As the PlayStation 2 reaches the end of its second year, Sony has really committed to putting its money into cool, original ideas and establishing the PlayStation as a place where games can be creative, a little quirky, and edgier than Nintendo’s equivalents. As long as PlayStation remains committed to that ideal and doesn’t pivot at some point to paving the way for a homogenous future of games that all chase the same ideas, we’re gonna keep getting cool games of different shapes and sizes. Sly Cooper and the Thievius Racoonus, the new platformer from Rocket: Robot on Wheels developer Sucker Punch Productions, is the latest example of Sony funding inspired ideas, and I’m looking forward to it standing tall for years to come alongside other 3D platformers like Banjo-Kazooie and Jak and Daxter.
Sly Cooper follows the titular raccoon thief, a cool dude with a lot of attitude. Think Disney’s Robin Hood but with fewer antics and more carefully planned heists. He’s skilled, suave, and flirts with his cop adversary/love interest as they battle it out on different sides of the law like star-crossed lovers. Sly is just a charismatic and memorable platformer hero with more character than his contemporaries, and I could see him being an all-ages icon that Sony could create Saturday morning cartoons, action figures, comic books, and other merchandise and entertainment around. The game’s cartoony, anthropomorphic characters, paired with its timeless noir aesthetic, make Sly Cooper feel like a throwback to ‘60s cartoons like The Pink Panther or Secret Squirrel. The game just oozes style and commits to a vibe inspired by that era of animation, with the sneaking bassline that follows Sly’s footsteps as he sneaks behind unsuspecting foes providing the cherry on top of this classic cartoon lover’s cake.
Nailing the look, sound, and tone of old cartoons can only take it so far, however. Sly Cooper is also marries the regular run-and-jump platforming the genre is known for with intuitive and accessible stealth. Sly primarily uses his cane to thwack his enemies around for a direct approach, but he can also use it to swing on hooks out of enemy sightlines, hug the side of a wall as he sneaks around behind cover, and balance on top of spires and perch from high ground over his foes. It’s not Metal Gear, but Sly Cooper’s approachable take on stealth is a great gateway into the genre. Every environmental interaction is mapped to the circle button on your DualShock 2 controller, and it makes reading and navigating the environment a breeze. You’ll appreciate that, because Sly can’t take a lot of hits. He’s just a thief, after all. He’s not big and burly, and he doesn’t fight on the frontlines like his hippo friend Murray could if he’d get out of the getaway van and onto the field, which would be a cool idea for the sequel, right, Sucker Punch?
Sly Cooper isn’t without its frustrations (don’t get me started on the racing segments), but it’s really refreshing that PlayStation has brought out not one, not two, but three cool new mascot platformers in just the first two years of the PS2’s life cycle. Sony may have been shortsighted in letting Crash and Spyro go, but the future of the 3D platformer looks pretty bright here in 2002, and I can’t wait to see how PlayStation learns its lesson and treats this new series with the respect it’s already earned with its first outstanding entry.
The story you just read is part of the 2002 edition of Warp Week, a Kotaku series that takes readers back to gaming’s past through a mix of time-dilated reviews, retrospectives, and on-the-ground reports.