Sly Cooper Thieves in Time (with Skins Pack DLC) PS3

When game characters come out of retirement you almost expect them to bring something new with the old or “old dog new tricks” if you will. Its been quite some time since the last Sly game with the last being 8 years ago, with this and the limit of the PS3 been mastered long ago in mind it wouldn't be a stretch to believe we would have the biggest entry in the Sly Cooper series to date. Well apparently it is a stretch as Sly Cooper Thieves in Time seems to be, ironically, stuck in the past.

You play as the Cooper gang, a team of master thieves led by Sly, out of retirement and in time to find out why his families ancestry book called the Thievius Raccoonus is losing its words. Using bentley's newly invented time machine (which even for sly games is a bit farfetched) they must uncover the truth about a evil scheme taking place throughout history.

Sly games in the past have always had a rather goofy story but in the background there was always a hidden theme that wasn't apparent until the end of the game which gave it a more adult flavour so all ages could relate to the dealings going on in the world of Sly, Sly 4 just seems to lack these dark tones and instead is more inclined to provide a more straight forward approach which for better or worse, still feels like its unmistakably Sly.

If you have ever play Sly 2 or 3 then you'll know what to expect because NOTHING HAS CHANGED, seriously it almost feels like the series hasn't evolved in the 8 year hiatus, it has tried a few new things though but nothing to shout about, the biggest draw to this game is the ability to travel through time and meet Sly's family, its a nice feature and they all come with their own abilities to make them unique from Sly but this is also one of the games many weaknesses, you sometimes have to swap out characters to get some of the hidden items, sounds ok until you witness the horrible loading times, so to get that item you must head to the hideout, enter the hideout, loading screen, swap the characters, longer loading screen, then get back to the place (and remember where it is cause theres no way to place a marker on the map), in total around 3-5 minutes just to collect one little thing, after a while you'll just wish Sly had all the abilities which renders the games main draw worthless.

The game offers cross- play and a feature called AR treasures, using your Vita you can take pictures to reveal where hidden treasures are in the game, its a cool gimmick and fits within the Sly universe but this has one simple problem, as of writing this review, it doesn't work, I’ve tried countless times but no success and it seems I'm not the only one.

The main problem with the game seems to be it thinks its a PS2, enemies just seem to not notice you unless you are directly in front of them, 8 years ago its could be understandable with the limits of the system but with the PS3 its almost sadly comical, even the graphics seem behind the times yet the snappy writing was the only thing from the past they needed to keep and that just seems to a shadow of its former self with Sly's terrible stink puns and just the general banter between the team seems almost cold and lifeless at times.

I'm just so disappointed with this game, it could have been and should have been better than what we could, almost a step back for the series rather than a giant leap forward however I can't honestly say its a bad game cause its still Sly, perhaps we could see this as a getting back into the swing of things kind of game and if that is the case then maybe Sly 5 could take all these issues into account and make a true next gen Sly Cooper game.

Just......no more dancing mini games.......please god.