After a decent trilogy on the PS2, Sly has been lost in time on the PS3 aside from cameos in PS Move Heroes, PS All Stars and the recent HD trilogy. I’ve always been confused as to who exactly the Sly series is aimed at with its simple gameplay involving cel-shaded anthropomorphic characters performing illegal robberies with 80s pop culture references. It sends a bit of a mixed message. I’m not even going to start on the overly sexualised Carmelita Fox or Rhino cleavage posters. Following a lengthy opening and obscenely long load times the younger target audience may have lost interest (or grown too old to care) when Thieves in Time finally gives you control. But is Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time worth the wait?

With such a big gap since Sly 3, there is inevitably some catching up to do as well as a fairly complex plot to explain which involves time travel and Back To The Future references. Great Scott! Pages from the kleptomaniac’s bible: Thievius Raccoonus have started to disappear. Fortunately, Bentley the wheelchair-bound nerd-turtle has created a time machine, and it’s up to Sly and the gang to travel back to the future past to save the book before the Doc gets shot by Libyan terrorists or something.

Thieves in Time follows an episodic structure with each one focusing on its own time period and corresponding member of the Sly family line. These small open world locales have a number of missions where you control all team members and Sly’s ancestors. Sly is all about the sneaking and stealing whilst Bentley has more gadgets than Inspector Gadget at a gadget convention. He specialises in weapons and hacking, whilst the preposterous hippopotamus, Murray is the third member of the tri-act. He implements a more confrontational approach, using his muscles to solve puzzles as well as tackle troublesome enemies.

They all bring their own unique gameplay as they have done throughout the series, but the introduction of Sly’s forebears adds something extra. Guns, ninja jumps, and of course bow and arrows do their best to make Sly’s ascendants exciting. Unfortunately, they amount to nothing more than mere reskins of the original raccoon with an exclusive skill. More intriguing are Sly’s costume changes that can be switched with a press of the L2 button. Seeing Sly pull a giant ball and chain out of nowhere never stops being amusing but hey, videogames! Costumes possess their own ability, but disable all others when equipped, this restricts movement and forces the player to decide which one to use when.

Thankfully, stealth gameplay doesn’t involve crawling in the shadows monitoring guard patrols for hours on end. My favourite touch is the Looney Tunes style tip-toeing around guards, with a musical accompaniment raising in pitch the closer he gets. These little elements add a delightful air of mischievousness to Sly, but he could do with a few more to make him more memorable. Each episode has a series of jobs that are varied enough to stop Thieves in Time from becoming monotonous, but they are not new to anyone who has played another videogame before. Scattered across the worlds are the staple collectables, represented by coins, bottles, treasures, safes and masks. Coins are used to purchase upgrades on ThiefNet such as gliding for Sly, sleep darts for Bentley or new combos for Murray.

Gameplay is frequently broken up by minigames which are as tedious as you’d expect. They’re also likely to frustrate younger gamers thanks to on-rails sections with little margin for error. To its credit, Sanzaru Games at least keeps these varied adding in extra elements when they are repeated. This helps to alleviate repetitiveness but doesn’t stop them from being unoriginal diversions that you’ve played a million times before. A Shmup section? Check. Marble Madness rip-off? Check. Guitar Hero clone? Check. They’re all there and worst of all, some force you to use the Sixaxis. I thought we had left those dark days behind.

There is plenty to do in Thieves of Time, but the real test will be for your patience. Sanzaru Games throws a constant stream of minigames to pad the game out, but it could have been all the better without them, or a select few done right. The main core of the game is good, but it needed a few unique ideas. It’s a decent game but unable to learn from the mistakes of its predecessors in the Sly series.

Disclaimer

This review is based on a PS3 copy of Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time provided by Sony. The Vita version was not tested.

Resident Evil is a long running series that has featured hot girls, zombies and action that gets even more ridiculous… and that’s just the films! Fortunately Paul W.S. Anderson has nothing to do with the games which appear to be mutating and expanding just like the monstrosities featured within. Adding new elements like co-op and tweaking long standing traditions such as being able to move whilst aiming. Has Resident Evil 6 become an unrecognisable beast or does it now cater for all audiences to create a blockbuster hit?

The new C-virus has been released across the globe causing quite a few people to start craving human flesh. Bio-terrorism Security Assessment Alliance (BSAA) Captain Chris Redfield and mercenary Jake Muller are caught up in a bio-terrorist attack in Edonia. Meanwhile Leon S. Kennedy is busy executing the president who has conveniently become infected before revealing the truth behind the Raccoon City incident. A series of events leads to everyone convening in Lanshiang, China where to be honest; it doesn’t get much better for them.

New to Resident Evil 6 is the ability to move and shoot, it seems so natural I didn’t realise it was new at first. A major landmark for the series has come just in time considering the significantly heavier focus on gunplay, a cover system has been added but it’s nowhere near as refined as Uncharted’s . Melee combat is an option now but is restrained by a stamina meter to stop you from roundhousing every zombie you encounter, making it useful for saving bullets on the odd straggler. The classic Red and Green herbs make an appearance but the health system is now in recoverable blocks similar to Resistance. Co-op partners are handled much better this time, in single player there is no item trading or worrying about them using all the health items and ammo as they have their own infinite supply.

In a nice twist, each campaign plays differently intertwining for some memorable moments such as teaming up in large areas to battle even larger monsters. Leon’s story is the most Resident Evil as zombies brandish melee weapons, a few puzzles are solved and the monsters increase in size as you progress. Chris fights the J’avo in a Call of Duty slash Gears of War inspired campaign, which is not quite as horrific as it sounds but is easily the worst. Amusingly, there’s a flashback sequence which provides you with a new weapon which travels in time to the present with you. Oh and zombies brandishing guns? Why not have them drive tanks as well… oh wait. As Wesker’s illegitimate child, Jake is capable of calling on upon the guns in his arms along with the weapons in his hands but essentially this don’t change the play style much. What does though is the Nemesis a-like Ustanak, who pops up at the most inopportune occasions. Not now Ustanak! I’m having a heart to heart with Sherry Birkin!

It’s a shame RE6 has become more action than survival horror, I never felt scared nor was there anything that made me jump… well except for the time my co-op partner appeared from behind a corner when I least expected it. There are some memorable set-pieces though, like chasing a dog around a cemetery, a panicked street descending into chaos along and some truly inventive monsters. Unfortunately there are also moments that are memorable for all the wrong reasons particularly anything involving a vehicle. The big set pieces are better suited for the OTT films rather than the games and the abundance of quicktime events gets old before the prelude is even over. There are practically no puzzles to speak of either which disappointed me the most as they’ve been one of my favourite staples of the series. Your grey matter’s biggest task to solve is which part of the monster to shoot, pro tip – the glowing bit.

Agent Hunt Mode adds competitive multiplayer to Resident Evil and amazingly it’s not a half-baked deathmatch mode. Taking some cues from Left 4 Dead’s Versus Mode, Agent Hunt allows you join another player’s campaign session but instead of teaming up as their companion you control the monsters. This actually induces fear as you see another player’s name pop up on the screen when they enter and you now know one of those monsters is now capable of human thought… Mercenaries mode makes its customary appearance too as you survive against hordes of zombies alone or with a partner to gain high scores for global leaderboards.

With 3 campaigns that could individually be a game on their own right along with a couple of decent multiplayer modes there is a lot of content here, but quantity doesn’t always mean quality. Whilst they offer variation, their over reliance on action and little in the way of suspense or scares leaves RE6 feeling like a generic action game rather than the king of survival horror. New additions such as the reworked combat controls help but too much of what made Resident Evil great has been removed sadly. Still this is a decent romp if you don’t mind some shonky vehicle sections and the lack of puzzles. Hopefully the series will remember what made it great in the first place, instead of trying to cater for the mass market like a blockbuster movie, removing the originality that made Resident Evil a resident in our disc trays.

This review is based on a retail copy of the PS3 version of Resident Evil 6 provided by Capcom.

Resident Evil 6 is the latest instalment in Capcom’s long running survival horror franchise. With three playable campaigns starring (no pun intended) Leon S. Kennedy, Chris Redfield and new boy Jake Muller, it’s a beast of a game. These campaigns take place across the world and yet all interlink and upon completion of all 3 there is an unlockable bonus fourth campaign.

I play through the opening 15 minutes that is the Prelude featuring Leon and new girl Helena. Are you planning to buy Resident Evil 6 at a high price? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below and keep an eye out for our review on the blog.

Dragon’s Dogma is a brand new IP from Capcom containing dragons, pawns and even lanterns! Trev plays through the opening 15 minutes in a exclusive clip for PS3Blog.net.

Have you played Dragon’s Dogma yet? If so, what do you think? If not, does this clip make you want to play it? Or, are you still playing Skyrim? Let us know in the comments below!

Capcom is treating Lost Planet 3 in a similar fashion to DMC: Devil May Cry by outsourcing the development to a Western studio: Spark Unlimited and at the same time giving it a bit of a reboot. Lost Planet 3 though, is a prequel rather than a full blown reimagining revealing the origins of Human colonisation on E.D.N. III. I got the chance to get my hands on a demo build of Lost Planet 3 to see if the series is back on track or if it should have been left out in the cold.

The demo greeted me with a sombre cut-scene as the new main man Jim recorded a message to his loved ones back home. 2 things hit me as this introduction played out; the first is that Lost Planet 3 would not be a fast paced, over the top and extravagant shooter. The second is that Jim looks like the result of Tim “The Tool Man” Taylor and Al Borland spending a little too much time together on the set of Home Improvement. Anyway the cut scene was adeptly directed and carefully edited the opening scenes played out with perfect pacing as mechs were slowly revealed whilst characters discussed the bonus situation. Perfectly setting the mood it’s refreshing to see cut scenes used to develop characters rather than show off spectacular action that never have control of just to raise teenage blood pressures.

It wasn’t long until I was in control of a mech and wandering out into the barren ice planet that is E.D.N. III. It’s blue, very very blue irking the style of sci-fi films from the 70’s with a palette comprising of few prominent colours. It looks cold and most importantly feels cold with your mech becoming frozen from ice storms; Jim had to depart his mech via a handy zip line to blast off the ice freezing up his walking tank. Exposing himself to the elements he is attacked by dark blue creatures that wouldn’t look out of place in Avatar. When attacked these triggered quicktime events where you had to push their mouth away from you whilst then lining up the knife attack, this was a repeated feature in fights after they become a little close for comfort. Combat is decent although shooting felt a little inaccurate so it would be nice to see that tightened up.

Jim then traced a large unidentified heat signature inside an ice cave nearby, naturally he called for backup then turned around and went home for nice cuppa and put his feet up. Oh no wait, he got out of is mech and proceeded alone into the ice cave where he was greeted by a flippin’ giant (enemy) crab. Mercifully there was a weapon crate nearby so armed with an assault rifle and shotgun Jim took on the crab by first shooting the orange pincers and then blasting away the ice on its back to expose the vulnerable, glowing orange weak spot. After this encounter Jim then proceeded to a remarkably manmade looking installation, but he thought he was part of the first colonising mission on E.D.N. III?

Entering this foreign structure embarked on an intriguing change of pace as Lost Planet 3 irked Dead Space as Jim searches a derelict spaceship/base. It’s dark, empty and features many a narrow corridor to explore. The Dead Space comparisons become even more apparent when bringing up the inventory which is a holographic projection in front of him. Unlike Issac though Jim isn’t packing his tools (ironic considering his Home Improvement resemblance) so when events inevitably turn sour he is never in too much trouble taking out the indigenous creatures. It’s Interesting to see Dead Space 3 become more action packed whilst Lost Planet 3 has changed from a combat heavy co-op adventure of 2 to a tighter, more atmospheric piece.

That doesn’t mean there’s no action present though as Jim exits the structure and faces off with another Giant Ice Crab but this time is given a choice, fight them head on, on the ground or make a dash for the safety of your mech. The mech isn’t sporting the typical big lasers and missiles though; this is more of a giant power loader a-la aliens equipped with pincers and a big drill. This is put to effective use when Jim feels the pinch picking up the crab and then proceeding to drill through its back, anyone for crab soufflé?

My time with Lost Planet 3 didn’t leave me feeling cold; I was most impressed with the art style and pacing although not so much with Jim’s decision making… He is a likeable character though and Spark Unlimited allows their characters to breathe and introduce themselves through an incredibly filmic film style. That’s filmic in terms of direction not big CGI action. If Spark Unlimited can keep managing the pace and throw in a few surprises Lost Planet 3 could well prove that the series shouldn’t be left on ice.