Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time Review

Such espionage is one of the core pleasures luring you in, but Thieves in Time often struggles to balance the carefree joy of movement with appropriate difficulty. Punishment is no more than a slap on the wrist, so there's little fear of being caught red-handed. If a guard happens to lay eyes on you, it takes no more than a leap and a dash to hightail it from your pursuers, and though the brief chase is sure to make your pulse race, being able to so easily escape diminishes the satisfaction of careful thieving. When you reach later sections of the game, guards are more alert and trickier to deceive, and such attention makes you appreciate the deft controls and intricate level design that make escaping so enjoyable. But the enemies are ill-tempered scarecrows early on: quick to anger with little fear of repercussion.

However, it's when combat is necessary that Thieves in Time takes a serious step back. Whether you're knocking enemies with your cane as Sly, shooting from afar as Carmelita, or going fist-to-face with Murray, the forced conflicts land with a dull thud. There's little sense of impact or danger when enemies become feisty. Just slam on the appropriate buttons, collect the plentiful healing power-ups downed enemies invariably cough up, and repeat the process until you're the last one standing. Such situations are present no matter which character you control, though the encounters are so brief they're just a speed bump on a long and winding road. But when you assume the role of Murray, it's nothing but bash bash bash. These are the weakest portions of the game, making your time-traveling hijinks momentarily hit the skids.

You take control of a bunch of characters through the course of the adventure, and all of them have their own ways of dealing with problems. Sly's under-evolved ancestor Bob may not be the most articulate mammal around, but he can climb sheer cliffs without breaking a sweat. Rioichi prefers more graceful endeavors when he's not rolling sushi. He leaps across vast expanses with spry determination, serving as the most gifted of Sly's athletic relatives. And then there's Tennessee. Though not a standout in maneuverability, he's a crack shot with a gun. You meet, and control, one of Sly's relatives in each episode, and each visit to the past also gives you a new costume. Whether he's tossing his ball and chain as an escaped prisoner or deflecting fireballs as a samurai, Sly has a wide assortment of different moves to play around with.

Bentley may be the most unpredictable of the lot. Being confined to a wheelchair doesn't slow him down at all. With rockets affixed to the wheels and robotic arms coming out the back, Bentley's enhanced chair allows him to keep pace with Sly's thieving crew. Hovering across treacherous pits and tossing explosive darts empowers the eager turtle, but it's when hacking is necessary that Bentley gets to show off. Short minigames that are shallow but enjoyable let you open locked doors without a computer science degree. A side-scrolling shooter, a motion-controlled maze, and a top-down tank blaster offer a counter to the sneak-and-steal core action, and they wrap up before they overstay their welcome.

Carmelita doesn't break a sweat even when she's surrounded by angry apes in the desert.

A scheming boss waits at the end of each episode, and it's in these showdowns that the combat finally shines. These pattern-based encounters require fast reflexes to survive, and they do a good job of layering the difficulty without providing a crushing leap from the relatively easy levels. Each boss has a similar way of fighting. They send out unblockable waves of attacks that you must avoid before the bosses tire themselves out, leaving them open for some retaliatory blows. It's a formula that has been around for decades, but that doesn't diminish the appeal. Comedic exchanges keep a smile on your face, and a few gameplay surprises shake up any predictability.

Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time doesn't mess with the foundation set by its enjoyable predecessors. Rather, it adds an assortment of characters to the mix, each with his or her own moves, and this makes for an exciting and diverse adventure. Each location provides a number of eye-catching sights to please your artistic senses as much as your fingers, and considering all the collectibles to uncover, you can spend hours exploring this colorful world. There are occasional stumbles, but Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time is another good entry in the platforming series.