Sly Cooper and the Thievius Raccoonus

October 21, 2002

Platform: Sony Playstation 2
Developer: Sony Entertainment
Publisher: Sony Entertainment
Reviewed by: Slusy

Gameplay: [10] Graphics: [9] Audio: [9] Replay: [7] Overall: [9.1]

It's no real secret that Sony's been searching for a mascot for the PlayStation 2 for quite a while. Crash Bandicoot filled that role on the PlayStation's last incarnation, but with Crash's expansion to all of the current platforms (added to the fact that the Crash games were less than Mario or Sonic quality to begin with), Sony needed a new character that would sell systems. While there are some problems to mention, overall, with Sly Cooper and the Thievius Raccoonus, Sony may have finally ended their quest.

Sly Cooper, fundamentally, is a 3D platform game. Yes, we've all played them before, from Mario Sunshine to Rayman to Sonic Adventure, but what sets Sly Cooper apart is that, despite being wonderfully rendered in 3D, the game plays almost exactly like an old-school side-scrolling platform game. Basically, this has been more or less the Holy Grail of the 3D platform game, to make a game that's as much fun as the old NES side-scrollers that used to suck away hours upon hours of our youthful lives, while, at the same time, producing something that is visually up to date. Sucker Punch, the developer of Sly Cooper, has managed to do just that, and the result is a game that I was addicted to until the very end.

The basic premise of the game is that Sly Cooper comes from a long line of thieving raccoons. When he was just a little baby raccoon, a group of nefarious villains known as the Fiendish Five murdered Sly's parents and stole the family's thieving manual, the Thievius Raccoonus, dividing it amongst themselves. All grown up, along with his friends Bentley, a turtle who helps with reconnaissance and computer hacking, and Murray, a pink hippo who drives the van and tries not to get in the way, Sly takes it upon himself to steal the Thievius Raccoonus back from these master thieves, while eluding capture at the hands of Carmelita Fox.

The actual presentation of the game is much like a Saturday-morning cartoon; in fact, I think that if Sony were to market Sly Cooper in the same way that Nintendo marketed Pokemon or Konami marketed Yu-Gi-Oh!, they'd have a definite winner on their hands. The game is divided into five areas, each headed up by a member of the Fiendish Five. The intro to each area consists of Sly describing the origin of this particular villain, concluded with a cartoon-style splash screen, saying "Sly Cooper In: Fire In The Sky" (or whatever the name of the episode happens to be). The effect, combined with the cel-shading that adorns the in-game graphics, really creates a convincing cartoony atmosphere.

The actual game itself, as was stated earlier, is a straight platform game. Each area (aside from the last, which is essentially just a big boss battle made up of several parts) consists of a main hub area and seven stages, each of which contains a treasure key. Three of those keys are needed to progress to the half of the hub that is blocked by a gate, and all seven keys are required to gain entrance to the villain's lair.

The majority of the stages involve Sly making his way across a stage using nothing but his jumping stage and his family's cane. One thing to note is that Sly doesn't have a health meter like most platform game protagonists; one hit from an enemy will take him down cold. While he can collect "lucky charms" (both found scattered about the stages and obtained after finding 100 coins) to allow him to withstand an extra hit, the player must take greater than usual care to keep Sly from harm, which can lead to frustration early in the game.

In order to level the playing field, Sly has a number of thieving skills available to him in order to sneak around enemies and take them out from a safe position. In fact, this is a good part of the game; while there are instances where simply swinging your club around wildly will get you through, more often than not you'll have to find different routes in order to avoid security beams and enemies' flashlights. While the stealth element isn't as pronounced as, say, The Mark of Kri or the Metal Gear Solid games, you will generally have to assess situations to find the right path to take, which makes for an interesting dynamic. It should be said, though, that rarely are these types of puzzles overly taxing; while in-game puzzles generally aren't my thing, I didn't find myself once rushing to look for a FAQ in order to get out of a tight spot.

Another thing that Sly can do to even the odds is to collect clues throughout the levels. These clues, once assembled, open a vault, which usually contains an additional page of the Thievius Raccoonus that will teach sly a new ability, which range from fairly useless to insanely helpful. While I actually played through the game the first time without really giving the clues much attention, I almost wish I had, because certain abilities, like being able to become invisible while moving or not being hurt by falling into water, would have helped out quite a bit on the later levels.

One other thing to note is that not all the stages are the typical "get from point A to point B" variety. At least one or two of the stages in each area is a minigame-type level, which are quite a bit of fun in their own right. These stages include shooting down crabs in an arena via Smash TV-like controls (that is to say, moving with the left analog and shooting with the right), covering Murray from a long-range blaster as he makes a run for a key, and racing with the team's wagon against a series of baddies. While some stages, particularly the racing ones, can be quite difficult and frustarting, I did enjoy the change of pace from the standard levels; it did quite a bit to keep the game fresh.

As far as control is concerned, this, to me, is truly where Sly Cooper shines, as it really does a lot to make this 3D platform game play like an old-school side-scroller. First off, the button layout follows the old Super Nintendo standard layout; X jumps, square attacks, circle performs stealth moves, like sliding against a wall and shimmying up ropes, and triangle performs special moves learned from pages of the Thievius Raccoonus. The control scheme did take a bit of getting used to, since it's different than most PlayStation games, but after a couple of levels is was completely natural. One thing to give a big thumbs up to Sucker Punch for was coming up with a way to land on precarious surfaces and not have to worry about the camera angle screwing things up, which is to "stick" to certain surfaces when jumping toward them and pressing circle. This made a lot of the difference in playablity, because many 3D platform games have the problem of containing tricky jumps and missing them due to the viewpoint, and this system takes a lot of that frustration out of the equation.

What also alleviates a lot of frustration is the camera control. In most 3D games, the camera is the biggest point of contention, but in Sly Cooper, you hardly notice it, which is how it should be. Only in maybe two stages did I want a camera angle other than the one I had and couldn't get to it. Other than that, the camera is often where it should be, and is easily adjusted via the right analog stick. Very rarely do you have to fight with the camera, and that's a very good thing.

Graphically, the game is very slick-looking. The cel-shading does a nice job of adding to the cartoony atmosphere, and all the animation is fluid. There are a couple of framerate issues in places, but nothing particularly jarring.

Sound is also well done here. Background music reacts to the situation, speeding up during battles, and slowing down when Sly is creeping around corners. Sound effects are sufficiently cartoony, with satisfying whaps when you take out an enemy, boings when you bounce off an awning, etc. Voice acting is mostly well-done also, particularly Sly's voice. Some of the other voices, like Bentley's, for example, can get a bit annoying, but nothing is terribly offensive.

All in all, Sly Cooper is a delightful game that should definitely be played by anyone who has enjoyed a platform game in the past fifteen years or so. The only thing that keeps Sly Cooper from being a must-buy is the play length; the game can easily be completed in under ten hours, and even with finding all the clues and completing sprints through the stages, the play length doesn't increase to more than twenty hours, at most. This aside, though, Sly Cooper is enough fun to want to play through multiple times, and would be perfect if only there was more of it. It's fairly rare that I finish a game and am left wanting more; if Sony can deliver more gaming goodness with another installment of the Sly Cooper series, they may have a winning mascot on their hands after all.