Review: Sly Cooper Thieves In Time (PS3, Vita)

The previous three PS2 titles got a good reception when they were released together as an HD collection for Sony's current-gen console in 2010.

Developer Sanzaru Games, which took the series over from Sucker Punch, has followed that up with a fourth and all-new adventure, Thieves In Time.

The plot for this single-player escapade revolves around Sly getting back together with his ragtag gang of anthropomorphic animals to find the villain responsible for making words disappear from the pages of the Thievius Raccoonus, the book of secrets handed down through generations of altruistic crooks in the Cooper family.

Solving the mystery and restoring the Cooper history involves travelling through time to such places as Feudal Japan, the Wild West, Medieval England, ancient Arabia and even a stopover in the Ice Age.

Much of the game is pure third-person platforming mixed with stealth, so as Sly you'll be jumping from object to object, shimmying up poles, crab-walking along ledges and scampering across cables, all the while sneakily trying to stay out of sight from guards and searchlights as you try to pull of daring heists and rescues.

Some of the platforming takes places within confined spaces, but much of the time it's in more open-world environments where story-based missions are provided and where exploration to find various goodies is encouraged.

Other than some awkward moments with the camera and slight annoyance with the controls which require the player to jump towards an object and hit another button to land on it, I've found the platforming to be generally solid and good fun.

During the game Sly's ancestors that he meets become playable characters, all of them having different abilities and personalities.

When not creeping around, there are more action-based sequences and mini games to play in as members of Sly's well-meaning entourage which includes brainy wheelchair-bound turtle Bentley and the brawny hippo Murray.

The segments that break up the platforming are a diverse bunch, ranging from a twin-stick shooter (good) to a motion-controlled fishing game (not so good).

At times these activities feel more filler than thriller and give the game a little bit of an identity crisis by diluting its core appeal as a platformer, but nobody could accuse Thieves In Time of lacking variety or being repetitive because it never has you doing the same thing for very long.

In keeping with previous Sly games, the art style very much reminds me of a Saturday morning kids' cartoon, something like Top Cat, with whiffs of film noir and comic book. It's in keeping with the overall tone of the game, which is generally light and playful with just a little hint of darkness lurking under the surface.

The resemblance to a children's show continues with the over-the-top voices given to the characters and the excellent cartoony sound effects. It’s a game which is easy on the eye and ear, bursting with personality and charm.

It's makes quite a nice change for a game these days not to contain any real violence or scares, but unfortunately Thieves In Time doesn't offer any great challenge or tension either.

Enemy AI is very basic. Foes are generally easy to avoid or outfox and when confrontation does happen a few presses of the attack buttons usually take care of it (save for the boss battles).

Parents of younger players can rest assured there isn't a huge sense of danger in this game, whereas those same younger players may actually feel a bit miffed that there isn't a bit more excitement at times.

Thieves In Time is quite a straightforward game to progress through. The only times I've struggled and had to repeat stages have been caused not by the difficulty of play but by me not fully understanding what to do or where to go.

Sanzaru Games deserves credit for creating a really likeable platform adventure with high production values. As well as continuing the Sly Cooper story, it also stays very faithful to the earlier trilogy of games in its style and structure.

The problem with staying so true to the originals is that it Thieves In Time already feels rather retro and dated. It’s an old-school rather than a contemporary type of games and because it doesn't offer anything new or take the Sly series forward at all I'm not sure it will stay in most gamers' consciousness for very long.

Oddly, by staying the same and sticking for the most part to the traditional platforming formula it actually manages to be a bit different from most other games currently available. It's like a person at a party whose fashion sense and hairstyle are a few years behind everyone else's - they are out of touch but also a bit unusual in their own way. I don't think being like that will be enough for this game to make much of an impact.

There is still a lot to enjoy about Thieves In Time. Though I'm not sure it was entirely intended, it provides a nice nostalgia trip for fans of platform games from yesteryear while giving newcomers to the genre and perhaps younger players a chance to experience what made this style of gaming so popular in the past.

Verdict: 7 out of 10

Out now for PS3 and Vita - PS3 version tested. A bonus worth mentioning is that this game is part of Sony's Cross Buy promotion, meaning that if you buy the PS3 version you get a free copy for the Vita to download via the PlayStation Network