasonable amount of juice, though.
  • While melee attacks have been replaced with a non-lethal "High Five" function in Super MNC, the game still encourages "Tapping" in the form of shooting unshielded turrets and Moneyballs to keep them down for longer.
  • Many grapple attacks deal fairly little damage for the considerable risk taken by using them. However, the victim is also immobilized for the duration.
• Color-Coded Multiplayer: In Crossfire all of the pros, bots, turrets and the map itself will be colored either bright orange or bright blue depending on what team they belong to.

• Cosmetically Different Sides: The Hotshots are reddish-orange, and the Icemen are dark blue. Even the sides of the map they're on are functionally symmetrical.
• Crapsaccharine World: Aside from the rampantly capitalistic society, we learn that the world is run by a "President-for-life," a curfew is in effect (beginning 15 minutes after Monday Night Combat finishes), food is dispensed at designated food tubes, sports events have designated arenas for fans to fight in, Robots occasionally escape the arena and rampage nearby cities, spectators may be subject to a "population control lottery", and anyone caught breaking copyright laws (i.e. recording Monday Night Combat) has three whole generations of their family wiped out. Oh, and the average life expectancy is 28 years, but it's all fixed by the wonderful entertainment and pleasant reassurance provided by the trillionaire corporate overlords.
• Crippling Overspecialization:
  • The Support and Leo are noticeably vulnerable without other pros or bots around, making them popular targets for Commando pros.
  • On that note, Commandos (Assassin, Captain Spark, Wascot) will be torn to shreds in a straight-up fight, and will only succeed when fighting on their own terms.
• Critical Hit: Critical Hit Endorsements, Gunner Deploy level 2, Assault passive level 2 and 3 all give a chance for your attacks to do this, the Assassin Cloak level 3 notably causes all your attacks for a short time to critical hit.
  • Weapons basically achieve a higher damage cap with stronger critical endorsements, which also stack with upgraded skills, juice, and decloaking.
• The Danza: One of the announcers of Super Monday Night Combat, named GG Stack, is played by Uber Entertainment's Associate Producer... Greg Stackhouse.
• Death from Above: The high-flying shells of Gap Shots and Long Shot turrets as well as the Support's Airstrike skill which can call for a directed aerial bombing. Super MNC's Gun Mountain arena features the Shelly Cannons, massive guns that rain gigantic exploding shells on one side of the map when activated.
• Difficult, but Awesome: The Tank is extremely flexible, but his slow speed, slow health recovery, and the variety of skills required to master him are crazy.
• Do Not Try This at Home: A different version by the Announcer: "The violence you've seen here today was performed by trained professionals with a deep personal hatred for their opponents."
• Double Entendre: "Today's action is brought to you by GrenAde III sports drink! It's an explosion of flavor... in your mouth!"- Mickey Cantor.
• Dystopia: Implied with some of the announcer's lines, with a few references to 'assigned dwellings', 'government-mandated curfews', Mega Corps and food is dispensed from "governement-issued food tubes".
  • "Hey, I got a quick announcement to the parents seated in Section 331, Row 12. Your child's been found, safe and sound. However, we're keeping him."
  • "Hi, everybody. This is Mickey Cantor reminding all the fans in the upper deck to check their ticket stub against the results of our population control lottery after the game tonight. Hey, good luck, everybody. We hope we see you tomorrow."
• Easy Logistics: Pitgirl sure is fast at building turrets and bots. Or whatever it is she actually does down there.
• Elite Mooks: Jackbot XL.
  • Borders on Boss in Mook Clothing levels of strength in Blitz mode.
• Energy Weapon: Several of the Bots shoot some type of laser. Karl's main weapon is a rapid-fire laser gun called the Handler, Combat Girl's main nuke is the Combat Laser, Leo's Mona Laser shoots rainbow-colored lasers and so on.
• Every Bullet is a Tracer: It is arguably justified: would it be cooler for the audience to just watch stuff get shot, or watch the bullets blaze into them?
• Evil Laugh: Randomly, during Super Blitz, Mickey Cantor will start laughing evilly as a new round starts.
  "GO FORTH, MY MINIONS!"
• Fan Disservice: As demonstrated.
• Football Hooligans: Parodied. Fights between fans of the different teams are allowed as long as they take place in pre-designated areas.
  Mickey: Well, it looks like the Icemen are the winners! (beat) Which is bad news for their fans, who are outnumbered three to one by the Hotshots' combat hooligans waiting outside the arena, right now. (beat) Let's go live to that action.
• Genre-Busting: MNC is a multiplayer team-based, objective oriented game with gameplay being part tower defense, part third person shooter, and there's really nothing else like it on the market.
  • SMNC continues the trend, but is a little easier to pin down due to being a DOTA game that plays like a shooter rather than a shooter with DOTA elements.
• Girl on Girl Is Hot: One of the loading screens features the two Pit Girls chest-bumping for no reason other than for this trope and a bit of Twin Threesome Fantasy.
  • Also, the reasons listed for Megabeth's popularity are her fearlessness, her intensity, and her rumored make-out sessions with Pit Girl.
• Goomba Stomp: Using Slam in the air as the Gunner causes him to belly flop straight down. A Pro caught underneath gets "pancaked".
  • Sadly, the Gratuitous Italian Support has no capability for anything like this.
  • All players may fall onto enemies and do a very small amount of damage. It's unlikely, but possible to kill them this way. Naturally, the community nickname for this is indeed Goomba Stomp.
• Have a Nice Death: Some of Mickey Cantor's funniest lines come from when a Pro buys the farm at the hands of a bot, especially the weakling Slim Bot.
  Mickey: I imagine that Slim Bot was as surprised as anyone to score that kill.
  • GG and Chip are always quick to mock a player for accidentally killing themselves.
• Healing Factor/Walk It Off: If it can take damage, it heals if it's not damaged after awhile. It takes a LONG time for Jackbots or turrets to heal themselves, but once it kicks in they heal up fast.
  • Averted with the Moneyball in both games and everything besides Pros themselves (And Leo's Venice Defense) in Super MNC.
• Hitscan: All of the Pros's weapons aside from the Assault's Grenade Launcher, the Assassin's Shuriken Launcher and the Gunner's Mortar.
  • Super MNC introduced many more projectile weapons, including Veteran's Flying Falcons, Wascot's Coin Launcher, Captain Spark's Ray Gun/Voltage Spike alternate fire, Megabeth's Rocket Launcher, Karl's Bouncing Buddies and Leo's Balestra.
• Hold the Line: Blitz mode, where a team of up to four simply have to protect the Moneyball from an army of Bots for a set number of waves.
• Holiday Mode: Bullseye's even-more-repugnant recolor, seen in December.
• I'm a Humanitarian: Artemis is an immigrant from the French Outlands, which the game describes as having gone from "The Land of Human Rights" to the "Land of Human Recipes" and pushed gourmet cannibalism to new heights.
• I Need a Freaking Drink: One of Mickey Cantor's lines in Blitz, as the players keep smashing up his bots, is "Someone get me a drink..."
• Instant-Win Condition: No matter how many kills either side has on Crossfire, destroying the Moneyball ends the match. If neither Moneyball is hurt or has the same amount of damage at the end of the match, the team with the most money wins.
  • Revised in Super MNC. To end the game, the Moneyball has to be destroyed by the team itself, and Overtime only causes Jackbots to infinitely spawn to help with that.
• I Shall Taunt You: Played straight or averted, depending your foes's feeling on it. Taunting gives money as an incentive to be a jerk to the enemy team.
  • Especially if you have the audacity to taunt (a) just after killing an opponent or (b) while you're "Juiced up"; literal bonus points for both at once.
• It Runs on Nonsensoleum: Bacon boosts all your stats for a life and juice can turn you into a damage-dealing bullet-absorbing sponge for a short amount of time. "Bacon makes you better at everything, just like in real life."
  • Aside from clearly making references to performance-enhancing drugs by Juice sponsors on the website no one knows how Juice works. All that's known for sure is that you get more of it by drinking little Juice Boxes dropped by varying sources or dealing damage (Taking it in SMNC).
• The Juggernaut: The Jackbot XL, a massive, heavily armored damage dealer.
• Kamehamehadouken: Combat Girl's combat laser is fired out of nothing, and conjured by the hadouken motion.
• Kill and Replace: In-universe, one leading theory on Mickey Cantor's disappearance is that he killed the Pope and is assuming his role.
• Killer Robot: Your allies and enemies. Buy extra waves to fortify your lane and annoy your enemies who thought it was secure.
• Kill Streak: Some milder examples, kill streaks unlock protags and earn more money per kill; capping at $75 per kill(triple the base rate). Full list of examples(and protags associated with them) at the MNC Wiki.
• Large Ham: Every single announcer that's been the the series: Mickey Cantor as well as his replacements Chip Valvano and (to a lesser extent) GG Stacks. Applies big time to the placeholder announcer Super MNC had in its beta, voiced by the game's Creative Director Scathis, who made very sure you knew it was THIRTY SECONDS TO THE ANNIHILATOOOOR, as well as when there was a KILLSTREEEAK.
  • The Assault as well.
    After being overhealed: "Feeling GOOD!"
    After getting an assist: "They can't handle the full force of how awesome we are!"
    His Retro Gear Taunt: "Hey hey, ladies, never fear! Assault is here!"
  • And the Sniper.
    One Taunt: "All right! I got a plan and I need one more! Who wants to take a bullet for me?"
    The Other Taunt: "If speed and deadly accuracy had children, I'd be their favorite!"
    His Outlander Gear Taunt: "Sometimes I think I should nerf myself to make it fair!"
  • And now Captain Spark:
    "Must. Get. Their. Moneyball... BUT HOW?"
  • Justified for Cheston, a Shakespearian gorilla actor
  • Captain Spark
  • Invoked during the announcement of an Extreme or Uber killstreak in Super MNC, where GG can often be heard telling someone to crank the announcing speakers up just before making the call, for obvious dramatic purposes. Sure enough, it comes with echo and a power guitar riff.
• Last Stand: "Sudden Death" and Super Sudden Death gametypes in Blitz mode, which have a very high difficulty curve and an infinite number of waves. You can't win, but instead have to see how long you can last.^note  For reference to those that are curious, the difficulty curve ends at round 100 in regular and round 400 in Super Sudden Death. After that, it's all about how much time you have on your hands.
• Level Grinding: The Career protags start out being easily obtainable in each category, but they progressively require much more to unlock the later versions.
  • Superb example: a protag for killing 100,000 Buzzers.
  • Exaggerated in SMNC, with some Protags requiring 5000 wins or 30 days of play with a specific Pro.
• Luck-Based Mission: You get a protag after picking up bacon or a churro. It completely Randomly Drops, though churros are MUCH more likely to be dropped than bacon.
  • Most drops have been standardized in Super MNC, so you always get the same amount of stuff from killing the same kinds of bots, though Bullseye and Jackbots can still randomly drop Bacon.
• Made of Explodium: Turrets and Bots always explode after being killed, even if they were killed using a knife or elbow. Clearly, they were made that way to impress the audience.
• Major Injury Underreaction: Most classes take being set on fire rather calmly. Even dying doesn't get much out of them.
• Mana Burn: Scramblers cause this whenever you're near them ("Mana" in this case being your skill gauges).
• The Man Is Sticking It to the Man: The Assassin hates the rampant consumerism that has taken over the world. She, of course, was created to further promote consumerism.
• Mook Promotion: Blackjacks in Super MNC are spawned manually via special gates on both sides of the arena in Super MNC, rather than sent out with several Slimbots. Gremlins are now completely neutral bots that attack anyone who's in the area they're guarding.
• Money Grinding: Super MNC has this in the form of Combat Credits, which you need in order to purchase Endorsements, Products, and pros. But the game avoids pay to win status with some key features. Pros that are available for free rotate on a weekly basis allowing players to have a chance to play every pro at some point without buying them. Pros are also balanced enough to mean that just because someone bought a non-free pro doesn't mean they have a complete advantage. Stat boosters and Products cannot be purchased with money, meaning everyone has to work towards them at a similar rate. Finally, the game has a prize system that drops you any store item aside from Pros after a set amount of time playing matches, significantly reducing the grind when newer players find things such as Bacon-level Endorsements and the more expensive Products for free.
• The Neutral Zone: In SMNC the Jungles in the upper (Lower in Downtown Spunky's and Gun Mountain's cases) level of the arenas spawn neutral Gremlins, Blackjacks, and Bouncers which attack all players. There are also areas on both ends of the arenas that allow both teams to spawn Blackjacks and Bouncers.
• Old Media Are Evil: What is the first thing a clone of Leonardo da Vinci does? Get addicted to TV.
  • This is also why Chip Valvano, a huge legend of SMNC history, ended up retiring. He got caught up in a Meat the Meatsacks marathon and was simply not prepared.
• Our Slogan Is Terrible: Quite a lot of it, with as much parodical product placement there is.
  "Grenade-III Sports Drink! Is it really cheating if everyone is doing it?"
• Police State: Inferred by The Announcer, mentioning things like a government enforced curfew being in effect and a "President-For-Life".
• Power Perversion Potential: The bronze-level reload speed endorse Biono-Grip is said by the announcer: "Biono-Grip, the bionic exo-hand with a million and one programmable uses asks you to 'keep them professional'."
• Power-Up Food: Bacon raises a character's attributes past their maximum limit until the end of their current life, churros recover health and abilities.
• Prestige Class: Similarly to Call of Duty, except each additional "all-star" rank features an icon of a different bot. Starts out with the cute little Slim, ends with the mighty Jackbot XL.
• Punny Name: Jackbot XL. One dying drops over a dozen goodies, the game's help section even refers to it as a giant piñata.
  • Announcer Mickey Cantor also frequently refers to the loot potential of the Jackbot, referring to it as "a slot machine on steroids," "a walkin', talkin' piggybank o' pain," and the "pot o' gold" at the end of the rainbow.
• Ring Out: Invoked by name to refer to when a player is knocked off of the boundaries of the map.
• RPG Elements: Each character class has three active skills and a passive skill that can be leveled up twice by using money. With each level that skill lasts longer, regenerates faster, gives more base health and ammo, etc. The active abilities all have a lower cooldown faster with each level.
  • Taken even further in Super Monday Night Combat, where you get literal Skill Points to spend in 5 categories upon leveling as opposed to spending money. Each active skill has their own nodes, as well as the Passive skill being split into Offensive (Increases damage) and Defensive (Health and Speed) respectively. Each skill can be upgraded three times each.
• Rule 63: Unlockable uniforms in SMNC turn Combat Girl and Megabeth into Cosplay female versions of the Engineer and Soldier, respectively, from Team Fortress 2.
• Rule of Cool: Using a sniper rifle as a bat to knock somebody out of the park, knifing a giant robot to death, and bacon being a power up. The list goes on and on.
  • One of the loading screens is a blue-striped shotgun shell with Cool Shades high-fiving a sizzling strip of bacon. But this does not appear in the PC version.
• Rule of Fun: In MNC, Bacon and churros randomly drop. Bacon increases all your stats as if you had every endorsement at the gold level. Churros restore your health and instantly recharges your skills a good amount.
  • Probably shooting Bullseye as well. Few games expect you to shoot the mascot like crazy and he jokes about it in the process.
    Bullseye: "Hey, look at me! I just got shot!"
  • In SMNC, he's replaced by a giant chicken.
• Sarcasm Mode: The "Pro Tips" are reasonably helpful except when it tells you to "Never pet a burning dog" or when it mentions, "No shirt, no shoes, no cooking bacon."
  • Some of the advice given by the announcers also qualify, especially Chip's thoughts on avoiding Cheston's banana peels.
• Shrouded in Myth: Mickey Cantor's actions and whereabouts ever since his escape are largely unknown and subject to wild speculation, with some of the prevailing theories being that he secretly killed and replaced the Pope, dying in a brothel fire, or a combination of both.
• Sitcom: the Announcer lines after a match may mention a new comedy show called "Meet the Meatsacks", and talk about a new episode.
  • As of SMNC the show has gone on for more than 30 seasons with cameos from various Pros and being the reason Chip Valvano suddenly retired.
• Shout-Out
  • One of The Assault's taunts.
    Assault: Stand aside, I take large steps.
  • The Assault has genes from Benny Hill, and as a result, loves slapping bald people on the head, a running gag on the show.
  • The ProTag awarded for attaching a bomb to an enemy player is called Head Crab.
  • There is another ProTag titled "Over 9000", complete with a suggestive icon.
  • The GrenADEiii arena was previously used for America's Next Top Senator.
  • Chicky Cantor's entrance music is one to Ennio Morricone various western themes.
  • Considering the meatsacks refer to a human family in the "Meat the Meatsacks" show the announcer mentions, it's either a Shout-Out to HK-47 or Bender's terms for organic beings.
  • The Tank's armour seems similar to that of a Krogan, and the Gunner's armour resembles some forms of Juggernaut power armour. And yes, there is a common game engine tying all three together.
  • "Juice Bot". Like Bullseye, but he tends to drop more Juice than money. He sometimes appears instead of Bullseye and eventually explodes into giant orange slices and a spray of pulp instead of a blast of coins upon death.
    • The Assassin also has the option of looking like the Cardboard Tube Samurai.
  • Chickey Cantor is a nod to a fan of the game named Griffin, who gave the devs the opportunity to name one of his new chickens in exchange for a copy of MNC for a friend of his.
  • One of the Sniper's alternate costumes in SMNC resembles a combination of Solid Snake and Snake Plissken. The Sniper's Hippie uniform looks like John Lennon, and his default seems to be based on Jean Reno from The Professional.
  • This April Fools joke is a sendup of Smash TV.
  • The mustache flair items include ones based on the styles worn by Thompson and Thomson, Mario, and Lemmy Kilmister.
• Single-Issue Landlord: In "Meat the Meatsacks".
• Skill Gate Characters: The Gunner. Wipes the floor with inexperienced players easily, but thoroughly outmatched against skilled players by default. Arguably the Assassin as well, but she remains effective at clearing bots and hitting hazards fast.
  • At least until she was nerfed to the practical ground in Super MNC. Now she's mostly used for pubstomping, killing players out on their own, with little to no use against coordinated teams.
• Smash Mook: Bouncers.
• Spiritual Successor: To The Grid, another third-person arena shooter with NFL trappings, being televised and narrated by an insane announcer, and wacky weapons, albeit in arcades.
• Suicide Attack: All bots except for Jackbots do this to the Moneyball. In the case of Buzzers, this is their only method of attack at all.
• Super Mode: Juice fully heals your pro and give them team-coloured transparent armour around them while increasing their stats dramatically. You'd better hope your team has some while the enemy is using theirs. And that your Moneyball's shields are up.
  • Nerfed to a degree in Super MNC. Juice no longer fully heals you (Though a certain Product does let you gain some health back), and only gives you guaranteed critical hits, fast health regen and faster reload speed.
• Tongue on the Flagpole: Can't say whether someone dared him, but a loading screen has an Iceman Pit Girl trying to pull an Iceman Tank from a ShaveIce Turret due his tongue being stuck to it.
• Tower Defense: Defense turrets are built around the base at "turret nubs" in order to protect the Moneyball and help fend off waves of Bots.
  • Simplified in Super MNC. Now you have a set-in-stone line of turrets that get progressively stronger the farther down the lane you go, cannot be rebuilt and cannot be healed. The Turbo-Cross game mode, however, brings back turret building, upgrading and healing, and makes shields stay down forever once dropped.
• Trademark Favorite Food: For the game: "Mmmmmm, bacon..." They restore life and net you bonus points, so gobble 'em down.
  • Now with churros: "Oh, I'm salivating!"
• Tron Lines: Lights up every 5 seconds or so on your pro when they have enough juice to activate it. The normal Fridge Logic of it is justified because Monday Night Combat is a crowd pleasing professional sport, and Tron Lines do look cool.
  • See also Captain Spark's "Dark Laser Punk" and "Light Laser Punk" uniforms.
• Unflinching Walk: One of the prizes form Steam's Summer Camp Giveaway is a set of summer-themed Gear. The taunts all do this, with variations depending on the class.
  • Averted with the Sniper, who almost falls forward after the explosion.
• Unfortunate Names: In the game, there is a soda drink called... Spünky Cola. It is intentional.
  Mickey Cantor: "Spünky Cola! What's that smell? Seriously, what's that smell?"
• Updated Re-release: The PC version. Being released on Steam, it's always going to be updated well before the 360 version.
• Useless Useful Spell: Juice endorsements. Even the gold endorsement provides so little that meleeing a single Blackjack to death is better than wasting an endorsement slot on it. Worse yet, juice endorsements only affect the amount of juice you spawn with so if your team is doing well and you're not dying frequently the endorsement is literally having no effect. Juice endorsements were removed for SMNC, probably for this reason.
• Visual Pun: One of the taunts in Super MNC involves the character taking out a teabag and dipping it into a teacup. While doing squats.
• You Require More Vespene Gas: All purchases and upgrades are bought using money, which are earned by killing Pros and destroying Bots and Turrets. No money, no upgrades until you go out and murder somebody.
  • When you taunt it gives you some money. Taunting right after getting a kill or while Juiced up gives you a money bonus.
  • You're also encouraged to attack Bullseye or the Juice Bot by earning money for each hit. Attacking the enemy's exposed Money Ball also earns money for each hit.
  • All players receive $50 ($25 in Super MNC) every thirty seconds exactly, whether they're earning it or not.
• You ALL Look Familiar: Justified in that all the Pros are clones, so all the players of the same class are meant to look exactly the same.
  • Made even more explicit in that now, there is both an Icemen and a Hotshots Pit Girl in opening cinematic for Crossfire matches. Naturally, the only difference is the colour of their clothes.
• Your Mom: Hey, your mom called! She said to upgrade those skills!
  • Another line has him attest that she really did call, and wonders how she got his number.
  • In Super MNC, GG Stacks is confused as to why he's getting calls from all the Pros's mothers telling him to tell them to upgrade their skills.
• Zerg Rush: This becomes more and more frequent (and intense) a longer a Blitz match goes on.
  • Which gets subverted in Overtime in Crossfire when only Jackbots spawn. Which is double-subverted when the Pros start rushing the moneyball instead of waiting for the Jackbots to reach the opposing team's moneyball.
    • This is also an exploitable strategy for PLAYERS during Crossfire, seeing as they can spawn unique bots depending on class. Each class has their benefits. Assassins can spawn Gremlins, which come in groups of four and like to sneak on enemy Pros and swarm them to death. Hearing the distinctive sound of Assault-spawned Buzzers can make anyone run for cover. Gap Shot rushes from Supports rain so much artillery fire you will no longer be able to move for all the explosions. And few things can ruin your day like getting slammed to the ground and mauled by a Bouncer.

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