Demo Impressions: The Rantings of a fanatic.

Hey! BreadKnight here! Your loved(Hated) Sly Cooper fan(dangerously obsessed weirdo) and i'm here to praise(gush) and critique(bitch) some things about the Thieves in Time demo in frothing anticipation of next Tuesday. If you didn't grab the demo yet it's up on PSN on both the PS3 and PS Vita so you can give it a try for yourself.

First up how the characters feel and play.

Sly: Basically the same as previous installments albeit with a little bit of weight seemingly added behind him to make things feel....well...weightier. Unfortunately he still has that stupid spin attack, that thing worked when it was a bonus power in the first game but when it became bound to triangle by default in 3 and replace the awesome uppercut move from 2. At least stealth slam is intact and pick pocketing, as far as I can tell, works just the same.

Bently: Man does this guy play better, he was always the worst playable character, and him being crippled and confined to a wheelchair in the third game didn't make him play much better. However in the short time of playing as him in the demo his movement is smoother, his jump is much more useful and his ability to throw bombs isn't weirdly confined to a gadget slot anymore. The bombs now also stick to enemies which will be crazy useful to make up for his horrid stealth abilities.

Murray: What....what did they do to you big guy!? While he's still in the personae of "The Murray" that I love so much(Except for the higher pitched voice held over from 3....I miss his deep voice) his gameplay has really taken a hit. The apparent lack of an automatic lock on during combat in this game is okay for characters like Sly and Bently who are based on not being seen but Murray is supposed to just run in and kick ass. The removal of his uppercut move for a spin attack is like a war crime(Especially given that uppercut to punch was his go to instant kill move) and without the lock on it's weird punching in peoples direction and missing instead of beating them up with grace. I did like that he can now pick up enemies without stunning them and the grand return of the Thunder Flop though.

Some Random Notes:

You don't have to hold circle to slink around edges now, a small but welcomed change.

Holy crap people are chatty in this game, it's not really an issue it's just...new...somebody seems to always be talking during the intro level.

Yes game....I understand how to double jump...I know how to throw bombs...I get that this is tutorial level, but I have that bad feeling "Clueless Modern Gamer" is going to affect this game.

Murray has a keychain of the Guru and Bently has a picture of Penelope in their binocucoms(Hooray continuity!)

The secret sly masks are pretty easy to find, but that isn't really an issue considering they're just another thing to collect on top of the classic clue bottles.

Having also played the Vita version of the demo I can say that beyond the obviously downgraded graphics and the halved frame rate(to 30FPS) it's the same game and It doesn't look like you'll really be missing out on anything if you go that route.

The time machine is the van, and a big Back To the Future reference, I love it.

So, the game releases next Tuesday on February 5th for only $39.99 on PS3(Includes crossbuy for Vita version) or $29.99 for the Vita version by itself. I would hope you're all as excited for it as I am, but I'm pretty dangerously anticipating this thing here.