Title: Sly Cooper: Thieves In Time
Platform: Playstation 3 & Playstation Vita
Developer: Sanzaru Games
Publisher: SCEE
I’ve never been a particularly big fan of the Sly Raccoon games. Even in their prime I found them wholly unimpressive in comparison to their SCEE brethren Jak & Daxter or Ratchet & Clank. In another life (read: for another publication), I was tasked with reviewing the Sly HD Collection which I was significantly underwhelmed by. However enjoyable his puzzle-platforming exploits may have been to the post-spyro generation, they just hadn’t held up post-Thief. Unfortunately, despite the fancy fully rendered graphics, Sly Cooper: Thieves In Time left me wanting in all the same ways.
Things kick off when the contents of the Thievius Raccoonus, an ancient thievery instruction manual passed down from cooper to cooper, begin to mysteriously vanish from their pages. Convinced that someone is tampering with it from all over space and time, Sly, Bentley and Murray re-unite once more to track down the culprits and pick up a trinket or two along the way.
The plot allows for some interesting historical set designs, unfortunately the same can’t be said for the levels themselves. An open plan format for each area sidesteps any potential issues of linearity, but it also makes for some tricky navigation. On top of that each level is so littered with interactive ability cues that any sense of fluidity the game hoped to achieve in the use of those abilities is all but lost. It’s an odd thing to criticize in what is demonstrably a childs game, but the worlds never feel natural. Each level feels more like a self-contained playground of mundane puzzles than a pathway to a bigger picture.
Gameplay is divided up between the three main characters and, occasionally, whichever of Slys ancestors you’re in town to visit. In theory this variety allows the game to keep things fresh. In practice it feels schizophrenic at best and scatter brained at worst. Sly is fun to play as, as are his various ancestors, although mostly because they generally play so similarly to him, with the exception of one or two specific abilities. Bentley and Murray however get some of the most boring, uneventful and uninteresting sequences in the history of the medium. As run-of-the-mill as Slys platforming was, any time with his cohorts was counted down minute by minute.
Almost as if Sanzaru were aware of how boring their core gameplay mechanics were, Sly 4 can’t sit still for ten minutes without breaking out some ridiculous mini game. The sixaxis is raised from the dead to take part in an incredibly annoying fishing game as well as a tron-inspired take on asteroids. There’s also a truly bizarre sequence where guitar hero style button cues keep Murray (dressed as a Geisha) from getting booed off stage by a hoard of randy anthropomorphized boars and that’s all in the very first world. It’s nuts.
It’s even stranger still that a game that throws so much at you with such ferocity could end up as boring as Sly 4. There’s a prevailing sense all the way through that this is a game for kids and while that might explain the lack of ambition on display it certainly doesn’t justify it. Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time is an uninspired, uninteresting waste of time that fails both as homage and rebirth.
Good Points
Colourful and pretty graphics
Bad Points
Chaotic gameplay
Awkward controls
Poor level design
Rating: 4/10
