Filthy Lucre

Few directors have exploded onto the scene like Guy Ritchie. Movies like Lock, Stock & Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch had an energy to them that was almost infectious, single-handedly spurring my unhealthy fascination with the UK's criminal underbelly. While Guy Ritchie's career may have hit a few bumps in the last two decades, my interest in London's fast-talking gangsters never waned.

Perhaps that's why I was excited to play Filthy Lucre, the brand-new multiplayer stealth title from Fabrik Games. You play one of eight thieves who have been hired to pull off a series of high profile heists. These aren't simple convenience stores you're knocking over, but sprawling locations with countless guards and security cameras. It's a risky situation with the possibility of a big payday at the end.

This promising premise is presented as an overhead stealth game. It's the type of thing where our thief spends most of the time crouched behind objects waiting for the coast to clear. You'll need to knock out guards, turn off the security system and locate valuable objects without causing too much chaos. If you can do all that, you'll discover that each heist location is loaded with expensive treats to pick up.

It won't take long to discover that our thief is doing more than simply stealing rare paintings and blueprints. We'll be tasked with hiding tracking devices in cars, snatch politically sensitive intel before it gets in the wrong hands and even poison the grow labs. Each stage will also have a few secondary objectives that force the player to search through every room and hunt for secrets. The goal is to grab as much money as possible, complete your primary task and get out before getting caught.

Ideally, you'll be able to do all this without being noticed. However, sometimes guards will get nosey and discover the bodies you've been leaving around. When in a pinch, Filthy Lucre turns into a fast-paced dual-stick shooter. But going in as an action hero is a foolish game, since you have limited ammo and it's only a matter of time before the police arrive. The game is really pushing you to play it slow and steady, taking out guards only when you have an opportunity.

When it all goes well, Filthy Lucre is almost intoxicating. I felt powerful as I snuck through the levels avoiding detection, a ghost inside the walls observing everybody's routine. There are few things more satisfying than knocking everybody out before they even realize an intruder is in their midst. But this powerful feeling will disappear completely the moment you're noticed by a guard or security camera. It's easy and disappointingly common to get into a deadly firefight after fifteen or twenty minutes of perfect stealth action. This sends you right back to the beginning of the stage, losing a substantial amount of progress.

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This is a game that was clearly designed with multiplayer in mind. With its limited view and massive levels, Filthy Lucre wants you to work together as a team. This is great when you have a friend by your side, but playing this as a single-player game can be incredibly rough. The biggest issue is the lack of checkpointing, which means you're going to have to restart the whole level every time you die. I can understand this decision in a two-player match, but this game never felt balanced for a solo player.

Unfortunately, there are some things we can't blame on the multiplayer focus. The stealth action is surprisingly shallow, especially if you've played other recent games in the genre. Apart from the weapons you bring along, you're limited to walking up behind guards and knocking them out. We'll be able to use the radios, TVs and other objects scattered around the level to distract the enemies, but you still have to walk up and knock them out. You can't even move their bodies, creating a lot of issues when nosey guards poke around.

It doesn't help that the graphics look just as dated as the gameplay. The overhead perspective is pulled out so far that the characters are small and you can barely tell what you're picking up. It also doesn't allow you to rotate the camera or change perspectives, which led to a lot of obstructed views at inopportune moments. Even with the solid premise, it is the execution that hampers Filthy Lucre.

I think part of the problem involves the missed opportunities. They set up a fascinating underground crime world, yet do almost nothing with it. We don't learn much about the characters and you won't find any of the snappy dialog I liked so much in those early Guy Ritchie films. I also wish the developers had given us more exciting locations to explore. We get the scrapyard, waterworks, high-rise, mansion and bank, but they start to blend together after a while. I suspect a lot of this stems from repetitive gameplay and brain-dead guards.

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To Filthy Lucre's credit, they do some interesting things with the multiplayer mode. For example, if one player gets captured, the other will need to make a choice whether to leave a man behind and go it alone or go back for them. There are pros and cons both ways, making it a tough choice. Sadly, there's nothing like that in the standard single-player mode, so a lot of that tension is lost when going in solo.

While it's certainly more fun with another person, Filthy Lucre isn't deep enough to keep you engaged for long. The lack of variety ultimately forces players to simply repeat the same types of attacks every time, which quickly grows tiring. I love the setting and premise, but was disappointed that the game didn't do more with them. Filthy Lucre is occasionally fun, but it's a lot closer to Swept Away than Lock, Stock & Two Smoking Barrels.