Sly Cooper

This article is about the video game series. For the title character, see Sly Cooper (character).

Sly Cooper
The series logo beginning from the second game in the series. All subsequent games use a similar logo.
Genres	Platform, Stealth
Developers	Sucker Punch Productions (2002-2005) Sanzaru Games (2011-present)[1]
Publishers	Sony Computer Entertainment
Platforms	PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3
First release	Sly Cooper and the Thievius Raccoonus September 23, 2002
Latest release	PlayStation Move Heroes March 22, 2011

Sly Cooper is a series of platform stealth video games for the Sony PlayStation 2 and PlayStation 3. The series was developed by Sucker Punch Productions for the first three games, and then it was passed on to Sanzaru Games while Sucker Punch continued work on the Infamous series. The series was later remastered into High Definition for the Playstation 3 on one disc by Sanzaru Games. Sanzaru will be releasing the long-anticipated fourth game in the series, Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time, in 2012.

Setting

The world of Sly Cooper is a version of the real world that is populated by anthropomorphic animals, with film noir and comic book motifs. The focus of the story is of Sly Cooper, a young adult raccoon and the latest descendant in a line of master thieves who pass down their expert techniques from generation to generation using the "Thievius Racoonus," a book which contains all the Cooper family's secrets and tricks. While the Cooper family has accumulated a massive amount of wealth through their thieving ways, Sly places greater value on his friendship with his partners, Bentley and Murray, and his flirting and teasing relationship with Inspector Carmelita Fox.

Main series

Sly Cooper and the Thievius Raccoonus

• Platform: PlayStation 2
• Release Date: September 23, 2002

Sly Cooper and the Thievius Raccoonus, also known as Sly Raccoon in European countries, was released in 2002 for the PlayStation 2 platform. Sly must recover his family's "Thievius Raccoonus", a book listing all the special thieving skills his family has collected over several centuries, which was stolen by a rival gang, the Fiendish Five, led by Clockwerk, a mechanical owl, the "manifestation of evil". Meanwhile, Sly and his gang must keep ahead of Interpol Inspector Carmelita Fox, who promises to one day capture Sly and put him away for his crimes.

Sly 2: Band of Thieves

• Platform: PlayStation 2
• Release Date: September 14, 2004

Sly 2: Band of Thieves was released in 2004 for the PlayStation 2 platform. In this game, a series of mechanical parts of the shattered Clockwerk have been stolen by the Klaww Gang. Together, they could be used to revive the defeated Clockwerk; separately, they each have super functions. While Sly and his gang follow these leads, they are pursued by Carmelita and her new partner, Constable Neyla, who are after both the Cooper Gang and the Klaww Gang.

Sly 3: Honor Among Thieves

• Platform: PlayStation 2
• Release Date: September 26, 2005

Sly 3: Honor Among Thieves was released in 2005 for the PlayStation 2 platform. Sly has learned of the Cooper Vault, a gigantic store of the wealth his family's accumulated over the years. He must find a way, however, to defeat Doctor M, who has taken over the island where it is located to try to break into it, with many failed attempts. Sly must regroup his old gang and recruit new members in order to succeed at reclaiming his family's history, all while still on the run from Carmelita.

Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time

Logo of Sly 4 from the E3 2011 trailer

• Platform: PlayStation 3
• Release Date: 2012
• Website: http://www.doyouknowsly.com/

Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time was officially announced during Sony's 2011 E3 Keynote, with a 2012 release. Sly Cooper and the whole gang return with an epic brand new adventure for the PlayStation 3 system. The pages of the Thievius Raccoonus are disappearing and Bentley, now keeper of the ancient master Thieves book, must round up the gang along with new recruits and save the Cooper Clan legacy from being destroyed forever. The game will be developed by Sanzaru Games, the same development team behind The Sly Cooper Collection, instead of Sucker Punch Productions who are focusing on the Infamous series.^[1]

Other games

The Sly Collection

Main article: The Sly Collection

The Sly Collection (titled as The Sly Cooper Collection in Japan and The Sly Trilogy in Europe and Australia) is a remastered port of Sly Cooper and the Thievius Raccoonus, Sly 2: Band of Thieves and Sly 3: Honor Among Thieves for the PlayStation 3 on a single Blu-ray Disc as a Classics HD title. The original games were developed by Sucker Punch Productions while the port was handled by Sanzaru Games and was published by Sony Computer Entertainment. The game was released on November 9, 2010.^[2]

PlayStation Move Heroes

Main article: PlayStation Move Heroes

Another game announced at E3 2010 was PlayStation Move Heroes, features Sly and Bentley, along with Jak and Daxter and Ratchet & Clank, in a crossover title; the game uses PlayStation Move.^[3] It was released March 22, 2011 in North America.^[4]

Major characters

The Cooper gang (Before Sly 3): (from left to right) Murray, Sly, and Bentley, along with Sly's logo in the upper right

See also: List of Sly Cooper characters

Sly Cooper (voiced by Kevin Miller) is the protagonist of the series. He is a young male adult raccoon that is part of a long line of master thieves. Early in his life, he witnessed the savage murder of his mother and father when the Fiendish Five stole his family's Thievius Raccoonus, which holds many of the Cooper clan's best thief moves. He was forced into an orphanage, where he met his best friends, Bentley and Murray. With them, he forms his gang of thieves, the Cooper Gang. He is nimblest of the gang, so he is sent out the most on missions. He is therefore the most played character. He uses a hooked cane, a family heirloom, as a multi-purpose tool. His signature color is blue.

Bentley (voiced by Matt Olsen) is the brains of Sly's gang. He is a turtle who is skilled with computers, gadgets, and explosives, and generally helps with reconnaissance and mission-planning while Sly is out in the field. Later on, his legs are injured under the jaws of his enemy, so he is forced into a wheelchair, which he handily equips with gadgets. His signature color is green.

Murray (voiced by Chris Murphy^{[disambiguation needed ]}) is the muscle of the Gang and Sly's fulltime wheelman and part time burden, in charge of driving the Cooper Gang's van to various locations. As a large pink hippopotamus, he is amazingly strong. He often ventures to the field on missions requiring such strength. When Bentley was injured, he blamed himself and left the Gang, but eventually returned. His signature color is pink.

Carmelita Fox (various voice actresses), a member of Interpol as a police officer, is Sly's nemesis, as well as a love interest. She is a vixen who has her mind set on capturing Sly and his crew, but also demonstrates some romantic feelings for him, which Sly often uses to escape capture at the last minute. Her signature color is golden yellow.

Common gameplay elements

A screenshot from Sly Cooper and the Thievius Raccoonus, showing Sly hiding from a guard. The blue lights to the left indicate Sly's thief senses, in this case, a wall that he can slide against.

The games are primarily a third person platform game. The player controls Sly or one of his companions through many missions of several levels, relying mostly on stealth to avoid encounters and alarms while collecting treasures or other items. Sly is very agile, and is able to use many of the features of the architecture for stealth, indicated to the player by a blue glow, explained in-game as a visible manifestation of Sly's "thief senses." For example, Sly can perch on the top of sharp points, climb up pipes, sneak along a narrow ledge, walk across a tight rope, or use his cane to swing from hooks. Sly also uses his cane to defeat foes, although it makes noise that may attract other foes. He prefers to use sneak attacks when possible, due to his little endurance. Due to his heritage, Sly has a number of special moves that he learns through the games that can also increase his stealth or speed, or allow him to eliminate foes silently. The player also may play as Bentley with his gadgets, or Murray with his strength, and many minor companions in the third game. There are also mini-games scattered throughout the gameplay.

Each game is broken into a series of heists, and to accomplish the heist, Sly and his gang must complete several sub-missions. In the first game, each sub-mission was located on a level accessible from the main heist level, while the second and third games used a nonlinear, open world approach to have various missions located around the same large level. There is typically a boss fight at the end of each heist as the conclusion to the mission.

Comics

The cover of the second promotional Sly Cooper comic

Sly Cooper and other characters from the games were also featured in two comic books published in 2004 and 2005 by GamePro Magazine and DC Comics to promote the release of Sly 2: Band of Thieves and Sly 3: Honor Among Thieves respectively. Both books are used to transition the story from one game to the next.

Issue #1 acted as a story between the first and second game, apparently taking place sometime within the 2 year span between them. The plot consists of two flashback stories. One is a flashback to the Cooper gang's first taste of thief work as children at the Happy Camper Orphanage (stealing cookies from a greedy sitter), and the other detailing the first time Carmelita and Sly met, which the two relay to each other with opposing points of view during a rare peaceful conversation with each other.

Issue #2 takes place after the events of Sly 2 and leads up to the events within Sly 3. The story is broken into four parts. The first part consists of Sly finding a member of his father's gang, McSweeny, in a maximum-security prison due to an invitation. McSweeny, an anthropomorphic, super strong walrus tells Sly of a massive vault on a remote island and its location which contains the accumulated treasure of all the Cooper family members stating it as Sly's inheritance. Part two details Sly and Murray breaking into a hospital to rescue the injured Bentley from the authorities, though at the end, Murray demands that Sly flee with Bentley while he stays behind to deal with the officers. Part three consists of Carmelita reviewing footage of Sly and Murray's attempt (with Bentley notably absent) to steal the map to the Cooper Vault's location from a Venetian museum. But Sly later breaks into her office while she is asleep and steals the vault map from under Carmelita's nose. The final part takes place at the Cooper gang's home in Paris, with Sly reviewing what is needed to get to the vault, while Bentley works on arming his wheelchair with a wide array of gadgets and weaponry to help Sly in the field. Murray returns after his escape and informs the others that he is leaving the gang and disappears to parts unknown.

Reception

Aggregate review scores
As of June 22, 2011.

Game	GameRankings	Metacritic
Sly Cooper and the Thievius Raccoonus	85.23%[5]	86[6]
Sly 2: Band of Thieves	88.04%[7]	88[8]
Sly 3: Honor Among Thieves	83.95%[9]	83[10]
Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time	-[11]	-[12]

The series have been critically acclaimed. It has been praised for its style, controls and the simple stealth mechanic incorporated throughout the series.

References

1. ^ ^{a b} "Sucker Punch Not Developing Sly 4 | Gaming News and Opinion at". Thesixthaxis.com. 2011-06-17. http://www.thesixthaxis.com/2011/06/08/sucker-punch-not-developing-sly-4/. Retrieved 2011-06-24. 
2. ^ "The Sly Collection Related Games, The Sly Collection Similar Games - GameSpot.com". Uk.gamespot.com. http://uk.gamespot.com/ps3/puzzle/theslycollection/similar.html?mode=versions. Retrieved 2011-06-24. 
3. ^ Reilly, Jim (2010-06-15). "E3 2010: Heroes on the Move Announced". IGN. http://ps3.ign.com/articles/109/1098062p1.html. Retrieved 2010-06-15. 
4. ^ "PlayStation Move Heroes for PlayStation 3". GameSpot. http://www.gamespot.com/ps3/action/playstation-move-heroes/similar.html?mode=versions. Retrieved 14 May 2011. 
5. ^ "Sly Cooper and the Thievius Raccoonus Reviews". GameRankings. http://www.gamerankings.com/ps2/561378-sly-cooper-and-the-thievius-raccoonus/index.html. Retrieved June 22, 2011. 
6. ^ "Sly Cooper and the Thievius Raccoonus Reviews". Metacritic. http://www.metacritic.com/game/playstation-2/sly-cooper-and-the-thievius-raccoonus. Retrieved June 22, 2011. 
7. ^ "Sly 2: Band of Thieves Reviews". GameRankings. http://www.gamerankings.com/ps2/919949-sly-2-band-of-thieves/index.html. Retrieved June 22, 2011. 
8. ^ "Sly 2: Band of Thieves Reviews". Metacritic. http://www.metacritic.com/game/playstation-2/sly-2-band-of-thieves. Retrieved June 22, 2011. 
9. ^ "Sly 3: Honor Among Thieves Reviews". GameRankings. http://www.gamerankings.com/ps2/927168-sly-3-honor-among-thieves/index.html. Retrieved June 22, 2011. 
10. ^ "Sly 3: Honor Among Thieves Reviews". Metacritic. http://www.metacritic.com/game/playstation-2/sly-3-honor-among-thieves. Retrieved June 22, 2011. 
11. ^ "Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time Reviews". GameRankings. http://www.gamerankings.com/ps3/632900-sly-cooper-thieves-in-time/index.html. Retrieved June 22, 2011. 
12. ^ "Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time Reviews". Metacritic. http://www.metacritic.com/game/playstation-3/sly-cooper-thieves-in-time. Retrieved June 22, 2011. 

External links

• Sucker Punch Productions
• The Sly Collection @ PlayStation.com