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This game looks kinda shady, but at the least it gives off the image of a decent platformer or time consumer. It's both. Sly Cooper is the main character, an abnormally tall raccoon that walks on 2 feet and wears a ninja outfit all while taking out several hundred enemies with his... cane. Cool, huh? Eh. It may be the beginning of a franchise for the PS2, and it might be one of those games you rent in 4 years cause you've actually played it before but you've read a few decent reviews on it. Before I go any further, this has to be said- it's cel-shading, but this isn't bad. It's kinda dumb-looking but all and all, it gave the game a nice effect.
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Graphics and Sound
This is all pretty basic, but that's not a bad thing. No mistakes at least. If something is supposed to be something, it looks like that something. If it's supposed to make a sound, it makes a sound. There are some areas in the game where depth perception is VERY important, jumping over lasers and on small rocks and whatnot, and this is all done very well actually, not once in the game did I have a problem with depth perception, OR camera angle- a very rare combo indeed. I'd give the overall look and sound of Sly Cooper an 80%, because as I said everything is done well, the cel-shading isn't annoying, but on the other hand, there's nothing stunning or breathtaking.
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Plot
In all of Sly Cooper's heritage, from generation to generation of weird 5 foot tall talking raccoons, there has been a book entitled "Thievius Raccoonus", listing all the famous ancestors of Sly himself and their best tricks of the trade as far as stealing. One day it gets stolen from Sly! The Fiendish Five... a group of evil villains, 5 of them to be exact, have split up across the globe, each carrying a crucial page of the sacred book. Also along the way are approx. 40 other pages, one in almost every level, that contain extra moves and abilities for Sly. In a few levels you'll encounter Carlita Fox, I believe that's the exact name, a cop who is referred to as "sexy" a number of times throughout the game. She has a personal vendetta against Sly and is always trying to track him down and arrest him... and by the way, she's another 4 or 5 foot tall talking animal who walks on 2 feet, jumps, runs, and fires a big laser plasma gun at Sly, luckily with pretty low accuracy. To aid him in his quest Sly has 2 buddies: Bentley the Turtle (glasses, talking, fits the theme with the rest of the animals) and Murray the flustered hippo.
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Replayability
Pretty decent, not bad at all, considering if you want 100% game completion the first time through you're gonna have to beat every level, then all the bosses, THEN get all the hidden pages, THEN beat all the time attack modes set for each level, titled "Master Thief Sprints". I did not have enough to play through this whole game twice, sadly, or else I would have just for the experience if not anything else. However, once again, just the first time through should take you around 40 hours, Sucker Punch Productions really did well with this title.
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Summary? Great game. Really friendly controls, extremely smooth graphics, crisp sound but not over the top, unique boss battles, cool thief maneuvers, and overall depth make this one hell of a game. It keeps you interested, spices it up regularly with variety, and even the voice acting is good. Hopefully we will see more Sly on the PS2 in the future. Those who know me and know of my fear of cel-shading should be a little shocked when I award this game with an overall score of 90%.
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