Sly Cooper (series)

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Sly Cooper is a series of action-stealth platforming video games for the Sony PlayStation 2. The series has been developed by Sucker Punch Productions.

[edit] 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. In addition, the world of Sly Cooper is filled with super-science and magic. The focus of the story is 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.

[edit] Major characters

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

See also: List of Sly Cooper Characters

Sly Cooper

Sly Cooper 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 death of his parents when the Fiendish Five stole his family's Thievius Raccoonus. 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 and cleverest of the gang, so he is sent out the most on missions. He is therefore the most played character. He uses a hooked cane as a multi-purpose tool.

Bentley

Bentley is the brains of Sly's gang. He is a turtle that is skilled with electronics, computers, and gadgets, and generally helps with reconnaissance and mission-planning while Sly's out in the field. He is a classic nerd. Later on, he breaks his legs under the jaws of his enemy, so he is forced to live in a wheelchair, which he handily equips with gadgets.

Murray

Murray is the muscle of the Gang and Sly's wheelman, in charge of driving the Cooper Gang's van to various locations. As a large pink hippopotamus, he is amazingly strong but somewhat stupid. He often ventures to the field on missions requiring such strength.

Carmelita Fox

Carmelita Fox, a member of Interpol, is Sly's nemesis. She is a vixen who has her mind set on capturing Sly, but also demonstrates some romantic feelings for him, which Sly often uses to escape capture at the last minute.

[edit] 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 sidle 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, sneak along a narrow ledge, 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 an 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.

[edit] Games

[edit] Sly Cooper and the Thievius Raccoonus

See also: Sly Cooper and the Thievius Raccoonus

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-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.

[edit] Sly 2: Band of Thieves

See also: Sly 2: Band of Thieves

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 partner, Constable Neyla, who are after both the Cooper Gang and the Klaww Gang.

[edit] Sly 3: Honor Among Thieves

See also: Sly 3: Honor Among Thieves

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. 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.

[edit] Future titles

Sly Cooper 4 (working title) was announced on May 24, 2007 for a speculative 2008 release for the PlayStation 3^[1]. The game would have been premiered at E3 2007, and would feature connectivity with the Sly Cooper PSP game for the PlayStation Portable, which will be simultaneously released with the PlayStation 3 version. However, on June 5, 2007, IGN and other sources posted that there has yet to be any confirmation that work on these games exists, and thus this speculation may be incorrect.^[2]

Instead, it was announced at E3 2007 that Sucker Punch was working on a PlayStation 3 title called inFamous, a sandbox game based on a futuristic world with more photorealistic graphics. Brian Fleming of Sucker Punch Productions stated in an interview that "We're broadening ourselves a little bit, taking on some new challenges," but also noted that "I think it's extremely likely that you'll see us return to the 'Sly Cooper' franchise at some point in the future."^[3]

[edit] 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 escapades and informs the others that he is leaving the gang and disappears to parts unknown.

[edit] Reception

The overall series has earned high praise from reviewers, with aggregate Metacritic ratings of 86%^[4], 88%^[5], and 83%^[6] for the first three games, respectively. Sly Cooper has been considered as one of Sony Computer Entertainment's mascots along with Jak & Daxter and Ratchet & Clank^[7], though some reviewers feel that many gamers have unfairly overlooked the Sly Cooper series in favor of the other two^[1].

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Sucker Punch Productions