Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time: PS Vita Preview

Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time: PS Vita Preview

The weasel is heading back to the world of the PlayStation.

Well, I say weasel, it's more Raccoon.

Sly Cooper is one of those characters who's become kind of synonymous with the gaming world; from the recent HD outing of the three main adventures to a bit of background in the PlayStation All Stars Battle Royale, there's always been a hint that Sly was readying himself for a return.

And here is the first hint of what lies ahead.

In this demo of Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time, it's access all areas (well, two at least) for the thieving raccoon and his buddies. Following the cartoonish opening which relates how someone's stealing all of the family thieving secrets from the Thievius Raccoonus and that simply can't happen. So, despite settling down with Carmelita Fox (who's been tracking his alter ego Sly), it's back into the world of the sneaky stealth with an adventure aimed at going back and forth in time.

Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time will be out on the PS3 too, so it's perhaps a little unfair to say that the PS Vita demo I had some time with does little with the features of the VITA. Sure, there's a bit of tapping the screen front and back, but no real sign yet that it's likely to utilise all that's been on show. As I say, early days...

The platformer skews young and cartoony but it's actually quite knockabout fun. Taking on the roles of Sly, sidekicks Murray and Bentley, this animated Back to the Future theft story is going to really appeal to families, looking to gather around the PS for a bit of fun and frolics in Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time.

Sly can do all of his usual antics - sneak, rush, jump and collect tokens; Murray bashes everything in sight and Bentley uses computer wizardry to help from behind the scenes. In one section, you get to be the firewall breaker by a mini game aimed at you taking down a CPU from within. It's great bitesize fun with heaps of collectibles to gather, loot to unlock and treasure to collect. After breaking into a museum in Paris (the opening level) it's off to feudal Japan for a bit more sneakery - and it's here the game starts to reveal a few treasures of its own.

An open plan world gives the sense of sandbox, while not exactly widening up the scope of it, it certainly gives you more of a desire to explore rather than just do a mission, beat a boss and move on. Mini games lie within as well as the collectibles, so there seems to be hints of plenty to do if you feel like veering off from the main story and investing a bit of time in other mini quests. Throw in upgrades of costumes and an arcade section and there's scope aplenty.

All in all, Sly Cooper fans will get what they'd expect of this series and its latest outing which mixes time travel and platforming suggest plenty of fun ahead. Hopefully, the PS Vita will be tested a little (otherwise the simple port over from the PS3 could annoy some) but Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time looks like a promising addition to the platforming world.

Sly Cooper Thieves in Time is due out March 2013.