It's good, while it lasts.....
User Rating: 7.5 | Sly Raccoon PS2
Sly Cooper is one of those games that you'll really like a lot, despite it's flaws. It does have it's share of problems, and they will get in the way of the rest of the game sometimes, but they don't absolutely ruin it. It is quite an excellent game for it's part. You just have to avoid a few things that frankly could have been worked around by the developers before the game was released. But I'll get into that just a bit later. First of all, the game begins with Sly Cooper and his two buddies, Bentley the turtle and Murray the Hippo setting out to recover the "Thievius Raccoonus," which is basically a book on stealing that was been compiled by Sly's ancestors but then stolen by five fiendish villains. The game basically takes you through each of their hideouts and to recover the various parts of the book and learn it's secrets in the process. The game basically plays a lot like a standard platformer. Sly can jump and attack enemies with the cane that he always brings with him. Also, he can use the cane as a tool to get him past different obstacles that stand between him and his goal. However, there is also a slight stealth element to everything in this game. You usually have to avoid some sort of laser tripwire or stay out of an enemy’s sight for a certain amount of time before you can get past them. However, these parts of the game can often be passed without using very much stealth at all. Lone enemies can often be taken down without having to sneak up on them at all. If you're fast enough, you can usually just give most of them the bum's rush and knock them out with one hit. Also, most of the traps in the game don't kill Sly when they spot him. Instead, they only turn deadly a few seconds after they spot him. And once you destroy the alarm system that is next to them, they disappear entirely. So usually you can bypass a lot of traps just by setting them off and getting past them very quickly. Of course, you can't always get away with doing this, but it's still sort of a disappointment. So while there are stealth elements to this game, they're not always that important to it. But there's one other factor to the gameplay that can be quite frustrating at one time. I speak, of course, of the one-hit deaths. Basically, Sly can only take one hit from an enemy or an obstacle before he loses a life and you have to start over. And he can't even SWIM. Falling into water will almost always cost you a life. All of this can indeed be a bit frustrating at times. There are "Lucky Charms" that will allow you to take one hit for every charm that you've managed to find, but they don't really help things all that much. It would have been better if this game had a life meter instead of a protective system that doesn't always help, but still, this doesn't slow the game down that much. Also, there are a few scenes where you have to do something besides go through a platforming stage. You might have to win a vehicle race with Murray, or protect someone as a sniper so that they can reach a goal, or go through a shooting stage. These sequences do manage to give the gameplay some variety, even if sometimes they feel like they're a bit too easy. But still, they're fun to play for short periods of time, provided that you don't get stuck on them or anything. The graphics in this game are pretty good. Pretty much everything is cel-shaded. However, backgrounds tend to look blurry, or at the very least, bland. There really isn't much to see off in the distance in many of the stages. And also, on certain rooftop stages you won't be able to see the ground at all. Instead there's just sort of a foggy blur to take it's place. This kind of stuff takes away from the game's overall appearance, and does bring things down a little. Also, most of the characters normally have the same static expression on their faces during normal gameplay, which also sort of stinks. But this is all redeemed by the rather comical animations of the characters, and the excellently drawn cutscenes. The game's art style actually manages to draw you in quite a bit during these scenes, and it's all something quite special to behold. The game's sound is sort of bland. While there is some excellent voice acting here, which manages to enhance the characters' personalities, a lot of the sound is just boring. The music is forgettable for the most part, and the sound effects are nothing special. It's not that the sound effects are that bad or anything, but they're really pretty boring. And finally, this game is very, very short. You can probably beat it on a long weekend on your first time through. You do have the option of going back and trying to find each of the "clues" that are hidden in each stage and required to find one of the pages of the Thievius Raccoonus, but that won't keep you occupied for long. That might make this game feel like a bit of a waste, but it's actually still worth giving it all a look. Sly Cooper is a fine platformer, it's just held back by a few flaws. You should give it a try, especially if you like platforming games.
