Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time: PS Vita Review

Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time: PS Vita Review

Platform: PS Vita
Released by Sony Computer Entertainment

The raccoon's back in his fourth outing on the PlayStation. And this time, he's also heading to the VITA.

Stealth and cartoonish fun are the main elements of this game - and you get to take on the missions ahead as any member of Sly's team, but let's not get ahead of myself just yet.

Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time opens with an animated story 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 and stopping whoever's trying to steal Sly's family mojo.

Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time skews young but it's actually quite knockabout fun if you like bitesize missions and a bit of oddball entertainment. 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 bite-size 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 and the Wild West before ending up in the Ice Age 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 for a lot of time wasting activity.

Bright colourful graphics mesh well with cartoon cutscenes and a sense of fun pervades this whole title. The fact you get to play a wealth of different characters (Sly's ancestors, Murray, Bentley, Carmelita) staves off any real feeling of repetition within the title. If you're already a fan of Sly Cooper, you'll need to own this title - but if not, you should give this game a go because it's a fun platformer which proves to be entertaining and easy to play, rather than presenting you with months of puzzling frustration.

Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time works well on the VITA - making use of the features (back pad etc) to give the game a bit of a feeling of something a little different when on the handheld. And the shortish nature of some of the missions within the game means that you won't feel aggrieved if you have to put the VITA down at any point. It's a fun game which will appeal to a younger generation than dyed in the wool gamers. But that's no bad thing and certainly not something to be sniffed at.

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