I have decided to re-do my old review of Super Monday Night Combat. The first one was not long after the game released and was only a sentence of praise, which at the time I felt was sufficient for the zero people that would read it. I suppose at this point, years on, that I can talk about what SMNC once was and what happened to it. This will be more informative rather than any sort of recommendation (or non-recommendation), but I will say up front that no matter how good this game was, it isn’t really populated enough today for much fun.Super Monday Night Combat is a sequel to one of the first attempts to shake up the standard MOBA scene. Monday Night Combat released in 2010 on Xbox 360 and some months later on PC in early 2011. I ended up receiving it as a prize from a website and quickly fell in love with the entire concept. The flow of pushing lanes in third person with these larger-than-life characters using their crazy abilities with the premise of a futuristic amped up sporting event made for a unique starting point. Quality gameplay that relied a good bit on skill and a handful of strategy backed that up well. The dialogue both from the characters and the announcer and the bright colors and elaborate design of every arena made each match feel like you were watching a crazy combination of the NFL and professional wrestling (XFL comparisons excused). The exceptional game had a moderate following, but never really became the hit I think a lot of the playerbase believed it should be.Some time went by and I moved on to new games with bigger and more populated games, all the while wanting more MNC. Then late in 2011, I caught wind of a closed beta for SUPER Monday Night Combat. I signed up as fast as I could and no long after I was locked in to more of that MNC goodness, but with some interesting twists. I spent hundreds of hours in the beta, giving feedback and reporting bugs while simultaneously having a wonderful time. They added new heroes to the game and old ones were improved. The gameplay shifted more to the MOBA side of things, making players last longer in combat while also bringing more of an importance to pushing lanes and bots rather than just taking out players. Maps became larger and more complex and effective strategies and tactics became more important if you wanted to win. You couldn’t just get by being a good shot or having solid reaction time, you also had to worry about placement, momentum, and effectively spending your money on bots and upgrades rather than just dumping it in whatever seemed decent.However, as the game progressed into 2012, issues started to come up. The first one that caught many people by surprise is that the developers started selling cosmetics in the beta. Looking back on it, it’s not so egregious considering today’s nearly ubiquitous “pay now, play later” environment, but at the time it seemed like desperation and a negative way to fund development. This was before crowdfunding had really started up. On top of that, new players saw veterans with cosmetics (both before and after launch) and assumed that their skill was associated with these purchased items. Even though skill and game knowledge made it very easy for veterans to dominate new players. This created a very limited playerbase even in the closed beta. Keys started going out more and more, but players wouldn’t stick around. Snowballing was just as much a real thing in SMNC as it was in any other MOBA. The game desperately needed matchmaking. However as this was being developed, a closed beta key somehow came in to existence that could be reused infinitely. With little warning, an announcement was made in April that the game is going to be released because the news of the free key had people joining by the thousands with little information on how to play or what the game was about. With no real launch buildup or advertising, no functional matchmaking, and next to no real training mode for new players, the game went live.Development continued, but as new players poured in, they would be thrust in to matches with veterans decked out with both the cosmetics they paid for from beta and all of the endorsements and products (minor stat tweaks and buffs) that were earned over time. Given that veteran players would already beat new players without any endorsements of products, having them from the start meant it was even more of a slaughter. The consensus was that resetting these would have been the correct choice even if it upset veteran players. Eventually, some rough matchmaking was implemented, a new tutorial area with more beginner information and unlimited practice also came along, and a couple of new heroes shook things up. About a month after release, Uber introduced the Turbocross game mode. It was a welcome addition for some, mainly those nostalgic for the original MNC’s gameplay, but for others it seemed regressive and lacked balance. What did ultimately come from it though was splitting an already small playerbase. Matchmaking had finally come making the original game mode, Supercross, more appealing to play from both ends of the skill spectrum, but for the top end players queue times became intolerable. Now the split playerbase had both new and old players leaving.The final nail in the coffin for Super Monday Night Combat came mid-August of 2012. The start of the Kickstarter for Planetary Annihilation was the end of any significant support for SMNC. Uber Entertainment stated that the game would still be supported, but few updates came after the success of PA’s Kickstarter. The game slowly withered away, with the last update releasing March 13, 2013. Not even a full year after the initial release date. Uber Entertainment went on to release PA, first into Early Access, and then fully on September 5, 2014. It received some mediocre to poor reviews, but development continued. Despite this, Uber started another Kickstarter on October 2 for a new RTS called Human Resources. While the concept appealed to many, the poor realization of previous titles prevented it from hitting its funding goals and it was cancelled within weeks. Uber entertainment suffered some layoffs, but moved forward releasing a well-received standalone expansion to Planetary Annihilation called “Planetary Annihilation: Titans,” perhaps borrowing some elements from Human Resources. Uber has also completed some games featured on Playstation VR including Wayward Sky and the soon-to-be-released Dino Frontier.Super Monday Night Combat was a great game that had lofty aspirations but never got off the ground. A spectacular blend of action and strategy that could have been as big as or bigger than Smite, a more traditional third person MOBA, had it been launched and completed properly. One has to wonder if it was put together a year later when crowdfunding was taking off, could it have been completed properly and been the hit it deserved to be? I suppose we’ll never know that particular case, but one thing I know for sure, I’ll be ready if the day ever comes that Ultra Monday Night Combat is ready to go.Here is a great article on how Uber Entertainment was founded and how the originally got started with Monday Night Combat. Check it out here: https://www.polygon.com/features/2013/3/19/4094472/uber-hail-mary-monday-night-combat If you want to read more reviews and content, check out my curator page here: http://steamcommunity.com/groups/EndyoGaming#curation