A High-Stakes Heist with Procedural Puzzles
Believe it or not Monaco 2 is actually a sequel to Monaco: What’s Yours is Mine, which was released way back in 2013. Twelve years later developers Pocketwatch Games are back with their second entry in the high stakes heist series.
Monaco is a place teeming with luxury, greed and obscene wealth so a group of criminal geniuses come together and combine their talents to get a piece of the action. Or perhaps there is an appetite for power rather than just cash and treasures. Whatever the reason, it sets the scene for some pretty ambitious schemes.
Isometric Intrigue
Monaco 2 is an isometric stealth game which is split into various different missions which the gang undertake. Before you get going the blueprint mode allows you to plan out your route and survey the path ahead. Despite looking like a maze, and being procedurally generated, locked doors and hidden keys mean each level is actually more linear than it looks.
Sneaking your way through is, of course, preferable however there will be plenty of occasions where you’ll need to improvise as you are discovered. Every closed door could well hide a guard just waiting to clock you and start firing or walloping you. Light is both friend and foe when it comes to the field of sight for both you and the guards, but footsteps will appear when audible allowing you to partially track their movements despite not being able see them.
Assembling the Crew
There are eight characters to play as, some of which will join the team as you progress. You can switch characters at checkpoints mid-mission which can prove crucial depending on the route ahead. This is because each has a different ability that can be used in the field. Whether it’s having your fluffy little canine companion distract enemies, making use of a drone to carry out tasks on your behalf, or simply beating your enemies unconscious, knowing when to use each character’s unique skill is important. You can also upgrade these with diamonds, earned by completing missions according to certain parameters, boosting and expanding what is possible at the cost of your maximum health.
Coins are littered around each level that can be used to buy various items in the field to take on enemies or evade detection. Smoke bombs, lockpicks, firearms, disguises, hacking dongles and more are available, some harder to reach than others.
Stealth vs. Sledgehammer: Balancing Approaches to Heists
Stealth is of course the ideal way to execute your mission, however Monaco 2 is seldom so straightforward. The attempts at balance are clear however there were several times where I felt so frustrated that I abandoned the sneaky approach altogether. My patience had run out, but it’s because of the balancing attempts that my more direct approach was possible. Let me explain.
First off, enemies will patrol in a pretty predictable pattern, and their fields of view are pretty limited unless you are standing in their direct line of sight. They have no sense of proximity, so you can sidle up right next to them and hack a terminal and they will be none the wiser. However, they are more sensitive to sound so if you aren’t crouched and start sprinting around, you’ll be detected much more quickly.
Detection and Dying
If you are detected, shaking off the guards isn’t too difficult providing you run the distance. However, when red, laser security grids will instantly set off alarms which in turn activates machine turrets that will make short work of you. Hacking is essential to get past these without raising the alarm by temporarily disrupting them, so keep an eye out for those illuminated monitors and wall mounted panels.
However (and this is where the balance comes in), when you die some of your coins, mission items and a life will drop next to your body. You will respawn at your last checkpoint, and have an opportunity to return to the scene of your death and recover your loot, but most importantly replenish your life. However, it’s entirely possible (and probable) your enemies won’t have returned to their patrol so you can respawn right back into the danger zone and get killed almost immediately again.
Replayability and Online Play
As a result of this, when I ran out of patience (maybe that’s a me problem) I simply made progress through attrition but slowly edged closer to my objective, by dying over and over again as I inched towards escaping without losing any lives or loot. Trying to collect everything will pretty much guarantee failure, so you’ll find yourself knocking the exploring on the head as it’s much easier and less frustrating to get to your main objective and then get the hell out of there.
Even if you die twice in two different places, you can return to each area and recover what you’ve lost minus any additional lives. This means you can recover a maximum of one life after death, but also that the stealth approach wasn’t necessarily rewarded. In order to enjoy Monaco 2 fully, I ended up playing in sessions of around two hours or so, as approaching missions with “fresh eyes” kept the frustrations at bay (mostly).
Monaco 2 comes with various modes per mission you can tackle. “The Honest Truth” is the main story driven way to play, with the same seed for everyone that comes with leaderboards attached. The “Unreliable Narrator” option offers you the opportunity to collect diamonds from the levels which are randomised. Finally, the “Photographic Memory” mode allows you to create your own seed and share the level with friends.
A seed you say? This is the composition of the procedurally generated elements which tie the level together. Whilst this does vary between modes, they don’t feel distinctly different, instead just like any other playthrough. I guess this is, in a way, a testament to how well the levels are put together because you wouldn’t necessarily know they are procedurally generated in the first place.
Once you’ve beaten the main story, you can also hit up the daily challenges and crime spree modes.
There is also online play in Monaco 2, both online or locally. However, there were zero active lobbies worldwide whenever I checked. Perhaps this is because the game has been out on Xbox for a little while at time of writing. I say this as the daily leaderboards look a little abandoned too.
A Stylish Heist with Engaging Gameplay
On a slightly different note, I do love how Monaco 2 looks. The 3D cel shaded art style is colourful and vogueish, with the isometric camera allows full view of the lavish location designs which glitter and shine in all the right places. It also sounds great, with a groovy soundtrack that reflects that spy noir thriller feel to match the lavish setting.
Monaco 2 is a stylish, snazzy heist game with bags of character. Despite moments that will have you seething, there’s still plenty to like here.
Important Links
Assemble Your Crew in Co-op Heist Sequel Monaco 2 – https://www.thexboxhub.com/assemble-your-crew-in-co-op-heist-sequel-monaco-2/
Face Off in the Streets of Richness in Monaco 2’s New Free Update! – https://www.thexboxhub.com/face-off-in-the-streets-of-richness-in-monaco-2s-new-free-update/
Buy Monaco 2 on Xbox – https://www.xbox.com/en-gb/games/store/monaco-2/9p692dqm7n3j
