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Sly Cooper and the Thievius Raccoonus
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Game Name:
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Sly Cooper and the Thievius Raccoonus |
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Console:
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PC |
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Reviewed:
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Unknown |
At first glance this title looks like certain popular platform games like Jak and Daxter or Ratchet and Clank. This isn’t entirely the case though; there are many differences in Sly Cooper that place it in a different category. The first difference comes in the form of hitpoints – in the other games I mentioned you have a certain number of hitpoints and can withstand a certain number of attacks or a certain amount of damage before “dying”. In Sly Cooper you normally have just one hitpoint – getting hurt by anything means death. This isn’t nearly as bad as it seems though. Unlike the other games you won’t be wading through a hail of bullets which is what normally requires you to have extra hitpoints. Instead you’ll generally face only one enemy at a time and they can be taken down by timing your attack so as to hit them just after they attack. Normal enemies only take a single hit to take down which makes things a lot easier. You can get some extra hitpoints in the form of lucky charms – these can occasionally be found lying around or you can get one by collecting 100 gold coins. You can have two charms with you at most – if you do something that would cause death you will lose one charm – if your death was due to falling off a cliff or into water you’ll be placed back into a safe location. If you die with no charms in stock you’ll be sent back to the last checkpoint or the start of the level. Your character does have a limited number of lives though – if they lose them all they can just restart the current level from scratch with 5 new lives. Gold coins can be found lying around on the game map – they also appear when you defeat enemies or break open certain objects.
The plot of the game is fairly simple. Sly Cooper is the latest in a long line of master Thieves – his ancestors have been thieving for centuries in places all over the world. Each Cooper has developed their own special techniques to aid in their endeavors and each has written them down in one book – the Thievius Raccoonus. The title makes more sense if you understand that Sly Cooper is a raccoon - in fact every character in the game is a humanoid animal. When Sly was still a young boy, well raccoon, his family home was attacked by a gang of villains who killed his father and stole the book. They split it up between them and went their separate way. Sly was placed in an orphanage where he met two lifelong friends – Bentley the turtle and Murray the hippo. When they grew up they became Sly’s partners in crime. Bentley provides technical support and intel to Sly one each mission via video transmissions. Murray on the other hand is the driver – he gets them to each location and is does the driving in a number of minigames. Now that Sly himself has become a master thief he’s out to take back his family’s book and avenge his father.
As I mentioned before – the game plays like a 3D platformer. However the game focuses more on jumping and climbing puzzles than fighting off waves of enemy attackers. For those of you, who are groaning as you recall some horrific jumping puzzles in other games, rest easy. Sly Cooper is the friendliest platformer game I’ve ever played – the whole game is very polished in that regards. For one thing, Sly is equipped with a hooked cane which is a family heirloom. Aside from using this to bash enemies he can use it to grab hold of things. Say you need to jump onto a rope for example – other games would require you land on it exactly. In Sly Cooper you just need to get close to the rope and hit the circle button. Sly will use his cane to quickly hook onto the rope. This makes the game a lot easier and a lot less frustrating. It can also save your life in locations where you accidentally drop off of a ledge or perform jump badly.
Most missions in the game work like this – you start off arriving at the hideout of one of the villains. You have to go through an entryway area on foot to get into the main base. Once you are in the base a number of other areas can and must be entered and cleared to proceed as they will have keys that you need to progress. Once you’ve completed those areas you can reach some more areas. Once you’ve finished them all you can fight the villain directly – this is usually in the form of a minigame or at least something other than a direct, stand up fight. At least one of the areas you visit in the base will be a minigame of some description. The rest will usually be platform based of some description. In the non-minigame areas you’ll usually see some bottles located in various locations. These bottles contain clues that are needed to open up a safe somewhere in that area. Calling them clues might be a bit misleading though, you don’t read them – you just have to collect them all and Bentley will be able to tell you the combination for the safe in that area. You can’t open the safe until then – even though it’s a 3 digit combination you can’t try and guess it. These clue bottles vary in difficulty in how easy they are to find. Some are sitting in plain view while others are behind, on top of or even inside of objects. When you open the safe you will usually be rewarded with a page from the Thevius Raccoonus which teaches you a new trick or move you can perform. However, one safe in each mission will contain the blueprints for the entire hideout. Sly has a pair of binoculars which he can use to survey his surroundings – if he has the blueprints then breakable objects and uncollected clue bottles will be highlighted. This can be very useful for finding well hidden bottles. I think though that what you find in each safe is order dependant – ie. The first safe you open will contain item A, the second will contain item B etc.
In some areas Sly will be chased by Carmelita Fox. Carmelita is an Interpol officer who is determined to catch Sly and put him behind bars. Carmella is armed with a pistol that fires electrical stun blasts. She isn’t terribly accurate though – mostly because she shoots are where you are, not where you’ll be when her shot reaches you. Even when her shots are on target it’s fairly easy to dodge them. She’s about as close to a love interest as Sly has in the game since he’s always trying to chat her up whenever she appears. While it looks like she might be somewhat receptive she’s still determined to put him behind bars.
In terms of difficultly the game kind of has two levels. On one hand, finishing the actual game isn’t that hard – many of the moves you learn seem designed to make things even easier and being able to grab onto climbable objects makes things really easy. On the other hand, once you’ve solved a normal area (ie. Anywhere other than a minigame area) you can visit it again for a time trial. Near the start of the area will be an hourglass. Hit it and the time trial begins – you need to reach the end of the level within the time limit to complete it. These can be very difficult to pull off and the only reward for doing so is some bonus content. Still, it addresses the problem of this game being too easy in general – but since it’s so easy it won’t take long to complete the main plot.
For complaints about this game I’ve only got a few. The dialogue in the game can’t be skipped when you first encounter it. Even though Sly appears to be a thief and moves like he’s trying to sneak – stealth in this game is close to non-existent. About the closest thing is jumping into a barrel which hides you from guards while you are standing still. Even if you try sneaking up behind an enemy they will always notice you when you get close enough. The short length is a minus of course. Unless you are really bad at platform games it shouldn’t take more than 12 hours to complete.
This game really is worth a look since it’s now out as a budget re-release. It is a bit easy but it’s a very fun gaming experience. The thing about the game that really sticks out is ease of use. This game is designed to be as player friendly as possible. That’s a major plus in my books.
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