VentureBeat » Sly Cooper Thieves in Time

GamesBeat weekly roundup: D.I.C.E. 2013, Dead Space 3, and game investments take a dive

Jasmine Maleficent Rea — Fri, 08 Feb 2013 19:16:27 +0000

If you follow VentureBeat but don’t regularly check our GamesBeat site, here’s a list of the best video game stories we ran over the last seven days that you may have missed.

This week, the 2013 D.I.C.E. (Design, Innovate, Communicate, Entertain) summit took place in Las Vegas, Valve founder Gabe Newell argues for PC gaming in the living room, Journey dominates the D.I.C.E. awards, and Star Wars director J.J. Abrams and Valve announce they’re working on a game.

You’ll also find a breakdown of game investments for 2012 from GamesBeat’s Dean Takahashi, reviews of Ni No Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch, Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time, and Dead Space 3.

D.I.C.E.:

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Filed under: Games

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Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time saves this capable raccoon from becoming history (review)

Stephanie Carmichael — Tue, 05 Feb 2013 17:00:22 +0000

Sanzaru Games, taking over for original developer Sucker Punch Productions, rescued the burgling raccoon Sly Cooper from obscurity when it released an HD collection in 2010. Now, after almost a decade, we have a new entry in the stealth-platforming series. Sanzaru has learned well from its experience remastering the first three games, and Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time (out today as a cross-play title for PlayStation 3 and PS Vita) is a big cause for celebration.

What you’ll like

Classic sneaking and stealing

Despite the near eight-year gap, fans will immediately recognize familiar traits and ease into the gameplay no matter where the gang’s time machine takes them. Like before, Sly evades yellow searchlights that alert guards, uses his Thief Sense to tiptoe around corners or spring to wherever he sees blue sparkles, and hunts for items like the good old clue bottles. It’s partly a collect-a-thon — completely optional and perfect for those who want to relive the golden days of platforming and explore a world in search of shiny baubles.

Aside from the bouncing clue bottles (find 30 to break the safe in each hub area), players can track down treasures (and race them back to the hideout to claim them) and Sly masks (which unlock extras, like design alterations to Sly’s paraglider or outfit). They can also open ThiefNet, the store accessible from the hideout, to redeem coins for more powerful attacks and moves.

Even the narrative style is the same, with a single character talking over animated cutscenes, which are a real highlight — cartoony, charming, and funny to watch. Sanzaru unloaded a lot of detail into these beautiful cel-shaded worlds, and even the hideout and the animals (friendly and hostile) that populate these locales change alongside the theme (from feudal Japan to ancient Arabia). The developer did its homework; this is a true and polished sequel.

More depth than a motley crew needs

Thieves in Time delivers a surprising amount of content, too. It takes around 20 hours to finish the campaign and even longer to achieve full completion. As the Cooper gang jumps through time, chasing after the villain who’s targeting Sly’s quirky ancestors, the player controls a well-rounded cast of characters: the old trio, including the computer-savvy turtle Bentley and the heavy-weight fighter Murray; the feisty Inspector Carmelita Fox, who’s Sly’s girlfriend (or possibly ex-girlfriend); and of course, the Coopers from each of the five eras you visit.

The controls give you a lot of freedom to fiddle around as you please — try spinning Bentley around in his wheelchair and just feel the snap-back of those tires — and although each character can learn a ton of techniques, many of them build on existing ones. They’re also mapped similarly between characters, so you can pick them up more easily. For example, holding Triangle charges up a special move that’s unique to each team member while pressing Triangle and Square in quick succession unleashes a one-hit-kill stealth attack for any Cooper. ThiefNet purchases expand on Bentley’s bomb abilities and dart types, which you can access from the gadget grid (by holding L2), or upgrade Murray’s punches.

The grid also acts a wardrobe for Sly. Using it, he can don any of the costumes he acquires as souvenirs while skipping around various time periods. Each comes with a specialized set of moves. The Samurai outfit, for example, enables Sly to walk through fire unharmed and reflect fireballs with a golden shield.

Each Cooper possesses a signature technique that grants you access to specific areas or lets you bypass certain obstacles. “Tennessee Kid” Cooper from the old West can use his Crackshot to fire at multiple targets, and the ninja Rioichi can leap to distant blue-sparkle points.

Some help from the team

You can’t say that Thieves in Time doesn’t take pains to guide players through levels. The radar marks your current location and that of your objective, but clicking the left stick brings up an arrow beneath the character that points him in the precise direction he needs to go. Enemies appear as red dots on the radar too, and the character icon in the upper left corner of the screen (which displays health) blinks red when one’s nearby or flashes red and blue when a guard has spotted you. So no matter what the task or how far you’ve wandered, the game gets you back on track. Even the environment contains visual clues that steer you along; sometimes arrows are even visible on the walls or floors. It’s a bit of overkill, but it works.

Thieves in Time’s real asset is how well it brings the gang together to pull off heists. Some missions require multiple characters to work together or handle certain parts of a job, and their joint efforts help the team take down the bad guys (who are awesome, by the way, with the exception of a few annoying boss personalities).

It’s surprising, but much of the experience consists of minigames, and the developer manages to implement them without frustrating players. They’re appropriately short and never too taxing, and the sheer variety is impressive. Each one centers around a character and his strengths. You might cringe at the thought of Sixaxis tilt controls and computer hacking in other titles (I hate them), but each one is fresh and interesting — whether it’s a dance performance as Murray or a mech showdown between nerds.

What you won’t like

Still loading

These load times would embarrass dinosaurs, and they occur rather frequently. Get ready to take a lot of coffee breaks while you wait for cutscenes and jobs to begin.

Help, please! … No, not like that!

Maybe it’s because I enjoyed playing as the different characters so much and because they’re so distinct from one another, but I wish Sanzaru balanced out their screen times a bit more. You play as Sly a lot and Bentley and Murray a good deal, but I wanted more practice with the other Coopers and Carmelita especially. Their missions are sprinkled nicely throughout the game, but there weren’t enough to satisfy me — especially after buying new moves for the foxy inspector.

On the other hand, I could have done without so much chattiness. I’m glad the voice actors provided so much dialogue as it makes the scenarios fresher, but Bentley, in particular, is a little too helpful. The know-it-all turtle doesn’t leave you much of a chance to figure things out on your own before butting in with a few words of advice. (That said, he’s one of my favorite characters. Unlike Sly, he has great one-liners. He’s just garrulous.)

X, Up, Down, Square … what?

Thieves in Time features a full digital manual, which contains a thorough list of moves for the central characters. But this convenient feature isn’t accessible from the game itself, which renders it pointless when you need to look up a move in a pinch. The controls reference from the Options menu won’t do you much good unless Sly is your main concern; Bentley and Murray didn’t make the cut, which is unfortunate considering how many moves they have at their disposal.

Command prompts do pop up during play to remind you how to execute skills, but sometimes these hint boxes appear for no reason, and they temporarily block the radar when they do. It’s excessive and annoying, and you can’t turn off this part of the interface.

But one crucial aspect of the title’s cross-play capabilities puts PlayStation 3 owners at a big disadvantage. Aside from taking the game on the go, players can turn their PS Vita into an augmented-reality device — a viewfinder for locating the clue bottles, treasures, and Sly masks in each world. The binocucom (kind of like “binoculars,” but a little more technological) in the original Sly Cooper provided the same benefit, so it’s unfair that PS3 players can’t rely on some in-game (but less exciting) equivalent for help without going out and buying a Vita (or hitting up GameFAQs).

A fizzle of a finale

Although some shine more than others, the boss fights in Thieves in Time are challenging and cool. But the last showdown is little more than a string of quick-time events — little effort required. It’s anticlimactic compared to all the work you put in previously. Even minor encounters, like Carmelita’s battle with a three-headed mechanical dragon, worked up more of a sweat.

Conclusion

Sly Cooper: Thieves is Time is a fantastic addition to the series and a great entry point for newcomers. Most of my gripes are minor, but the aggressive load times present the biggest detriment to the game, and the need for a PS Vita might irritate anyone who wants to collect everything these time periods have to offer. The rest is just a few hiccups in history, but they shouldn’t stop you from enjoying the latest chapter in the Cooper story.

Score: 89/100

Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time was released for the PlayStation 3 and PS Vita on February 5, 2013. The publisher provided GamesBeat with a PS3 copy of the game for the purpose of this review.

Filed under: Games

The biggest gaming disappointments of 2012

Evan Killham — Mon, 24 Dec 2012 21:00:42 +0000

Remember all the way back in January, when we looked at all the games that were coming out in 2012 and thought, “Holy crap! This is going to be the Best Year Ever (for gaming)™!” Well, this is December, and some of us are looking back to those wide-eyed, optimistic past versions of ourselves and wondering why they ever looked forward to some of the stuff we got in 2012. Sure, some of those anticipated titles lived up to our expectations, but in a lot of cases, that optimism was just the first step on a journey of regret and nonstop head shaking.

Here are some of our picks for the most disappointing games and events of 2012.

Assassin’s Creed III

Contributor Rus McLaughlin

Occasionally, a little time and distance softens the heart, and you remember things more fondly than what you actually felt at the time. I, on the other hand, despise Assassin’s Creed III more now than when I gave it a midrange score back in October. Oh, my man-love for its naval missions continues unabated, but I indulge in those behind the back of the main game and its sloppy mechanics, frustrating chases, and worthless side missions. I’m gratified that it doesn’t whitewash our nation’s origins as some altruistic crusade for peace and freedom (often spoken of in earshot of working slaves), but Creed “concludes” its overarching, modern-day plot with a firm middle finger to its most loyal fans. At least it finally settled one lingering question: Desmond is indeed as pointless and useless a diversion as we always suspected.

The delays

Contributing editor Stephanie Carmichael

Most of the games I was looking forward to all year are now coming out in 2013. Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time, Tomb Raider, Bioshock Infinite, Ni no Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch, and Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance (or whatever we’re calling it now) are the handful I’ve been most itching to play. Other titles like South Park: The Stick of Truth, Devil May Cry, and Aliens: Colonial Marines have experienced delays as well. I guess I can’t complain too much. More time in development means a better chance of getting these games right, but it also means I’ll be burning a big hole in my wallet come spring.

Capcom continues to lock content in game discs

Contributor Samir Torres

F*** you, Capcom!

Twisted Metal’s online multiplayer

Intern Giancarlo Valdes

As a huge fan of the Twisted Metal games since the original PlayStation days, I was ecstatic when I finally got my hands on the PS3 reboot earlier this year. The folks at developer Eat Sleep Play did a fantastic job of bringing its unique brand of vehicular combat to a new generation of consoles with its campaign mode, and playing these levels with a friend in local multiplayer was fun, too. But going online was a different story: Starting from launch day and lasting for weeks, a host of problems made it almost impossible (for me at least) to stay connected to a match. The developers deployed various updates to fix these problems, but I had already moved on.

Disney Epic Mickey 2

Contributor Rob LeFebvre

After hearing, yet again, legendary designer Warren Spector’s “big picture” idea of games needing to be open-ended, with multiple paths, as well as not judging players for their “playstyle,” I really think this game was a huge disappointment. It changed very little from the first installment and was just another mess of control, camera, and barely comprehensible storyline. As with most things disappointing in life, the real problem was going into it with such a high set of expectations.

Endless Space

Copy editor Jason Wilson

We saw a couple of space-themed 4X (eXplore, eXpand, eXploit, eXterminate) strategy titles this year (Genesis Wars, Legacy of Pegasus, the final “all clear” for Sword of the Stars II). But the one that many space strategy fans were looking forward to was Endless Space, a game that turned out to be style over substance. Endless Space sports a good-looking user interface and some kick-ass ship designs, but it commits one of the biggest errors that any single-player strategy game can make: The A.I. isn’t good at its game. Your foes don’t do a good job of using its systems — like combat — against you, ultimately providing a limited challenged against a skilled player. And for the demanding fans of strategy games, this is a tactic that just doesn’t work.

Mass Effect 3′s ending

Intern Jason Lomberg

From an artistic standpoint, my biggest disappointment was that developer BioWare pulled a George Lucas and “fixed” the ending. That’s not how it should work — you don’t “fix” art.

A piece of art represents the succinct vision of its creator. It’s also a product of its time and, therefore, a cultural artifact. The best films – like Star Wars – engender a certain timeless quality, but even so, it’s not hard to discern that Lucas’s masterpiece reflects the norms and attitudes of the ’70s. By mucking with his own creations to “update” the special effects or modify story elements, Lucas is destroying a piece of history. This is why fans reacted so negatively to Star Wars: Special Edition (and the innumerable “updates” before and since), and it’s why BioWare should not have changed the Mass Effect 3 ending. For gaming to take its rightful place among other artistic media, it shouldn’t be so malleable and subject to “revision.” Numerous gamers took issue with the game’s ending – and I’d be hard-pressed to disagree – but we should criticize ME3 as a piece of art, not a software program that its makers can patch. We should analyze the creator’s vision and not treat it like a technical glitch.

Assassin’s Creed III: Liberation

Intern Mike Minotti

I was excited to have a real Assassin’s Creed experience on a portable system, and I was hoping that such a game could be a great showcase for the PlayStation Vita. Sadly, Liberation was a boring, uninspired slog through the bog hampered by technical problems and an empty open world.

Professor Layton and the Miracle Mask

Intern Evan Killham

Developer Level-5′s series of puzzle-driven adventure games sold me both a Nintendo DS and a 3DS. I love everything about them: the full-on animated cutscenes, the stories, and even the bizarre idea of a universe in which brain-teasers work as a sort of social currency. But I’m not sure what happened with the franchise’s fifth installment. The plot and style are as good as ever, but the riddles in this one are inexplicably obtuse at times (I’m convinced that one challenge’s “clever” solution is not a valid answer to the setup) and blatantly not puzzles at others. A maze, for example, is not a puzzle by my definition, and this Professor Layton contains several of them.

Miracle Mask is the first Layton game that has felt like a chore.

XCOM’s lack of longevity

Contributing editor Rob Savillo

A game about saving the world from an alien invasion is probably beyond cliché at this point. You’d think that such a premise would doom the entire experience to a single playthrough, never to be touched again. But this wasn’t the case with the original X-Com strategy games, where I felt like anything could happen at any time. My first encounter could be the extraterrestrial menace terrorizing an urban populace or a dogfight with high-flying UFO that segues into a ground assault or even a struggle for survival within the supposedly safe confines of my only operational headquarters! Add in a healthy dose of pseudo-randomization, and X-Com felt fresh over and over no matter how many campaigns I played.

But Developer Firaxis’ recent reboot, XCOM: Enemy Unknown, unfortunately starts to feel all too similar all too quickly. Even during your first game, you’ll see the same premade maps again and again. Some missions feel scripted (even featuring monster closets!) and like long, narrow hallways (I don’t ever want to play the final stage again because it’s such a boring slog). I’m convinced that Firaxis doesn’t really want me to play another campaign, which is crystal clear because the game forces me to listen to the same unskippable explanatory voiceovers with every new start.

After well over 100 hours, I’m just about done with XCOM. And it shouldn’t have been this way.

Zynga’s belly-flop

Editor-in-chief Dan “Shoe” Hsu

Zynga was supposed to be the next big thing in gaming, but then it flopped … hard. Its stock became the joke of the industry (currently: $2.39, down from $9.50 at the initial public offering and a peak of $14.69 back in March, and rather than make a bunch of new Silicon Valley millionaires, it had to lay people off. Not many people are rooting for the company that regularly spams Facebook walls. But when the guys leading the charge for social gaming fails that badly, it’s a very bad sign for the health of the business as a whole.

Nearly everything Resident Evil

Intern Jasmine Rea

This year, I found myself sympathizing with legions of Sonic the Hedgehog fans because at our core, we are far too loyal for our own good. Like them, I go into every Resident Evil game with the same naive hope that the series isn’t spiraling the drain. Operation Raccoon City and Resident Evil 6 were nearly enough to make me give up on playing any console-based entries in the series. Poor execution, tedious gameplay, and wretched quick-time events have finally broken me. I’ll go into 2013 with a dull ache for another Resident Evil: Revelations, but I doubt I’ll get that.

Will I buy the inevitable Resident Evil 7? Of course I will, and that’s why gin exists.

Filed under: Games

GamesBeat weekly roundup: BioShock Infinite delayed, Epic Games president retires, and Kixeye expands to Canada

Jasmine Maleficent Rea — Fri, 07 Dec 2012 18:44:45 +0000

If you follow VentureBeat but don’t regularly check our GamesBeat site, here’s a list of the best video game stories we ran over the last seven days that you may have missed.

This week, Epic Games president Michael Capps retired, Call of Duty: Black Ops II earned $1 billion in 15 days, Irrational Games pushed BioShock Infinite’s release date again, and Zynga filed to make real-money gambling games in Nevada.

You’ll also find reviews for Far Cry 3, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim – Dragonborn, Call of Duty: Black Ops II, and Writer Rumble as well as previews for Tomb Raider, Crysis 3, and Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time.

News:

Mobile news:

Reviews:

Interviews:

Previews:

Filed under: Business, Games

Pull off some ridiculous time traveling heists in Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time (hands-on preview)

Giancarlo Valdes — Thu, 06 Dec 2012 17:00:02 +0000

Rioichi Cooper couldn’t believe his eyes. After breaking free from prison, recovering his precious cutlery, and disabling an elaborate security system that didn’t belong at all in 17th century feudal Japan, the nimble ninja and premier sushi chef thought his troubles were over. But he still had one more trial to endure.

Strutting to the stage in front of him was a large pink hippopotamus dressed in geisha garb, playfully seducing the throng of bipedal boars who guarded the building. Sly Cooper’s slack-jawed ancestor quietly made his escape during the ruse, but not before getting an eyeful of Murray’s newly adapted … skills.

Heists are once again a major focus in Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time, Sanzaru Games’ first attempt at bringing back the raccoon thief and his friends from a seven-year absence. Exclusively coming to the PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Vita handheld on Feb. 5, the fourth entry in the stealth platforming series has Sly, Bentley the turtle (the team’s gadget guru), and Murray the hippo (the muscle) traveling back through time to figure out why the pages describing Sly’s ancestors in the “Thievius Raccoonus” book are disappearing. The first stop, and the only one available in an early version of the game I played, is 1605 A.D. Japan.

A raccoon, a turtle, and a hippo walk into a time machine…

Like in previous games, you’ll have to use the different skill sets of each character to accomplish certain tasks. In Japan, Sly, Bentley, Murray, and — once you rescue him — Rioichi all have specific jobs to do. Sly can climb buildings and rooftops with ease using his signature cane. Murray can belly flop, toss, and pummel enemies thanks to the power of his hulking weight. Bentley can hack computers and lob small bombs from the comfort of his rocket-powered wheelchair. And Rioichi’s skills are similar to Sly’s, but with the added bonus of a quick dash that propels him across short distances.

You manage these jobs (and can choose to replay them) via the trio’s cavernous hideout, where you can also play a few minigames and upgrade the gang’s abilities using the coins you collect. It’s a convenient hub to have in Rioichi’s hometown of winding streets, houses, and waterfalls — you’ll want to explore every pixel of it to find the plethora of hidden treasures and secrets. You’re free to move around it as much as you want, as character-specific jobs don’t begin until you approach the special blue icons found by using either your compass or your map.

It’s only by accepting these jobs that you’ll visit the interior locations: among them was a sushi restaurant, a fishing pond, and a geisha house. Each of them were pretty large in their own right, with different obstacles and enemies to overcome. A few places do overlap with some jobs and it can get a little tiring from seeing the same areas again and again. But for the most part, switching between characters offered a fresh perspective when exploring the multiple layers of Japan.

Reuniting with old friends

On the PlayStation 2, Sly Cooper (as created by Sucker Punch Productions) was a part of the platforming trifecta anchored by fellow PS2 exclusives Jak and Daxter (developed by Naughty Dog) and Ratchet & Clank (from Insomniac Games). I haven’t played the series in years, but it just felt really comforting to slip back into Sly’s world for a few hours to hear his wise cracking dialogue, Bentley’s long scientific explanations, or seeing Murray’s outlandish displays of machismo. From what I can tell, Sanzaru does a great job of retaining the tongue-in-cheek humor that helped defined these characters in the first place

Sneaking, climbing, and pickpocketing your foes in a vibrant, cartoon-like world while avoiding traps still feels solid seven years later. But I almost prefer playing it on the Vita: if you buy the PS3 version of Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time, you’ll get a download code of the Vita edition for free. It’s not as sharp-looking as what you’ll see on the console, but aside from the controls, everything looks and feels identical. You can also continue your progress from one version to the other using the cross-save feature.

Though it’s a direct continuation of Sly 3: Honor Among Thieves, a stylishly animated intro brings you up to speed in just a few minutes before letting you loose, with other 2D cutscenes illustrating major events in the game. I’m not sure if the remaining levels will be able to top Murray’s impromptu dance on stage, but I look forward to finding out.

Filed under: Games

Sony introduces Cross Buy, offers free Vita cross-play titles for PS3 purchases

James Pikover — Tue, 14 Aug 2012 17:21:34 +0000

Today at the Gamescom trade show in Cologne, Germany, Sony Computer Entertainment Europe introduced Cross Buy, a system where certain games that have cross-platform play between the PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Vita versions only need to be purchased once, on the PS3.

The move is an attempt to get users more excited about using multiple Sony game products and to motivate them to buy more content. The slow-selling PS Vita certainly needs help as it is, so far, falling short of Sony’s original forecasts for sales. Sony has announced three titles for Cross Buy so far, all coming this holiday season: Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time, Ratchet and Crank: Q-Force, and PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale.

It isn’t clear if all future PS Vita titles with cross-play will be part of the Cross Buy program, but with most Vita games selling for $35-$40, Cross Buy will save owners a tremendous amount of money and enable them to gain significant play time across both platforms. The program will become available this holiday season.

Filed under: Games

GamesBeat Weekly Roundup

Jasmine Maleficent Rea — Fri, 18 May 2012 18:59:13 +0000

If you follow VentureBeat but don’t regularly check our GamesBeat site, here’s a list of the best games stories we ran over the last seven days that you may have missed.

This week, Diablo III launched and promptly caused a stir with persistent server issues, Activision and Electronic Arts settled over the Infinity Ward lawsuit, and former N-Control sales specialist Paul Christoforo revealed details in his lawsuit over the Avenger controller debacle.

You’ll also find reviews for Max Payne 3 and Game of Thrones, as well as a preview for Zombie Swipeout. GamesBeat’s guide to Minecraft: Xbox 360 Edition is also available.