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PlayStation (Games)

Revisiting Sly Cooper 38

Posted by Zonk from the one-hell-of-a-racoon dept.
1up is running a feature about the previous two Sly Cooper game titles, underappreciated classics for the PS2. They're examples of truly great platforming for this generation of consoles. From the article: "Sly's emphasis on plot and continuity is one of its greatest strengths, which may be a pleasant surprise for gamers weaned on old-school platformers whose story lines rarely strayed from such gripping territory as 'Bowser kidnapped the princess again' or 'Dr. Robotnik is probably up to no good with those Chaos Emeralds (again).' Unlike the unambitious premises of action games gone by, Sly's narrative feels like a crucial component of the series."
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Revisiting Sly Cooper More

Revisiting Sly Cooper

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  • Not just Sly (Score:4, Insightful)

    by jclast ( 888957 ) on Wednesday September 28, 2005 @06:55PM (#13671895) Homepage
    The Jak and Daxter games tell a decent story and are fun along the way as well. Why are we rewarding that which ought to be standard in a game (decent story) anyway?

    • Re:Not just Sly (Score:3, Insightful)

      by c0d3h4x0r ( 604141 )
      Why are we rewarding that which ought to be standard in a game (decent story) anyway?

      Because, sadly, it is so rare.
      • > Because, sadly, it is so rare.

        Well, really, who gives a shit? Battlefield 2 - you're in a war - kill people. Would the game be improved if there was a little booklet in the box which told you all about the sides, why they are fighting etc? What it it wasn't in a Middle East scenario but in the past/future/another planet? Would it make the textures look better? Give better collision detection? Improve the gameplay?

        Oh, and there were plenty of stories on old-school games. Elite came with a little nove
        • there were plenty of stories on old-school games. Elite came with a little novella.

          And herein lies, IMHO, the mistake in your response. It's not an issue of games "with" stories. It's an issue of stories "in" games. Yeah, who's going to read and appreciate a novella that comes with a game? Not many people. But, what if a good portion of that information (probably not all of it, because that would likely over-burden the game), where presented in the game, in a way that still allowed the game to flow nat
    • Maybe because they are games, and not books/movies? the crucial part is the gameplay, not the story. Yes, I know that a good story makes a better game, but that is not the point of gaming.

      How would a story make a better game out of Burnout? or Counter Strike?
      • I'm not much for racing games, but isn't Counter Strike all about terrorists and counter-terrorists?

        There is tremendous room for a great single-player campaign where you take your team (from either side) and either beat back the terrorist threat or overthrow your fictional government.

        And it may not be the most involved, but don't some racers come with a career mode? I think that's about as close to a story as a sports title really gets, but by now it's a necessity, I think.

        Good gameplay is essential, but wh

        • Re:Not just Sly (Score:3, Insightful)

          by edwdig ( 47888 )
          Good gameplay is essential, but why should I care how well the character controls if I don't care about what he's doing?

          Would a complex relationship between Mario and the Princess make the game any better?

          Does anyone play Street Fighter for the endings?

          Would Contra be any better if the aliens went on rants about why they were trying to take over the world?

          Would giving Little Mac a backstory make you more likely to want to beat Mike Tyson?

          More often than not, complex stories just drag a game down. They force
          • "Would a complex relationship between Mario and the Princess make the game any better?"

            For me, yes, it would.

            "Does anyone play Street Fighter for the endings?"

            No, but then I don't play Street Fighter at all. On the other hand, Shenmue was just that: Virtua Fighter with a lot of story, and in fact a whole adventure game, in between the fights. Guess what? I liked it.

            "Would Contra be any better if the aliens went on rants about why they were trying to take over the world?"

            Well, see, there's a difference betwe

          • More often than not, complex stories just drag a game down. They force a game into a linear progression and usually just result in a lot of gameplay sacrifices to meet the demands of the story.

            Aside from Street Fighter all of the games you mentioned are already linear? What would a story hurt?

            • SMB - finish this level to get to the next one!
            • Contra - memorize this level to get to the next one!
            • Punchout - beat this guy to get to the next one!
        • I'm not much for racing games, but isn't Counter Strike all about terrorists and counter-terrorists?

          To paraphrase an old EA slogan

          If it's not in the game, is not in the game

          Counter Strike never tells you about the motivations of their characters, to a larger extent than "they want to blow up the place!". Your assumptions about the backstory are meaningless in this discussion, because you can write all the Counter Strike fanfiction, or study a lot about the terrorism situation, but all that info is not in th

          • Counter Strike never tells you about the motivations of their characters, to a larger extent than "they want to blow up the place!". Your assumptions about the backstory are meaningless in this discussion, because you can write all the Counter Strike fanfiction, or study a lot about the terrorism situation, but all that info is not in the game.

            I know that they don't. My point is that they could. The model of terrorists/counterterrorists could make for a very good story. I understand that it doesn't yet,

    • Because unfortunately, 1UP seem to overlook "what ought to be standard in a game" in pretty much all of their game reviews, preferring to just give great reviews to what they consider should be cool and get them points with the IGN/Gamespot crowd. Plus, Sly Cooper's 3rd title is coming out soon, and I believe Sony are doing some heavy "promotion" at the moment...wonder how much it costs to get an article like this going? Getting Slashdotted must be a nice added bang for the buck.

  • Wiki cleanup (Score:3, Interesting)

    by bradbeattie ( 908320 ) <bradbeattie&alumni,uwaterloo,ca> on Wednesday September 28, 2005 @07:11PM (#13672003) Homepage Journal
    The Sly Cooper articles on Wikipedia could use some love. 1 [wikipedia.org], 2 [wikipedia.org] and 3 [wikipedia.org]
  • Hey, don't rag on Mario, it's still one of the greatest platformers of all time.

    --
    The best free Palm games [arpx.net]

    • Re:Bowser (Score:4, Funny)

      by SetupWeasel ( 54062 ) on Wednesday September 28, 2005 @08:46PM (#13672528) Homepage
      Are you new here? Everyone knows that Nintendo sucks, they always whore out their characters, and that all their games are for children.

      This post, on the other hand, shows why Sony is so great, how they can artfully use their characters in satisfying sequels, and that they can make games that the whole family can enjoy!

      This link may help clarify things. [reference.com]
      • Well, you just illustrate (sarcasm or not) what's what starts to seriously annoy me about Slashdot's Nintendo fanboy community: that everything has to be turned into a Nintendo-vs-someone thing, and a reason for all true believers to rally in defense of it against the heathen hordes of Sony. And that only pollutes any attempt to have an intelligent conversation.

        In this case I don't even see it as Nintendo-vs-Sony, but simply story-driven games versus basically arcade games. Some people like the former, some
    • Why should you trash Mario, when even Super Mario Bros 1 has a complex story? [everything2.com]

  • Wrong era, wrong comparison (Score:4, Interesting)

    by MMaestro ( 585010 ) on Wednesday September 28, 2005 @09:18PM (#13672680)
    Comparing video game plots from the Nintendo and/or SNES/Genesis era is like comparing the standards of living from the Middle Ages to the 21st century. A fairer comparison would been to compare Mario and Luigi: Superstar Saga or even Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars. (Neither of which revolve around 'Bowser kidnapped the princess again'.) And playing either of the Sonic Adventure games reveals the same thing.

  • Hah (Score:3, Insightful)

    by oman_ ( 147713 ) on Wednesday September 28, 2005 @11:36PM (#13673396) Homepage
    I think the fact that they chose to put-down the plots of two of the most highly regarded platformers ever just shows that plot does not make the game. Having a decent plot is a nice feature but that's not what I look for in my games.

    Last time I was doing ninja wall jumps around the levels in mario64 I wasn't thinking about character motivation or plot. I do however have several well written movies in the bookcase which don't get nearly the same amount of time on screen as my favorite games.

    • Yes, for _you_ (and for a lot of other people), the plot and story doesn't matter. In fact, I know a couple of people who are outright opposed to having their time "wasted" with any kind of narrative.

      But then for a helluva lot of us, it does matter. Me, I found Mario 64 (and Donkey Kong 64 and various other platformers) to be more boring than watching paint dry. I've had more fun in a RL dentist's chair than jumping around like an idiot for no good reason or purpose in those games.

      For _me_ the story and plo

  • Sucker Punch is more than just Sly Cooper (Score:4, Insightful)

    by w0rf ( 918862 ) on Thursday September 29, 2005 @07:54AM (#13675017)
    They had a game for the Nintendo 64 called Rocket: Robot on Wheels that was just a great platformer. It was a lot of fun, and very clever, and the physics engine was just amazing. I wonder if Sly would have been considered a "kiddie game" if it had been developed for the Cube. Rocket was underappreciated in such a manner as that.
  • I just bought the first Sly Cooper game a week ago for cheap on a whim. It's a platinum title so it's only $20. The second Sly is also only $20 but I haven't picked that one up yet.

    I'll be honest to the folks at /. - it's not a game for the hardcore. It's not very difficult and doesn't involve much other than jumping and swinging your cane. Now, I'm not a hardcore gamer so I thought it was a lot of fun. It's like Crash Bandicoot (except without the insane loading times) where you have an area that cont
  • At least in the first one. It's why I put the controller down, calmly, and turned the player off. I'll be damned if I was going to be forced to suffer through anymore of that terrible dialog voiced by someone from an MT3K parody.

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