If you are going to PAX, you need to (A) go to our GameTrailers panel and say hi to me and my dad, then (B) head to the show floor and play both SpyParty and Monaco.
I did a writeup of Chris Hecker’s SpyParty while I was still at Destructoid (long story short: it’s potentially the best multiplayer game I’ve ever played), but I never got around to talking about Monaco.
I will do exactly that after the jump.
Monaco mini-review: it’s really goddamn fun. It’s sort of an arcade-y heist/stealth/action game where each player has their own unique attributes and skills — a bit like Gauntlet meets Trilby: The Art of Theft.
It really nails the sweet spot as far as cooperative games go, as well: if you think of coop games as existing on a big scale where one end is labeled “cooperation is mandatory” (games like Left 4 Dead or Army of Two would fall under this category) and the other is labeled “cooperation is nice, but you can pretty much just get by on you’re own if you’re enough of a badass” (Modern Warfare 2, Borderlands), then Monaco would be right in the middle. There’s an undeniable thrill in just running around, grabbing everything you can get your hands on, mentally celebrating everytime you hear the “ding!” noise with each successive theft — a thrill that is often directly opposed to the sort of teamwork and communication that leads to success.
When I played it with three other people at GDC, we made it all the way to the end of the mission. Three of us were in the escape van, waiting for our fourth player to join us and end the mission. Initially, he refused — he was in a room chock-full of treasure and would not leave until he’d yoinked every last piece of pretty into his grab bag. “fuck it,” I said, leaving the escape van. “I’m not waiting for this asshole.” The remaining two players followed suit, as we all collectively decided that it was every man for himself. We ran out in different directions on the map, not speaking a word to one another, all silently vowing that we could collect more treasure than the other dudes before returning to the escape van.
Two minutes later, guards had killed all of us. Andy Schatz, the game’s creator, was laughing his head off. I think he said something about greed, but I couldn’t hear him because I was too busy planning how I was going to secretly poison the guy who had refused to enter the van.
But, yeah. In honesty, I would not be surprised if SpyParty and Monaco end up being the best games being shown at the entire Penny Arcade Expo. If you’re going, I’d recommend checking them out.
Monaco seems awesome!
Chris Hecker’s Spy Party has a fantastic concept to it that I’m baffled no other stealth game has looked at. That of subtle human interaction and the potential for mind games within a game’s framework. Hecker has expressed commitment to taking this idea to it’s full potential. Can’t wait, though he did say that it’ll take him another couple years to flesh it out.
The new Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood multiplayer is working with something similar; There are few in-game models to choose from so PC’s and NPC’s look the same, so if you want to blend in you have to act like an NPC and cautiously find your way to your target (because other players are trying to find you).
This sounds like the kind of game that could get you feeling really bad about humanity, like the “money game” (sort of team-building exercise, not video game) if anybody’s ever played that.
These kinds of games can make a man want to secretly poison every man, woman, and child alive. That means they’ve got emotional value, which is a cool thing to see in a multiplayer game.
Spy party looks like it’s going to be a lot of fun.
What’s the money game?
Monaco sounds a lot like the Fragile Alliance mode of Kane and Lynch 2 multiplayer. It also reminds me of the time that I decided to be an ass and gave the getaway van driver half the money to leave everyone else behind due to the fact that I charged ahead and survived getting to the van whilst everyone else got in a firefight with the cops.
This is the perfect post. Thanks
Hey zmd2kfs2qawkskgpmu1f, very interesting post, it really got me thinking. Thank you. sq6j117w4n
Hello webmaster,
We are Giving away this New EXCLUSIVE SOFTWARE to you at no cost. The Software is called “Auto Wealth Maker”. This Software can make you thousands , if not Millions of dollars. This is to date the Best Money Making software you will ever need especially for your blog website!
The Software is Priced at $47 . But if you go to our download page , you can get it for FREE!
Go to download page now by clicking here
Hey There was just surfing through the search engines looking for some new interesting blog posts when i found this post on an other blog. I had to write you a message to show you that I actually loved this blog post. I simply can’t discover a lot good quality any more on the net nowadays with all the useless posts these days so when I do find a very good posting I value it. Keep up the wonderful job and I am positive this blog site is going to go a long ways and turn out to be very well known
hello admin, just leting you know if a user clicks your link from Bing you get a connection error. Good luck!