Sly Cooper and the Thievius Raccoonus (known as Sly Raccoon in PAL regions) is a 2002 stealth platform video game developed by Sucker Punch Productions and published by Sony Computer Entertainment for the PlayStation 2. It is the first installment in the Sly Cooper series. The game follows the titular Sly Cooper and his gang, Bentley the Turtle and Murray the Hippo, on their mission to recover the lost pages of the "Thievius Raccoonus" (a book listing every thieving technique created by Sly's ancestors) from a rival gang known as the Fiendish Five.
Sly Cooper was praised for its technical achievements—particularly its use of a variation on cel shading to create a film noir feel while still rendering as a hand-drawn animated film—and criticized for being too short. The game was followed by three sequels: Sly 2: Band of Thieves (2004), Sly 3: Honor Among Thieves (2005), and Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time (2013). The first three games were remastered and released as The Sly Collection for the PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Vita on April 16, 2014. Sly Cooper was digitally re-released on PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 on June 11, 2024.
Gameplay
left|thumb|Highlighted by the blue "thief sense" auras, Sly Cooper sneaks along a wall to avoid detection.
Sly Cooper is a third-person platformer with stealth elements. An Official U.S. PlayStation Magazine retrospective describes the gameplay as "mix[ing] one-hit-kill arcade action with Splinter Cell sneaking".
To assist in these stealth moves, the environment contains special areas colored with blue sparkles of light, identified in the game as Sly's thief senses. The player can trigger context-sensitive actions in these areas, such as shimmying along a narrow ledge or wall, landing on a pointed object such as an antenna or street light, climbing along the length of a narrow pole or pipe, or using the cane to grapple onto something. The player must avoid detection by security systems and enemies, otherwise, an alarm will sound and the player will either have to destroy the alarm quickly, avoid or defeat foes alerted by the alarm or hide for several seconds until the alarm resets.
Each sub-section of a lair contains a number of clue bottles that, when collected, allow Sly to access a safe in the level that contains a page from the Thievius Raccoonus. These pages grant Sly new moves to aid in movement, stealth, or combat, such as creating a decoy or dropping an explosive hat. Defeating each of the bosses also gives Sly moves, and these abilities are typically necessary to pass later levels. Coins are scattered about the levels and are also generated by defeating enemies or destroying objects. For every 100 coins collected, Sly gains a lucky horseshoe that is the color blue and when you have two horseshoes, it turns to gold. It will allow him to take extra hits, or if he currently has one, an extra life. If Sly collapses and loses a life, the current sub-level will be restarted or at a special "repeater" that acts as a checkpoint; if the player loses all of Sly's lives, they must restart that boss's lair from the beginning. Sly Cooper was conceived shortly after Rocket was completed, and was in development for three years.
Sucker Punch used Autodesk Maya to develop the art assets. Brian Flemming of Sucker Punch called the rendering style "toon-shading", comparing the detailed backgrounds with cel-shading foregrounds to that of animated films. Sucker Punch wanted Sly and his world to look illustrated, and "one step away from a flattened graphic style." It was subsequently released as Sly Raccoon in Australia and Europe on January 16, 2003 and January 17, 2003, respectively.
The game was remastered alongside its initial two sequels and compiled as The Sly Collection for the PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Vita on April 16, 2014. The original PlayStation 2 version of the game was digitally re-released on PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 on June 11, 2024 and included trophy support, save states, and rendering options.
Reception
Sly Cooper and the Thievius Raccoonus received "generally favorable" reviews, according to review aggregator Metacritic. Many reviews also appreciated the ease of learning the controls and gameplay; IGN stated that "Sly is incredibly responsive, and though his size seems a little large at times due to his long arms and legs and the cane he carries, skillfully jumping and hitting enemies with precision is a quick study." Several reviewers appreciated the fluidity of the game between actual play, cutscenes, and other features.
A common detraction of the game was its length; as commented by GameSpots review, "The main problem is that just as you're getting into a groove and really enjoying the variety seen throughout the different levels, the game ends." as well as some camera control issues. For IGNs Best of 2002, Sly Cooper was the runner-up for "Best Platformer" and nominated for "Special Achievements for Graphics". In 2003, GameSpy ranked 22 in their "25 Most Underrated Games of All Time".
In 2008, IGN ranked the game 21 in its "Top 25 PS2 Games". During the 6th Annual Interactive Achievement Awards, the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences (AIAS) awarded Sly Cooper with "Outstanding Achievement in Animation" and "Outstanding Achievement in Art Direction", along with a nomination for "Console Platform Action/Adventure Game of the Year".
The game sold over 400,000 copies within a year since its release and was republished under Sony Computer Entertainment's Greatest Hits line in 2003. By July 2006, Sly Cooper and the Thievius Raccoonus had sold 800,000 copies and earned $21 million in the United States. Next Generation ranked it as the 78th highest-selling game launched for the sixth generation of video game consoles.
Sequels and other appearances
The game has yielded three sequels, Sly 2: Band of Thieves (2004), Sly 3: Honor Among Thieves (2005) and Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time (2013). Sly Cooper and the Thievius Raccoonus won "Best New Character" and was nominated for "Excellence in Visual Arts" at the 2003 Game Developers Conference (GDC) for 2002. The character of Sly Cooper has also been come to be considered as a mascot for the PlayStation systems, alongside both Ratchet & Clank and Jak and Daxter.