Gaming Sly Cooper And the Thievius Racoonus

[Charles]

Platforming games are generally on my "hit or miss list." Either I finish the game through and enjoy every minute of it, or finish half way, losing interest in cookie cutter gameplay, dull level design, or tired concepts.

Let's face it; many platformers just have the player on a scavenger hunt. Unless the characters grab my attention or the worlds are fun to navigate, I'm just not interested in going on that hunt.

Nonetheless, I'm always interested in trying something new. The oddly named, Sly Cooper And the Thievius Racoonus, is that "something new."

In fact, it turned many heads at E3, with it's "sophisticated graphic look with numerous cartoon-style visuals and Disney-like influences" and varying styles of gameplay.

According to IGN, the game's main character, Sly Cooper, Sly takes "the platform genre to new levels, so to speak, with an arsenal of moves and abilities, the most notable being his ability to climb just about anywhere, and to act like a raccoon."

Long ago, Sucker Punch created a physics-heavy platformer for the N64, called "Rocket," which was crowned a technical achievement of sorts during its time. This newest title will most likely incorporate similarly impressive physics into it's engine. Such an accomplishment would surely lend itself well, whilst navigating every inch of the seemingly interesting worlds found in the game.

So, I was wondering if PS2 gamers were still interested in platforming. Most of the PS2's best selling titles are more adult oriented. Ico, is probably the closest thing to a platformer besides Jak and Daxter (which I don't think did so well sales wise) to reach a high level of quality on PS2.

[Armada]

Personally, I am not sure what to think. The last platformer I enjoyed was Crash Bandicoot 1. Although this game sounds interesting, the developer Sucker Punch developed Rocket, witch it might have been a technical acheivment. But I have read the Gameplay sucks. I think I'll have to rent to make my final decision though. Until then.............................

[RicoTranzrig]

The most recent platformer I played was Jax and Daxter...which was pretty funny. But I think most of us have been playing platforms ever since it came out...aside from great cinematics and the realm of 3D...developers are going to have to be very innovative with the genre. Though just adding one new, never before seen feature to a game could really make it shine.

[Flash]

Platform games rule, 'nuff said. Revolutionary in their time.

[Falco]

[COLOR=blue]I saw some screenshots of this game in my latest GI, and I must say they look quite impressive. The 2nd best cel-shaded graphics I have ever seen, ( 1st being the Legend of Zelda, for GCN). So basically, yea I am looking foward to it.[/COLOR] ;)


:twitch:

[Charles]

Well, remember Falco, the game isn't [I]entirely[/I] cel-shaded.

Sly's body textures aren't cel-shaded because the team's artists felt that cel-shading is a nice technique to use, but they also wanted to make Sly look like he's part of the landscape.

I'm glad to see that, like Zelda, this game will use the effect in a unique manner. What was once unique in games, is now becoming quite redundant with the cel-shading technique. Soon, lol, every game is going to be cel-shaded at this rate.