Sly Cooper and the Thievius Raccoonus is a single player platformer that was released in January 2003 in Europe, Japan and North America for the Play Station 2. A remastered HD released appeared in 2011 along with Band of Thieves and Honour Among Thieves. It was released again in February of this year with the fourth game, Sly cooper Thieves in Time. As you have probably guessed from the title, the game is about theft.
When you begin the game on the Sly Collection released in 2011 you are greeted with a choice of the three games above the getaway van of the Cooper gang driving along under it. When you choose the Thievius Raccoonus game You are placed right into the scene of the crime where you are about to break into French Police headquarters to find the locations of the Fiendish Five who killed Sly the Raccoons father in order to steal his family book, The Thievius Raccoonus.
Sly is a thief from a long line of Master thieves whom on his 10th birthday was meant to receive the book and read it in order to learn his families’ secret thief techniques in order to become a master thief himself and add his own techniques.
After his father is murdered, Sly is sent to an orphanage where he meets his comrades in crime. Slys gang are Bentley the brainy tortoise and Murray the pink muscle bound hippo. Bentley talks you through the tutorial. You may only play as Sly but a couple of times during the game you play a mini-game Race in the van as Murray.
Enemies in the game are mainly big thugs who generally won’t see you as long as you don’t get caught when they shine their torch on you. When sneaking into somewhere, you will find lasers around which will set off an alarm and call enemies to you.
Sly also has another enemy. Detective Carmelita Fox who is determined to put Sly behind bars! But she’s also Slys love interest who wields a paralysing red pistol which stuns you if you get hit. Sly also has a main weapon himself, which is a cane which looks like a hook.
Sometimes you find lucky horse shoes which act as sort of shields. With silver you get one free hit without dying and gold gives you two hits without dying.
The controls are nice and easy to use with smooth jumps, dodges and runs. As you progress through the game you are advised to collect thirty clues in each level. Finding them all will give you a code which Bentley will crack and tell you the combination to a safe which will give you a piece of the Thievius Raccoonus. When you find them all and beat all of the Fiendish Five, you complete the book.
One of the best things about Sly Cooper Thievius Raccoonus is the voice acting and cartoony cut scene animations. Kevin Miller does a fantastic job as Sly and is one of the things that really make the game special.
When finding some Book pages you are able to take down enemies using different styles other than just hitting them with a cane. It is possible to complete the main story line without collecting them but it is recommended that you get them all for that nice sense of completion.
The overall motorisation and movement of Sly is nice and simple which gives a good clean feel for the game. A nice effect is given my Sly’s tail which seems to sort of glide along behind him. The game pulls you with other effects such as a great variation of soundtracks. The music changes as you carry out actions such as sneaking or fighting. It changes suddenly but smoothly and gets you more engaged with what’s going on around you.
As one of the first games I ever played on a console I love this game very much and would rate it a whopping 5 out of 5 nerds. I highly recommend playing this. It’s fantastic.
Irwin Fletcher
I'm an LA journalist who really lives for his profession. I have also published work as Jane Doe in various mags and newspapers across the globe. I normally write articles that can cause trouble but now I write for FTN because Nerds are never angry, so I feel safe.
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