By Michael Lowell

November 19, 2010

Sly Cooper and the Thievius Raccoonus
Playstation 2
Developed: Sucker Punch Productions
Published: Sony Computer Entertainment America
Released: September 23, 2002

Note A: The Sly Cooper trilogy was just re-released on the Playstation 3.  The series has a reputation for being some of the best platformers that nobody played.  Let’s check in on that.

Note B: This review analyzes a game released during a previous generation.  This review is not here to reflect player and critical reception at the time of the game’s release.  It’s here to see whether those perceptions held up.

If you’re under the age of eighteen, it’s tough to sell the Crash Bandicoot Success Story™.  No, he wasn’t Mario.  A lot of people didn’t even think he was Banjo or Kazooie.  But he was a damn good answer to the Nintendo platforming behemoth. And with the backing of a little-known developer by the name of Naughty Dog, Crash provided some of the best offerings on the Sony Playstation.  Then publisher Universal Interactive Media disowned Naughty Dog and the series took a dreadful dive in quality.  And Crash was never heard from again.

You think it ends there?  Hardly.  Sony releases the Playstation 2 and it’s no surprise they’re looking for a substitute for the bandicoot.  The publisher had acquired Sucker Punch Productions.  No, the developer hadn’t built a following with Infamous yet.  They were following up on the solid-but-quickly-forgettable Rocket: Robot on Wheels.  So how’d it work for them?  In the make-believe universe where developers lock themselves in a room and don’t come out until they’ve got an original game to brag about, Sly Cooper and the Thievius Raccoonus is something to be proud of.  It doesn’t foot the same substance as the generation’s best platformers.  But hey, it’s Crash Bandicoot Solid.  It’s tough to screw that up.

It’s a fairly adult premise for kid-oriented characters.  Like the rest of his bloodline, the raccoon Sly Cooper is a thief.  A damn good one.  And when he was a kid, enemies of the Cooper family wiped out Sly’s dad and ganked the Thievius Raccoonus, a family-exclusive Kama Sutra of wallet-stealing.  And with the help of Bentley the Turtle (a hilarious transfusion of Haray Caray and “cocky computer genius”) and Murray the Hippo, it’s time to get your book back.  So see, you’re a thief.  But you steal from thieves.  But it’s okay.  You’re a “good thief”.  They’re “bad thieves”.  Got it?  It takes some tact to make it work.  But damn, it does.

Kid-oriented outings are typically watered down in the pursuit of plot-driven “zany antics”.  One of two things happens: Either the antagonists suffer from a gripping case of “they’re evil because the writers said so!” or they’re portrayed as so powerful and ego-driven that it’s tough to take them seriously.  (Or did I just call out the “mature” Bayonetta by name?)  Sly Cooper offers as much a character-driven storyline as the Crash Bandicoot “hubworld that allows you to access multiple levels in any order” approach will allow.  All while delivering some of the sharpest humor you’ll find in any video game on the market.  (When Bentley is obsessing over the effort it took for him to crack a safe’s three-digit password, you’ll know exactly what I’m talking about.)

Though “memorable plot and characters” isn’t the leap forward from Crash Bandicoot.  Hell, the walls bleed bandicoot in every room Sly Cooper steals from.  Same rail-based level layout, same health system, same enemy design, same item collection scheme.  The fix?  Sucker Punch asked themselves a simple question: “The platforming genre is built on dexterity and timing.  Why can’t we have a little stealth-action fun?”  Then they got to work.

The circle button becomes an all-purpose weapon for perching, sneaking, and sliding.  Yeah, I know what you’re thinking: “A button that plays the game for me.  Wonderful.  They got ‘Press X To Not Die’ in my platformer.”  Nope.  It makes Sly Cooper feel deft. It acts as simple stimuli, where pressing the circle button breaks up the monotony of pressing the X button to jump.  And there’s not much worry over whether it’ll work.  The controls are damn sharp.  You could cut yourself with the controls.  If you die, there’s nobody to blame but yourself.  Even the game’s off-beat driving and shooting missions play better than they have any right to, if only because they don’t take up your time for long.

Oh.  And it looks pretty good, too.

What keeps Sly Cooper from reaching god status?  Think about what typically derails and destroys promising stealth-action games.  Sloppy camera?  That’s not it.  Sly’s field of vision isn’t perfect, but it’s manageable.  Think of 2009′s Velvet Assassin.  The game was built around a female spy who had a thing for stabbing Nazis in the neck.  Badass is implied.  But if the Germans had sight of her?  She crumbled into a ball, a girl with the self-defense capabilities of a sliding glass door.

Hardcore stealth fans will surely digress, but the act of being spotted should not be the death sentence.  The act of being spotted should be an opportunity for the player to demonstrate that he made a mistake and has the gaming acumen to make up for it.  The game’s lesser minions are simple enough to deal with.  But then you get to the guys with guns.  And it’s made very clear that you are no match for them.  Your goal is go around them.  Period.  And if you screw that up, you’re taking damage no matter how much gaming machismo your hands are capable of.

Sure, developers can get around this.  Sucker Punch opts for a range of special abilities.  Some focus on stealth, some focus on aggression.  But there’s several problems with them.  Most of your arsenal is obtained by recovering pages of the Thievius Raccoonus.  You earn these by collecting clues scattered throughout each level.  Get clues, crack safe, profit.  This means these abilities can’t be necessary, lest the item become mandatory.  So the optional abilities have to be entertaining.  They have to introduce an alternative way to play the game.  Super Metroid can be completed without the Screw Attack.  The game just happens to be more fun with it.  And Sly’s perks?  The player cycles through all of them with the triangle button.  And none of them are useful enough to make the player tolerate a sloppy selection scheme.  The abilities that prove the most useful are passive abilities.  Earning an ability that prevents any damage incurred from falling into a pit doesn’t increase the available amount of ways to play the game.  It merely increases the margin of error for the player.  And that’s typically the domain of second-rate games looking to band-aid critical flaws.

So clearly, it’s not perfect.  It’s not long, either.  You can wipe the entire game in about seven hours. Not much of a “stick with what works” guy, but if Sucker Punch ties up the loose ends, they would have a winner on their hands.  Wouldn’t want to turn Sly Cooper and the Thievius Raccoonus into Grand Theft Auto and then inherit all of its flaws.

Or did I just preview the second game for you?

3 out of 5

(Games rated three-out-of-five are middling. They’re the domain of promising introductions and high-profile let-downs. Every triumph will come with a hair-puller.)

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