You Sly Bastar…….

As the sullen moonlight filters through the manacled clouds, cloaked in the anonymity of the evening, a clandestine figure prowls the rooftops of the quaint Paris architecture. Provisional acclimation of his surroundings with rotational oscillation of his binoculars renders deficient authoritative resistance for his eminent infiltration to police headquarters. Safe from any inquisitive enquiries, this subverted raccoon emerges from the vacuous shadows with cursory purpose, instigating a radio transmission with his reptilian accomplice Bentley (a turtle) and long time hindrance and semi-professional driver Murray (a pink Hippopotamus). Together they….must…..steal delicate…..information pertaining to…..Sly’s felonious…..past? Wait, hold on; a band of thieves consisting of a Raccoon, a turtle (tortoise?) and–stop me if I’m wrong–but a vascular Hippo……that’s pink? This is Sly Cooper, a Raccoon of refined notoriety who’s prosperous acclaim to thievery is an inheritance bestowed to him by his ancestry. With each new generation, the cooper legacy becomes a further lamented fable, with centuries of thievery amassed in a documented encyclopaedia known as the Thievius Raccoonous (this is playing havoc with my spell-checker) containing not only the individual pilfering expedients of notorious coopers through the centuries, but also an adage of secret attributes used by his ancestors. But the book has been stolen *gasp*, separated into 5 pieces and distributed to an insidious troupe of villains known as the fiendish five, and its up to sly and his friends to recover the missing artefact from the clutches of evil!

“Yes this a voodoo alligator, dancing with chickens. Your guess is a good as mine?”

It may not be the most venerable of conceits, but it isn’t undermined by specious provenance or patent life lessons of morality. The story telling and characters are richly detailed because of the simplistic retention’s, I mean how many characters do you know that would take a brief sabbatical for some modest retail therapy and a cheeky ice cream in each destination they visited, before venturing to their next terminus. With so many games now feeling an effusive supplication to perpetuate events for longer than is necessary in a navigable, mailable world, with linearity often disposed as antiquated structure in modern gaming, Sly Raccoon avails away from these structural restrictions by maintaining the pace of the plot. The games despite their vibrant flourishes and projected innocence presents a more refined challenge than I had initially anticipated, with each end of level boss (remember those?) presenting diversified challenges, with one garishly attired reptilian dancing as she sends temporal rhythmic button prompts hurtling towards me at alternating tempo. One hit fatalities surprised me too, which often meant repeatedly swift executions and instant negotiation of the entire level from the start. Grrr! I get so frustrated by developers that attempt to evoke a cultured spectacle with similar tonal  of Aristotle ! Sly Cooper, whether of its own volition or not ebbs away from the contrivances that blights modern gaming, and its romanticized perception of criminality is only enhanced by the animal portrayals. And its sad that a game such as this has become a rarity, almost niche simply because it’s not wrought with ethical symbolism or passively submissive to its own pompous self-righteousness. Also the end credits are a brief 60 seconds and don’t feel the obligation to applaud the nominal contribution of everyone who participated in preparing the coffee or the janitors dog.

I don’t know why I felt compelled to account this game; it’s hardly current or even relevant, but somehow its become the most influential game I’ve played since the Last of us, despite its predation by over a decade. I guess it’s the sudden realisation that despite the prominence of the industry since Sly’s original release, gaming is adamant in advocating more decorative grandeur, insisting that a game should be based purely on the banality of frame-rates, resolutions and petit pois, sorry “P’s”. Conducting over analytical comparisons between a screenshot at 1080p and the inferior 720p, which is an inherent vulnerability, apparently. Sly Raccoon balanced the perpetuated innocence and cosmetically juvenile semblances with mechanics that felt complex without feeling prohibitive. Its the kind of game that with much-needed facial restoration doesn’t feel dated, and teaches younger gamers that not all challenges can be quickly concluded.

Have games lost their soul? Have we as gamers forgotten what is important? Let me know your thoughts. Cheers.