Item: Sly Cooper and the Thievius Raccoonus
Rating: 8.5
Author: Douglass C. Perry

With platformers hitting their peak at the transition point between the 16-bit and 32-bit eras in 1995, it seemed one couldn't walk down the street without bumping into a furry mammal with an attitude. Sonic, Bubsy, Aero, Crash, Conquer, Zero -- the list seemingly ran into infinite. Once considered the most important aspect of a console launch, the mascot, which was once always identified with a particular console or system at the time, has now entered into the Netherlands in significance toward a system. No longer team players, "franchise properties" such as Crash Bandicoot and Spyro the Dragon are like overpaid athletes, jumping from team to team for the biggest impact. Additionally, now we have crossbreed, focus-tested characters that no longer resemble either humans or animals, and that perhaps aren't as identifiable as the simple wacky mammalians we used to know and love.So, it's with great sentimental interest that we watch Sucker Punch Studios, the development team remembered for Rocket on Nintendo 64, embark on its new platform game, Sly Cooper and the Thievius Raccoonus. The single-player platformer is one of two games Sony Computer Entertainment America is delivering this year and of the two, this lead character is, you guessed it, a furry mammal -- a thieving raccoon to be precise -- with an attitude.Are we entering a new dawn of platformers? Will there be a new renaissance of great 128-bit mammals with attitudes? Heck if I know, I can hardly count all of them. But what I do know for certain is this Sly Cooper and the Thievius Raccoonus is one of the most beautiful platformers I have ever seen. And Sly Cooper is, inarguably, the most charming platform character to appear on a system since the talented, impatient Sonic the Hedgehog won gamers hearts on Sega Genesis in the early '90s. Storybook PresentationBlending tried-and-true platform techniques into a 3D world, Sucker Punch has fused a smartly designed platformer in Sly Cooper. The game follows the exploits of Sly -- a thief whose family heritage is built upon great thieves -- and his friends, Bentley the brainy turtle and Murray the clumsy but brave hippo. Sly's family heritage is deep with thievery, and all of color and technique has been written into the Thievius Racoonus, a big, hardbound heirloom book that's been stolen.When Sly was a young pup, a group of five evil criminals ransacked his house, murdered his father, and stole the family book, forcing Sly to grow up in an orphanage, along with Bentley and Murray. Once Sly is old enough, he and his crew, Bentley with his technical wizardry, and Murray the lovable life-long friend with a knack for getting in trouble, take off to find the lost pages of the Thievius Raccoonus.Delivered in the style of a hard-boiled detective story, and leaning toward a graphic novel sensibility rather than a traditional novel, Sucker Punch's game draws empathy from you while earning your respect. It's hard not to like this poor-boy raccoon whose thievery comes only from hardened criminals and evil crooks, never from law-abiding citizens.Although we have shown off a good bit of Sly Cooper in movies and screenshots, what we haven¿t shown are the seams between levels: The menus, cut-scenes, interfaces and load screens. And while these naturally take a back burner role to gameplay and graphics, Sucker Punch's game is a pure gem all the way through. For those who haven't played Metal Gear Solid, Sly Cooper parodies Solid Snake's Codec conversations with Otacon using the same dual video monitor screens, fuzzy transmission lines, and textual readouts, only Sly's conversations are with a nearly blind, permanently stuffed-nosed brainy turtle. Sucker Punch breaks the fourth barrier smoothly but subtly by reminding players of the control scheme for each new level. Sly Cooper also takes on imagery from other media as well, specifically comic books and movies. The Batman-like visage of Sly Cooper appears in cutscenes in various forms (one very much like the Bat Signal), and Sly places a little token of his appreciation by leaving a little letter in the same shape. What is most striking, however, is the fluid, seamless feeling the game provides through its various cutscenes, level introductions, and conversations. Load times are short. The directions are easy to follow. The animation in the game looks and feels right and every other aspect of the presentation emanate with a moving fluidity that's hard to pin down exactly. It's as if the whole thing was energized by the warm vibe of a good Saturday morning cartoon.

GameplaySince it's my job to analyze and pick apart games, as well as to simply enjoy them, I had to try with all my might to separate my strong, immediate like of Sly Cooper the character from my like of Sly Cooper the game. The point being two-fold, really. Sly Cooper is an enormously charming platform character that I have liked from the first time I saw him. It's important to like a platform character; in fact, it's quite significant. You will spend an enormous amount of time with him or her while playing the game, and if you think he or she is cheesy, stupid, unoriginal or whatever, it will color your feeling for the rest of the game. Sly is cool in many ways: He's stealthy, talented and always up for dangerous missions. There is an unspoken cool about his character that's hard not to like. See? I like Sly a lot. For the most part, I like playing the game too, though it's not without some eye-raising issues. A third-person perspective 3D platformer, Sly Cooper delivers a single-player jump-and-smack experience that skillfully blends old-school timing elements with skill-based techniques in a multiplicity of ways. First, Sly Cooper the character not only looks good when he's moving -- thanks to superb animation and the greatest tail ever -- but he also controls well. Sly is incredibly responsive, and though his size seems a little large at times due to his long arms and legs and the cane he carries, skillfully jumping and hitting enemies with precision is a quick study. Having gone back to play Super Mario 64 over the last few weeks, Sly Cooper in comparison is a much less complicated character to control. His list of basic moves is straightforward, including attacks, jumps, double jumps, walking, running and climbing. Sly learns more basic moves in the first world. There he learns stealth moves when the area is lit with a blue mystical wave; like MGS's Solid Snake, the stealth move is wall sneak. Sly can also use his cane to swing from hanging rings, which shows off Sucker Punch's excellent physics model, and he can climb ladders and poles, using the Circle button. After beating missions Sly learns special moves, usable by toggling through with the L2 button and selecting Triangle. Slow motion, fast motion, dive attack, hat mine, decoy image and more are earned. Sadly, few of these are required to complete the game, which makes one wonder if it's really needed to open them up in the first place. By beating bosses, however, players earn very necessary moves. These include the Ninja Spire Jump, the Rail Walk and Rail Slide, an Invisibility Technique and technically superior ways to use guns, like for instance modifying the team van with a powerful turret. Using these latter moves adds a great deal of depth and enjoyment to the game. What I like most about Sly Cooper's level design is that collecting is part of the bigger picture, but it's not the only reason to be there. The worlds are rife with mini-games (about one to two per world) and the platform areas feature a masterful blend of jumping, fighting and stealth areas. I loved Back Alley Heist since it enables players to use awnings to bounce along fire escapes and sneak past searchlights. On the other hand, there's The Lair of the Beast, a swamp filled with slides, rails, and a massive serpent that comes chasing after you near the end. Fire in the Sky is a beautiful Chinese-designed level filled with pagodas and high mountain passes that are just plain pretty. And the last world, The Cold Heart of Hate, is surely my favorite because its packs in everything. It's riddled with tough stealthy areas, shooting levels, run-and-chase sectors, and lead-and-snipe missions. Plus, it's the hardest level of the five. For the record, there are five bosses, one for each world, and they start off easy. There's Raleigh the frog, Muggshot the burly, mustachioed gambler-gangster, Mz. Ruby the alligator-voodoo queen, The Panda King, a demolition/fireworks artist gone bad, and Clockwerk, the brilliant, giant robotic hawk that lives on a health diet of hate and jealousy. Mz. Ruby provides an excellent ToeJam and Earl/Parappa the Rapper fight that's most enjoyable. She and the Panda King present moderately hard fights, but the last boss is definitely going to require some time, since it's a three-part fight. Just a note: For those who like collecting, it's there for you. While the world is lush looking, more importantly, it's bustling with animated enemies and treasure troves of breakable objects. As you go about beating the level, swinging at seemingly unimportant objects more often than not provides players with coins. Collect 100 coins and earn another life. Bottles can be collected to open up safes, each one providing special moves and/or vital Cooper history. And horseshoes give you an extra life.Comprising five large worlds, each containing seven levels, Sly Cooper appears to be a large, long game. But it's a little deceptive. While many of the gameplay techniques are derived from Mario-style gameplay, the game design in part follows a more Crash Bandicoot style. Meaning that unlike Super Mario 64, which practically required players to attain every last star to see the ending, Sly Cooper is designed more like Crash Bandicoot, so players can beat the game, see the ending, and can then, if they like, return to the game to collect the rest. I beat the game in less than 12 hours this way, missing about four bottles, and I played through numerous levels two or three times in that period. For the record, once beaten, the game offers very tough Time Challenges, which potentially add numerous hours. But in my mind Sly Cooper is a short game. Compared to any Mario game, it's short; compared to Jak and Daxter, which took about 13-20 hours to beat, it's short; and in contrast with say, Donkey Kong Country or Banjo-Kazooie, it's short. Did I like the game? Oh yes. Did I want to play lots more? Oh yes. Is there any issue? It all depends on how long you take to play a game, but for me, Sly Cooper could have easily used at least one or more worlds as tough as the final one. I guess the other thing that adds to this feeling of shortness, is its relative easiness. For the first three worlds I wasn't heavily challenged at all. The last two were harder, but not hard. The last two are somewhat challenging, but still only the last world required major restarting.Sly Cooper is also rife with slowdown problems. The larger levels aren't as large as those in Jak and Daxter and in some cases less is going on, but there is significant lulling in various areas of the game. Strangely, few of the slowdown areas occur when multiple enemies are on screen. They happen in large, hub areas and they happen quite frequently. Truth be told, it's more of an eyesore than a gameplay problem. Rarely did the slowdown hamper the gameplay directly, but with such a pretty, well-animated and luscious looking game, it's a real shame to see such blatant slowdown so often. Added to that, some minor problems include occasionally fishy camera angles and buggy sections. For instance, the camera gets stuck inside a building that Sly has left, leaving him open for attack by an enemy. And sometimes it just gets stuck inside an area. In the last level of the last world where Sly is racing against time to beat the lava from killing him, the camera got stuck inside the final construct, and it took me about a minute to figure out how to unstick it. With regard to buggy sections, in Vicious Voodoo, Sly fell onto a log on the outskirts of watery bog. He could not jump or double jump to get back to land, and every time he hit the water, he has automatically brought back to the log. Essentially he was stuck and so I had to restart the level. Are these huge problems? Nah, but there are noticeable enough to mention.
GraphicsWhile Sly Cooper might appear to use cel-shading as its main graphic effect, after about 10 minutes into the game, I found there was much more visually to ogle over. Sucker Punch's eclectic band of artists and designers have created a truly lavish game that shines with a long-list of creative touches all the way to the very last level. Characters are outlined with cels, but ornately designed and intricately animated, casting off the initial perception of simplistic artwork. Not only that, but the worlds in which the characters play are remarkably well organized, highly animated, carefully colored and distinctly different from one world to the next. You can't mistake the first level's various shades of blue for the last level's hot reds, oranges and yellows. Likewise, the trip to the Kumlum Mountains in China is far different in look and play than the forage to Las Vegas or the swamps of Haiti. With regard to imagery, the game offers an unusually appealing 2D, Saturday morning-style set of cutscenes that feel like a cartoon or even a little like an old Saturday afternoon movie short, but look more like Flash technology from a Website, which, when you think about it, is a very weird concoction indeed. Does it work? Yes, and it¿s highly original as well, highly likeable, in fact. The only thing that feels a little too contrived is the van. The technical van looks far too close the Mystery Van from Scooby Doo, which really doesn't have the same intelligent ring that Sly Cooper has. And vans may have been overused too, thanks to the A-Team always-coming-through-at-the-last minute vehicle in the mid-'80s. But all in all, Sly Cooper boasts the talents of a skilled art team having fun with an original character.SoundMusically, the tunes in Sly Cooper perform a sneaky trick. Fitting perfectly into that Netherlands of poppy, ear-catching songs, and music that is so vague, unassuming and meant-to-be-heard-in-the-background, this collection of songs is almost perfect for my liking. It changes dynamically depending on the scenario, speeding up when you're in danger and slowing down when the coast is clear. While many lead characters and mascots are mostly mute, Sly Cooper speaks during cutscenes and his voice is perfect for the character. The voice-over actor has a crisp, clean delivery and he doesn't over do it. The character voices for Bentley and Murray, however, steal the show. Bentley is a stuffy-nosed nerd who sounds like the biggest geek on the planet, and while at times his voice is a little trying, 90% of the game Bentley is truly enjoyable. Murray is just the dumbest guy on earth. He's dull-witted, fat and a huge potential liability, yet he's got so much heart it's hard to resist his genuine likability. He, too, is perfectly voice acted and I eagerly anticipated hearing his next speaking role.

Verdict

While the instant charm and accessibility of Sly Cooper outweighs its criticisms, it should be noted that there are some noticeable problems in this game, enough to keep the game from reaching higher scores.

Sly Cooper is an excellent looking game, probably one of the best-looking games of the year -- at least in terms of art direction -- and it's beautifully animated as well. All of the characters are lovable and the story is well scripted and well written, too. So there is much to like about it's overall presentation and graphic appeal. Gameplay wise, the final score comes down to the speed and skill at which you're able to apply to a platform game, but it's pretty clear that Sly Cooper is brief game. The thirty-five missions are briefer than they sound and the game is just plain easy to beat. There are those niggling technical issues I have written about in detail, so I won't elaborate again, but all in all, they do hamper the game's overall likeability.

I would highly recommend this game to platform fans, because Sly Cooper is truly something special, but don't expect to be playing it too long.

20Q #XX: undefined

Sly Cooper and the Thievius Raccoonus

Charming, old school mammals with an attitude are back. But so are brevity and slowdown, too.

Verdict

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Sly Cooper and the Thievius Raccoonus