Silicon Fusion >> Reviews >> Sly Raccoon

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Review:

17th March 2003:
Sly Raccoon
Sony sure are making plenty of platform games. Sly Raccoon is just one of many and a damn good one too...
Posted by John Wasabi - PlayStation 2 - UK and Europe

Not another platform game I hear you say? Well it is and a pretty good one at that. The main character this time is a raccoon thief descended from a long line of 'master raccoon thieves.' Like all good Kung Fu stories, this tale is all about revenge and Sly is out for plenty of it against a sinister organisation known as the Fiendish Five. They are a group of master criminals who murdered Sly's father and stole a family heirloom known as the 'Thievius Raccoonus' that contains the secrets of the master raccoon thieves. Together with his childhood friends Sly sets out to track down the Fiendish Five, avoid capture from the lovely police inspector Carmelita Fox (Sly's equalled rival and occasional love interest), and reclaim his family's legacy.

Graphically Sly Raccoon is undoubtedly the best-looking PS2 platform game to date. Forget Jak & Daxter, Ratchet & Clank and the many others lining up. Sly Raccoon beats each of them hands down. It's all smoothly animated cel-shaded grahics combined with pastel environments, with some of the most fluid animation on a character yet seen that provides all the impressive eye candy. The movie sequences are creative, much like a flash-like animation style, which brought nostalgic memories of Saturday morning cartoons flooding to mind.

Character design is truly inspirational on all accounts; Sly shows the style and agility one would expect of a world-class burglar. Bentley the turtle is the mastermind, a techno whiz who can solve the most difficult problems with the relative of ease. Its not just the good guys either even the villains are well designed.

Its not just the way it looks that makes Sly Raccoon special, it plays like a dream with some of the most responsive controls we've had the pleasure to play. We are also happy to report that Sly Raccoon is one of the few platform games that address the camera problem that plagues this genre very well only proving bothersome in the most frantic moments of the time trials. There are also plenty of impressive physics and although do not affect the gameplay, it allows for various little touches that add to the experience such as Catwalks tilting, debris crumbling off buildings, and Sly swinging in mid air effortlessly with his sickle-like weapon.

There are four main boss locations with sub-levels within and every level must be completed before you can face one of the Fiendish Five at the end. Each level has a set path that funnels you along towards your goal, so little exploration is needed. However new 'master thief moves' can be learned by retrieving pages of the 'Thievius Raccoonus' from hidden safes in each level which will be a bit trickier to collect. As good as that sounds, not all of them prove helpful or functional, in fact only the moves you learn from defeating the bosses are of vital importance in order to progress.

So what other gripes did we have? Well, no game's perfect and we experienced frequent slowdown. When the game is running to what it should be, nothing touches it but the developers may have pushed the system too far, resulting in choppiness to certain areas. It is only a minor problem and does not affect the gameplay, but it certainly puts a dent on the Sly's slick and smooth feel.

Also the other issue is length; these days we are use to playing platform games for hours on end 20, 40, even 60 hours is fairly common by today's standards. However, you will not get this luxury with Sly Raccoon as an initial play through of the game can effortlessly done in roughly ten hours. The game is easy and far too short; in fact the only challenges you'll face are the boss battles. After each level is beaten time trial challenges appears, it does help slightly to prolonging the life of Sly Raccoon and by beating them, you can unlock the developer's commentary on the level you just cleared, a very rewarding feature indeed and much welcome especially for those who want to delve deeper into the minds of developers.

Make no mistake though; Sly Raccoon is like any other 3D platform game, there is nothing new or original in what it tries to do but it does it well for a game that is in a highly competitive genre. Sly Raccoon is however, the best-looking PS2 platform game released thus far. It is very polished, has big production values with a great storyline sprinkled with a Saturday morning cartoon like feel. We hope to see Sly Raccoon brought back soon, in fact with the many amazing platform games that Sony are releasing such as Jak & Daxter, Ratchet & Clank, and Ape Escape 2 it will only be a matter of time before they bridge that gap of well known mascots and platform gaming nirvana monopolised so well by Nintendo.

John Wasabi

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Review Summary:

Make no mistake though; Sly Raccoon is like any other 3D platform game, there is nothing new or original in what it tries to do but it does it well for a game that is in a highly competitive genre. Sly Raccoon is however, the best-looking PS2 platform game released thus far. It is very polished, has big production values with a great storyline sprinkled with a Saturday morning cartoon like feel.

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Sly Raccoon
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