sly cooper

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Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time

Posted by BinaryMessiah on 06/16/2014

Posted in: PlayStation 3, PlayStation Vita, Retro Consoles, Sony. Tagged: playstation, ps3, sly cooper, Sony, thieves in time, vita. Leave a comment

Publisher: SCEA

Developer: Sanzaru Games

Release Date: 2/5/2013

Available On

The Sly series was one of the best on PS2. It was original, artsy, had slick controls, and had clever humor that you could only find on Sony’s consoles. After Sly 3, the series went into limbo during most of the PS3’s lifecycle with no sign of a new game insight. With Sucker Punch powering away at the Infamous series, all fans lost hope. Thieves in Time was finally announced with much rejoicing, but once the game arrived, everyone was scratching their heads. Why is this game almost identical to the previous three in every way, shape, and form?

If you’re familiar with the Sly games, you know how this game plays out. 5 chapters of various different villains that the gang must take down. Each chapter starts with an intro from Bentley the turtle (the computer and tech wiz). After this, Sly goes and takes pictures to gather feedback on what to do next. As soon as I saw this in the first chapter, I rolled my eyes. I knew I was in for another Sly game with the same gameplay we are now tired of. Sure, it’s quality, but I wanted evolution in the series. When I say nothing has changed, I mean absolutely nothing. The same guard paths can be followed: pickpocketing, the same yellow flashlights, the same small confusing hubs with 30 clue bottles, and a safe. You get the picture. However, the hubs aren’t as interesting to traverse, and I completely bypassed collecting any extras as it felt like a chore.

That’s not to say every little thing is the same. The clever and witty humor turned into Saturday morning cartoon slapstick humor with jokes written by 8-year-olds. No longer do you find the darker humor that adults can relate to. I didn’t laugh or smile at a single joke or line of dialogue. This is especially sad since you go back in time to find five of Sly’s ancestors, which opens a path for great dialog. Roichi is Sly’s Japanese Samurai ancestor, Tennessee Kid is his wild west ancestor, Bob is Sly’s very first ancestor from 10,000 B.C., Sir Gallenth is his medieval ancestor, and Salim is his Arabian Nights ancestor. These are actually interesting characters, but their personalities are limited by poor writing. No longer is the banter between Sly, Bentley, and Murray something you look forward to at every cutscene.

I also miss the more clever gameplay segments; now we just get a ton of boring mini-games and quick-time events. Hell, even the final boss is an easy, quick-time event fest. The most interesting part of the whole game is the bosses, which are rather challenging and fun to fight. The only new addition to the entire series are the new costume abilities. These add a special set of skills Sly needs to get through some missions. Apart from this, you can expect the same controls. It’s a crying shame for a series that is so dear to PlayStation fans.

With all of that said, the game looks pretty damn good on Vita, minus the occasional slowdown and the super long load times. Jumping from area to area was painful due to the 45-second or long loading screens. Some gameplay segments were shorter than the actual load times. This really hurt the game, as I set my Vita down to actually go do something while the game loaded. Long-term fans may either hate this game or love it. Newcomers will actually see it as a quality PlayStation title. As someone who has played the games since the very first one, I find it rather disappointing and almost a chore to play through.

Reviewed On

Sly 2: Band of Thieves – 9 Years Later

Posted by BinaryMessiah on 01/09/2013

Posted in: PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, PlayStation Vita, Retro Consoles, Sony. Tagged: PlayStation 2, ps2, sly, sly 2 band of thieves, sly cooper, Sony, suckerpunch. Leave a comment

Publisher: SCEA

Developer: Sucker Punch

Release Date: 9/14/2004

Available On

Sly, Bentley, and Murray return in an attempt to obtain the stolen Clockwerk parts from the Klaww Gang. After defeating Clockwerk in the first game, they were obtained illegally, and the gang must get them back to destroy them. Along the way, Carmelita Fox is still trying to capture them while a few new faces show up. The game is the same at its core, but everything around it has completely changed. This really feels like a whole new game.

For starters, you will notice there are no individual levels anymore. The game is more of a sandbox, with various missions you can take on when you want. You can play as all three characters this time around, and each one has its own specific missions. Each character feels different. Murray is a huge lumbering hippo who can’t use stealth and instead whacks away enemies in just a couple of hits. Bentley is equipped with a sleeping dart crossbow and has various gadgets he can use to get around. In fact, they all have gadgets and abilities you can purchase with those coins that were useless in the first game. 100 no longer gives you life because that whole system is gone. Instead, you now have a life bar, and when you die, you restart at the last checkpoint. This game plays a whole lot easier and relieves a lot of the frustrations from the first game.

Additionally, the interior areas of the game are mission-specific, so you won’t be going back. I honestly preferred the individual levels because navigating these hub worlds can be a pain. Getting to certain places requires climbing around certain areas to get there. Some areas are a real pain, and you have to figure out how to get there. Just to get to the main mission, this is pretty lame. I don’t want to spend 5 minutes climbing around a confusing level just to start a mission. It doesn’t help that enemies respawn all the time when you kill them, and they are everywhere. It gets really frustrating when you just want to get on a mission and you have to keep killing the same enemies all the time. Thankfully, some abilities like a smokescreen, shock cane, and paraglider help Sly get around easier, but the other two have to find their way completely via the ground, which means long, roundabout ways to get to a mission marker.

When you start a mission, you will notice they are varied and pretty fun. Bentley has a new hacking mini-game that is a dual-stick shooter; Murray punches things a lot; and Sly has a new pickpocketing ability that he can use to get coins and loot from guards to sell for abilities and to get those keys. A lot of the gauntlet-style levels are really fun and require quick reflexes. There are 8 episodes, and the game is just as tough as the last one. Boss fights now have meters and don’t go down in a few hits anymore. You have to slowly chip away at their health to beat them, and it requires patience. Overall, the game feels mostly the same, with missions just varying from hacking mini-games, beating this or that up, or pickpocketing X amount of keys. It starts to feel old towards the end, plus the navigation of hub worlds will just drive you nuts after a while.

There are still clue bottles and vaults to be found, but they just have extra abilities in them and really aren’t worth searching for. The clue bottles will take over an hour to find on each level because the hubs are so difficult to navigate. There are 30 in each hub, but good luck finding them all without throwing the controller. Besides this, there are no extras in the game, like the last one, which is disappointing. Despite all this, I think the large open hubs are what hurt the game the most because of how annoying they are to navigate. The mission variety is really nice, but by the end, they just repeat themselves.

The graphics have been greatly upgraded with better physics, better-looking textures, and higher resolution models. The controls are a little tighter, and the camera was fixed a little, but it can still get stuck or lost sometimes. Overall, Sly 2 is an excellent game, but it just feels too similar to the last game. With the whole sandbox idea, I feel they are hard to navigate and get in the way of getting around to different missions.

Reviewed On

Sly Cooper and the Thievius Raccoonus – 11 Years Later

Posted by BinaryMessiah on 01/01/2013

Posted in: PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, PlayStation Vita, Retro Consoles, Sony. Tagged: PlayStation 2, ps2, sly cooper, sly cooper and the thievius raccoonus, Sony, suckerpunch. Leave a comment

Publisher: SCEA

Developer: Sucker Punch

Release Date: 9/23/2002

Available On

I am not sure why I passed this game up all these years, but I am sad that I did. Finally being able to play it, I realize just how well it stands up today. Sly Cooper and his gang are trying to retrieve the Thievius Raccoonus, which is a book of secrets passed on from thief to thief in Sly’s family. The evil Clockwerk and several of his henchmen stole a page each, and it is up to you to get them back.

The first thing you will notice about the game is how well it controls. The movement is buttery smooth, with great platforming and gameplay mechanics. Sly can double jump, but his main mechanic is his cane. He can use it to swing around and attack, but there are also ways to sneak around like a thief that just feel really whimsical. When you see blue sparkles on ledges, you can hold a circle and sneak around them. When Sly moves around, a sneaking sound plays instead of footsteps, which are really neat. This also goes for poles and other areas to climb. Just jump near it and hold a circle, and Sly will cling on. This mechanic is very well done and makes platforming a lot of fun. Combat is pretty simple, where you just whack away with your cane and all enemies die in one hit. This isn’t as easy as you think because you die in one hit too. There are traps and obstacles to avoid, such as lasers and spotlights. Sometimes you will have to think a little to find a way around an enemy who is blocking the path.

There are five levels, and four of them focus around a central hub with branching mini-levels. There is a level to infiltrate each hub, and within these hubs are clue bottles to open a vault at each level. These vaults contain new moves for Sly, which come in really handy. It is a lot of fun to find these bottles because the levels are pretty short and aren’t too hard to find. Some levels are actually mini-games that consist of covering Murray on a turret, a dual-stick shooter mini-game, or even a race. These are really hard and require quick reflexes, or you will die often. Before you ask, yes, there are lives in this game, but 100 coins give you a 1-up, but other than that, the coins are useless.

The boss fights are really fun in this game, but also really tough. They require precise movement and patience, because one hit and you are dead in this game. Yes, that sounds really brutal, but it is true. You can get magnets that act as free hits, but these are pretty rare. In fact, probably the most frustrating thing about this game is that with just one hit, you are dead. This includes falling in the water or off a ledge. Later, in vaults, you can find a page that prevents you from dying when falling off ledges or in water, which is a lifesaver (literally). Before that, though, you will die dozens and dozens of times because there are some cheap deaths in this game, but because of how fun it is, you will quickly get over it.

The art style is beautiful, with a cell-shaded comic book look that wasn’t really seen in games before Sly. The graphics look great even for today, but that probably has a lot to do with the art style, which hides the lack of technical prowess of the PS2. The voice acting is a bit spotty, but it brings out the characters, which are nice. I just wish I could have played Bentley or Murray more. They are all great characters and need more time in the spotlight. If this game wasn’t so short and infuriatingly difficult in spots, it would be perfect.

Overall, Sly Cooper is a great entry into one of the best franchises ever created and is a pinnacle for the PS2. Solid controls, excellent platforming, fun combat, and a whimsical art style make this a must-have in your collection.