Monaco - What's Yours Is MIne

 
Developer: Pocketwatch Games
Released: Apr 2013
Hours Played: 5.3
Similar To: Dynamite Jack / The Marvellous Miss Take / Rats - Time Is Running Out / Robbery Bob
Rating: 4/5 Parsnips

GAMEPLAY

M-WYIM is a stealth game rendered in the pixel-art style and viewed in a top-down perspective. Looking down at the plan-view of a building, your job involves exploring and then nicking an important item that's usually heavily guarded by personnel and security cameras. On top of that, you'll need to make your escape by exiting the building without being caught and killed. Released years before more graphically ambitious stealth titles like The Marvellous Miss Take and Volume, M-WYIM gives you a limiting line of sight a la Teleglitch or Survivor Squad and shrouds the game with a challenging fog-of-war that remains unseen by your character thus calling upon the player to negotiate the environment with lots of thought and a complex strategy. Points of interest are revealed by icons, including the gold coins you can optionally collect.   
  

BALANCE & PACE

Initially, the game is a breeze. Enemies will be lowly civilians who can only alert guards to your presence while the guards themselves, once they spot you (indicated by a question mark), only have a melee attack. At this point, you can simply out-run them and hide in a bush until they go away. Later, you'll encounter tougher foes such as police with guns, dogs with a strong sense of smell, a circling helicopter with a spotlight, doctors with needles and ultimately zombies!  Like Hotline Miami each level is multi-floored except that here you'll: hack computer systems to shut off lasers; unlock doors; sabotage the electricity supply; as well as pick up guns, medical kits, smoke-bombs and disguises etc that you can use to your advantage. All of which are only activated after a very short countdown that may seem like ages when under pressure.     .                 
     

PRESENTATION & DESIGN 

The pitch-black borders and the greys of the fog-of-war creates a dark vibe that suits the criminal theme of robberies and heists. To add ambience a jazzy and lively saloon-bar piano constantly tinkles a racy tune in the background and on being discovered, it's not a grunt or a sudden gasp that alerts you to the fact you've been caught but a sudden quickening pace of the piano - meaning you better make a run for it! Guards and police etc speak French giving the game that continental flavour. Also, you can play as up to eight different characters with their own unique ability. A locksmith cracks locks quicker, the lookout sees enemies in the fog-of-war, the pickpocket has a monkey to help you snatch coins and the mole bombs his way through otherwise impassable routes... and the list goes on.  
                
  

PROGRESS SYSTEM

Starting a game takes you to the level-select screen where completing one will unlock the next. The core game is divided into four sections: The Locksmith's Story (16 levels); The Pickpocket's Story (16); Origins - a kind of endless mode for all characters (8), and Fin (8). Unlocking characters as you go, the game (apart from in Origins) gives you the choice to play a choice of characters meaning the Locksmith and Pickpocket stories do not restrict you to playing those characters. Quality, community-designed levels can be played as well. Meanwhile popping back to the main menu and clicking Leaderboard will take you to screens showing the name of each level followed by your best time and rank in each, plus how many coins you collected. Fast times take priority over coins collected which, to be honest, isn't properly rewarded.   
 

CONCLUSION

For full-on hardcore completionists, there is even a high-score chart for those who manage to complete the whole campaign. Initially, for me, I didn't like Monaco. Levels, particularly the early ones, could be easily brute-forced and simply running away to avoid capture seemed to provide little by way of a challenge. Not knowing the enemies' line of sight also seemed a bit off and I dismissed it as more of a multiplayer experience than a solo game. However, after a second install and playthrough I thoroughly warmed to this game. It was only during this second playthrough that I appreciated the variety of the different skills of the characters, the ten coins for extra ammo mechanic, the footsteps in the dark to show enemies are close by and the absorbing planning involved in cracking later levels. For me, Monaco is now a must-have stealth game.