Channeling Team Fortress 2 and a bit of American Gladiators, Monday Night Combat is Uber Entertainment’s answer to the dull looking multiplayer shooters that dominate today’s gaming landscape. It has no interest in pretending to be anything other than the bright high-octane third-person multiplayer shooter it is; it’s bold, it’s colorful and it’s perfectly happy getting up in your face.

The most obvious difference between Monday Night Combat and its competition is its presentation. Borrowing part of its moniker from Monday Night Football, Combat utilizes the same sort of competitive over-the-top graphics to sell its ‘sport’ to the player. The only differences really being we’ve traded footballs, defensive tackles and linemen for money balls, robots and turrets.

At the Uber Entertainment booth there were twelve stations set up in a 6v6 formation; on one side were the Hotshots (Red), and on the other the Icemen (Blue). A spokesman for the game – and company – wandered the proceedings and sported the kind of laughable broadcast voice you’d expect from a washed-up sports telecaster. He greeted all of us new players and would occasionally chime in to call the game as it was happening.

When my round began I picked a Support class to start with, which was probably not the best idea to start out with. I was able to run around and blast the Icemen with my shotgun or switch to my support gun and heal friendly teammates and turrets. While I was running around – mostly clueless – I became aware of the constant flow of AI bots that spawned from both teams’ bases. At least in the game type that I participated in, the objective for each team was to gain access to the opponent’s base and destroy their money ball, thus making a lot of cash. To help this objective a constant stream of bots are created from each base that march directly towards the enemy’s money ball with the intention of disabling their shields.

Now most people aren’t terribly fond of bots in multiplayer shooters – myself included – but there are a couple of reasons that seem to make these ones work. The first reason being the bots give the matches an illusion of being larger than they actually are while keeping the game to its relatively intimate 6v6 set-up. The second being they create a constant force of pressure on each team, which helps balance the entire match, giving a weak team the added boost of a bit of offense while they find themselves overrun.

During my match I had the opportunity – during our slaughter – to try out the Gunner and Assassin classes as well. The Gunner is a lumbering fellow with a mini-gun who is best used to mow down large groups of enemy bots or weaken defensive emplacements with its long spray of fire. The Assassin on the other hand is a quick and agile class that is built for stealth and instant kills – neither of which I mastered. Along with those I sampled, Monday Night Combat also has a Sniper, Tank and Assault class, although the Tank wasn’t available in this demo build. In addition to the basic play style differences and weapons available to each class, everyone has a cache of Skills that can be purchased and upgraded mid-match. Despite my inability to do almost anything useful for my team, it was obvious these skills are invaluable to both one’s individual and overall team success.

Monday Night Combat looks poised to be an essential squad-based multiplayer TPS for the Xbox Live Arcade. So far it does everything right: it has a memorable art style, great presentation, solid gameplay, good class variety and its own original twists. As long as the final product arrives with a good variety of maps and game types, Monday Night Combat should become the team-based game of choice on XBLA.