Monaco: What's Yours is Mine

Retro-flavored gaming is all the rage now, as shown by the recent releases of FarCry 3: Blood Dragon?and the released PC version of Fez. Monaco: What's Yours is Mine follows suit with a 4-player co-op heist extravaganza. ?In this production by Pocketwatch Games, a ragtag group of criminals escapes from the French Riviera prison and goes on several heists: for money, documents, and, eventually, the chance to retire from the business once and for all.?

Thieving Pac-man Folk
In a top-down view, players control 8-bit characters and sneak past guards to acquire a certain goal. Each character's field of vision reveals a portion of the map and fills it with lurid colors. Most of the time, the uncovered part of the stages have basic blueprints with labeled rooms. White icons show? interactive elements, like doors, computers, and laser traps?all you have to do is hold the direction key toward the item, and a circle starts filling above their head, until the action completes.

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Monaco presents a refreshing, character-driven, no-nonsense, logical story. Need money in order to secure our exit? Rob a bank. Need documents to get out of the country? They have such at the Embassy. Each of the eight personalities has a chance to develop through dialogue. They don't have names, which is a good choice?just as in heist movies, you identify with characters based on their abilities.

Among the dynamic eight, there's the Locksmith, who can open things faster; the psychotic Cleaner, who can take out guards; the refined Gentleman, who can disguise himself; the Mole, who can make new paths through walls, and so on. Although some characters are much more useful in certain stages, all are surely useful in every level; at the same time, none of them are required to finish any level.?

The levels increase in complexity, introducing new obstacles and layering guards, dogs, and alarms thickly. The most delightful heists are multi-layered, densely packed with security heists that fittingly take place in a casino, an art museum, and a royal palace. Rather than one object, you may have to grab several crown jewels or masterpieces. Then it's time to make the escape, which typically requires you to book it back to the beginning of the map. With the Mole, however, you can always make your own, more direct, path. ?

Let's Go with this Plan until we Turn the Corner
When you're operating as part of a group, things can get out of hand quickly, and it's easy to get miffed at teammates who mess up your methodical, sneaky plan. You may run into situations where you're ready to escape, but there's that lagging teammate who needs to be rescued all the time. Playing solo is definitely harder, but you can go all out if you prefer an uncompromised, stealthy approach

Monaco becomes an orchestra of quick planning and reacting to spontaneous twists. A room might have two difficult to avoid laser alarms, but if you can get past the guard in the foyer, you can get in from the other side past those lasers, netting you a disguise that will make sneaking around patrols easier. The levels enable a fair level of creativity: it's not a puzzle game, but you can quickly plan out the perfect heist with friends. Your equippable items range from helpful gadgets to a few guns: It's possible to go in, guns-blazing (each person can carry one weapon), but your shots are limited. Start a fight, and the 1920s ragtime piano increases in tempo, becoming vivid and frenzied.

There's a lot of unique charm to Monaco, as it ties modern Ocean's Eleven-esque themes and refurbishes them through a black-and-white-era movie filter. The game's engine handles line of sight and approximation of sound perfectly. Columns block the vision and the arrays of visibility adjust dynamically, so if you see a guard whose facing you, he can see you too. Get in a vent, and although you can't see anything, you'll hear footsteps and the game will display footprints near you. The play between the gray, sketched map and the colorful tunnels of vision look impressive in action. The art direction, coupled with delicate and hyper piano segments by Austin Wintory (of Journey fame), fits the gameplay like a thief's glove.

Your Latest Vice
Monaco walks on a tightrope of being a realistic stealth game without encumbering the gameplay too much. It's a little silly that four grown people can perfectly conceal themselves in a single plant or a bush, sometimes not far from curious guards, but Monaco needs that in order to avoid being a painstaking, methodical game that would scare away a lot of fun co-op play. There's a strange satisfaction to fulfilling actions: maybe it's that snap of a lock, maybe it's the responsiveness of tight controls, but the game produces a satisfying feeling. Dread fills you as you wait for the round circle above your head to complete, getting away in the nick of time. Or maybe you set off the alarm, so you start to frantically grab the coins, shooting your way to the vans outside. It's a game that rewards delicate planning while throwing snags at you to make you improvise. It's unfortunate, though, that since the later levels are so dense with guards and civilians, sometimes the gameplay descends into a frantic series of grabbing a few coins, alerting tons of guards, hiding, and repeating that until all ?the loot is gone.

It's been a while since we've seen a stealthy heist game, and there's no 4-player co-op game like Monaco out there. For the low price of $14.99, it's just too good to pass up, as there's plenty of content. Monaco has the co-op formula down pat: it's easy to jump in, and complex enough to reel in long hours of sneaking and thieving. With plenty of French charm and a novel design that makes stealth work, Monaco may well be the co-op experience of the year.

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