I've been playing the beta of Monaco for months now, and Andy just sent through four copies of the retail version early for me to review. After taking a break from the beta, it was great to jump into the retail version with a group of my friends to see how they handled it.

Immediately I noticed when playing solo, I was intent on being "super sneaky" and strategic, hiding in bushes and fooling the guards as I snagged up that golden loot. Playing online with my friends was a whole other ball game it would seem.

It was utter chaos. Of my three mates, only one of them had played the game before, so while the two of us were being strategic, the other two were tripping alarms. It's about that point I threw caution to the wind and decided to go all out.

That's when Monaco made sense to me. The utter chaos unfolding on the screen was gorgeous. It's probably the most fun I've had in a video game for a long, long time.

So when you boot into Monaco, are you going for a strategic approach? Or will you lean towards all out chaos?

The severe lack of conversation surrounding this game is upsetting. It's out tomorrow, looks like one of the best XBLA/$15 games to release this year, and is so goddamn original...

I certainly want to approach the game with stealth in mind, but apparently the game is designed to have chaos interwoven with the quietness of stealth. The Hacker sounds like a neat approach; I really adore what the hacking is like in this game... activating a bunch of little electronic bubbles that follow you around in the walls and open stuff for you. Ugh, looks great.

Also, dat goddamn soundtrack. Already preordered it.

The chaos is delightful. When everyone is making it around stealthily it has that "calm before the storm" feel. Then the alarms blare and the music kicks in and suddenly no matter what you're doing it becomes super frantic.

I can see lots of replay value in the speedruns too. Plus the French that all the guards speak is brilliant. Je vais te tuer!

This game needs to be more popular than it is. Barren matchmaking. :(

@project343 what platform do you have it on? Always keen for a game on PC myself!

It's starting to get some attention now, but nowhere near the amount it truly deserves. Monaco has stolen my heart, which is a big problem when I have editors breathing down my neck demanding reviews for games I'm not interested in!