I was pleasantly surprised by Sly Cooper. I didn't really know what to expect from Sucker Punch, having never played any of their games besides the inFamous demo, which I wasn't much into (kind of wondering if that's changed now). The art style and gameplay concepts felt fresh throughout, while my 3D platforming experience of late still applied. The music was also excellent, smooth, well-produced, unobtrusive, and enhanced the theme of each local without going overboard, good stuff. I enjoyed the story and characters for the most part, though the voice acting was rather poor beyond the 3 main characters, even Sly bothered me at some points. Bentley and Murray on the other hand, made me laugh my ass off a couple times.

The controls were well thought out, and I didn't have any real 'that should have worked' moments. The game was built for speed, and speedy challenges are all I have left, which brings me to my one real 'complaint' about the game. It was a bit too easy. This may be my recent track record of nothing but platformers enhancing my ability to traverse challenges with little effort, or the developers just needed to test the market and the next game will step up in difficulty in a fair and balanced way. Of course, the aforementioned speed runs are ridiculously difficult, and required for completion. I have completed ONE, on the first level, with 1 second to spare. It seems they were engineered this way. I take solace in the fact that its some added replay value to my >8 hours to beat and collect the thievius racoonus, but I don't look forward to the headache its likely to be.

Despite the lack of gameplay volume, what was there was brillant. I enjoyed all the mini-games, except the chicken killing game, which was just annoying. The Shooting mini-games were well done, and fun to play with the very intuitive and simple controls, though they could have been a little more challenging. The racing games were also great, and a little tougher than the shooters. Great physics throughout, I am not surprised that Sucker Punch is onto bigger console games like inFamous with the skill they employed in the making of Sly Cooper.

Overall, the game shines, the minor gripes are outshined by its style and addictive gameplay. I look forward to the next in the series, which should be in the mail and on its way soon.

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