One Night in Monaco – A Hands-On Preview from PAX

I was the trickster who, equipped with a monkey, would pillage the coins. I had to get ten of the coins so that I’d be able to shoot my tranquilizer once more. I’m not sure what sort of devil-alchemy that is, but it works. Me and my comrades were hired for this heist. A trophy needed to be removed from the wrong hands. We don’t ask questions. We arrived at the location and scouted out the spot. Guards were everywhere, but we’d use our skill set to escape detection. My friend the locksmith got to work opening up doors, while my monkey picked up some coins. “Thanks monkey,” I would say. The monkey didn’t know his obsession was fueling my firearms, but maybe it’s better that way.

A guard was coming around the corner so I jumped into a bush. He may have seen me because a white question mark appeared above his head. The white slowly filled with red, like a thermometer of curiosity, as he stepped closer to me. The bush hid my body and the guard turned around, satisfied. I leapt out of the bush as the hacker finished hacking a computer. Some lights turned on in the next room. Do I dare explore more rooms? Unsure of what might behind every door? No, I don’t take that chance. I wait for my comrades to meet up with me at the staircase and we progress to the second floor. 

The second floor had a number of rooms we could explore, but we went right for the treasure. How foolish we were. Unprepared, we were up against three guards and a surveillance camera. The guards didn’t hesitate to shoot and we didn’t wait around to see where the bullets were going to land. We grabbed the trophy and took off for the exit. Our caution dissolved with the trophy in hand. Moving from room to room, we daringly picked locks with guards chasing us, we ran right by civilians and split up, hoping after making our way downstairs to better our odds of survival.

We ran for the parking lot where we started the mission and got in our get away cars. Despite our carelessness, we scraped by and succeeded in our heist. But we knew in the future we had to exercise more patience. There would be dogs in the future who would sniff us out, and the bush would be as useless as an umbrella made from Swiss cheese. SWAT teams would scan every inch of rooms where there was a sign of trouble.  Helicopters with spotlights that could spot us anytime we were in the open.  We had to be prepared. 

And that was my time playing Monaco. I should note that the game plays out on what looks like it could be a mini-map in a stealth game. Mostly because that’s what inspired Andy Schatz, the game’s developer. “The mini-map in Hitman was giving me more information than the game itself,” He said. “I figured I’d make a game where you’re just looking at the map.” Well, of course he added in elements of Pac-Man to make the heist much more stressful. If this game came in a box, I would demand that it said, “The most authentic heist experience since Ocean’s Eleven.”  Look for this game sometime in 2012 on one of PC, Mac, and one of the consoles. 

Also, look for a video interview with the creator, Andy Schatz to be on the site soon.