And thus it comes to a casual, lethargic, Friday wherein I reveal to you one or more games you may not have ever heard of or anticipate the release of.
I’m a casual fan of Heist movies, Italian Job, Ocean’s 11, etc. They steal it, I’m likely to watch with a mild level of amusement. Monaco (the game, not the city) is a fine enterprise showing up in April via Steam and XBOX Live. You play one of several characters with a specialized focus on several fronts destined to rob or escape authorities and make fabulous money. Done in a relatively low-graphical scale but colored and designed well, this is a game that excites me for a loose party opportunity to drink some mixed cocktails and hammer at my controllers while we evade guards and let the monkey grab the prized possession. Got some friends? Like 4-player games where you can steal things? Hit this. 15 bucks preorder for instant receipt once it goes live and I’m happily dropping my cash in on it once it shows up.
The other that showed up on my radar this week was Path of Exile which entered Open Beta thursday afternoon. Diablo-esque hack and slash with an amazingly large character trait map letting you fine tune your character choice into the position you want. Skills tied to gems you slot vs classes, you’re allowed to be whatever you build into and less what titled picture you selected. Need some casual Gauntlet styled mayhem and slaughter, then this might be up your alley. Open Beta and once fully released, fully Free, this will be another game I say “Try it out, worst price is the 5GB on your hard drive you can recover later.”