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Developed by Sucker Punch, the company currently developing the inFamous series, the Sly Cooper series wasn’t a massive hit when first released in the early noughties, despite their solid and refreshing gameplay. Now, on behalf of Sucker Punch Productions, Sanzaru Games have ported all three Sly Cooper titles onto the PS3 – with each title having been remastered in HD, updated with trophies and given full 3D compatibility as well as a few extra PlayStation Move minigames.

But these games weren’t a massive hit in their hay-day, is that perhaps they are fatally flawed? Or is the whole world missing out on another great Sony exclusive franchise?

Starting off with Sly Raccoon and the Thievius Raccoonus (Sly 1), it is clear to see from the start that there is great premise for a game like this – very few games have opted for a cartoon espionage theme – however Sly1 ends up quite far away from the atmosphere it intended to create, and ends up providing classic platforming gameplay with only fleeting moments of true spying. That said though, the game pulls off the platforming elements very well, even if it does get repetitive towards the end.

The story starts with Sly (the protagonist) stealing the Thievius Raccoonus, an ancient book written by his ancestors on the art of being a master thief, from Carmelita Fox, a police officer. On retrieving the ancient book, Sly discovers that many of its pages are missing, and so he begins his quest to recover the lost pages and restore the book to its former glory. The game revolves around Sly taking out the five villains who have stolen the pages – Sir Raleigh, Muggshot, Mz. Ruby, Panda King and Clockwerk – in their respective countries.

Sly 1 is a fun if flawed introduction to the trilogy.

The gameplay is simple if slightly repetitive – you should expect classic platforming here. Sly has a range of moves including hook swinging, spire jumping, turning invisible and much more, however you’ll have to unlock most of his abilities before you can use them. Most of the main abilities are unlocked by completing the storyline, but most extra useful abilities can be found by cracking open vaults in each level (each vault is cracked by finding all the hint bottles dispersed within that level).

As you reach the end of the game, the platforming becomes more challenging and more clever mechanics are introduced. Sadly though, the game as a whole feels slightly unfocused and unpolished. If you feel like a real challenge, each level has a time trial, of which some are incredibly difficult indeed. All in all, Sly 1 is by no means a terrible game, but it isn’t fantastic either – luckily though, it is but the foundations that the other two titles far exceed.

Speaking of which, Sly 2, vastly improves upon its predecessor by combining a much more open atmosphere to the game as well as the inclusion of a much better variety of missions. Each ‘world’ has a large amount of story missions to complete as well as 30 hint bottles to collect in order to open a vault hidden somewhere in the world. Each story mission allows you to take control of either Sly, Bentley or Murray – with Sly’s missions favouring platforming, Bentley’s favouring minigames, and Murray’s favouring combat.

Sly 2 allows you to control both of Sly's sidekicks - Bentley and Murray.

The addition of the ability to play as all three characters gives the game the variety that the last one needed so badly, the story missions are much more structured and will have you hacking computers, stealing treasure, purchasing abilities, I could go on for a while. The story of Sly 2 is probably the longest out of the three, with a gameplay time upwards of 10 hours and maybe breaching 20 hours if you want to get everything.

All in all, Sly 2 expands upon what Sly1 started off, by providing a load more features: A more structured and thought out story,  more abilities, multiple playable characters and on the whole a better presentation. Sly 2 is arguably the best of the three but that’s not to say that Sly 3 isn’t as good.

On to Sly 3 now, the last of the main games, and it’s safe to say that the story here is the most well developed of the three. The game has you searching for additions to the Cooper gang in order to help the team pull off their biggest job yet – gaining access to the Cooper vault. Each new member of the team has their own specialist skill – whether it be demolition, remote control, or brute force – and it’s safe to say that the package as a whole works quite well.

Sly 3 pulls together the best bits of the series.

Each ‘world’ you enter is brightly coloured and well designed however there’s less to do in this installment – there are no clue bottles to find so you are focused solely on completing story missions. As with Sly 2, the story missions are brilliantly varied and are a joy (and at times a challenge) to play through – most notably the final mission of each world which has the whole team working together to achieve their goal.

When you’ve finished a world, you are able to go back and replay any of the missions but you can also attempt Sucker Punch’s challenges, some of which are pretty difficult. Each challenge focuses on one of the missions in that world, the objective is to play through that mission subject to extra conditions such as a time limit, killing a certain number of enemies and not taking damage.

All in all, Sly 3 doesn’t really add much to the series in terms of new features, but there’s not much point in adding new features when Sly 2 was a very good game. The story provides closure on the characters and the platforming is at its best here, the addition of challenges and treasure hunting are nice features but overall the experience is (largely) unchanged.

Last but not least, there’s the minigames. It has to be said, they’re a little disappointing, it’s almost like they were added as an after thought by the developers. But if you’ve got a few friends (and Move controllers) spare, then they are worth a few goes at least. If you’ve already played the Sly games on PS2, I wouldn’t recommend buying the Sly Trilogy solely to play these extra games, unless you really are set on owning every piece of the Sly franchise you can get your hands on.

The Move minigames are worth a try but aren't massively good.

The Sly Trilogy is a worthy testament to the PS2 games it has improved upon, the graphics are sleek (which is certainly something for a PS2 game), and there is certainly a lot to do. The original Sly Cooper game loses its way a little, but forms a solid base ready for the series to flourish – which it does in Sly 2. Sly 2 packs in a lot more of what would be expected from a game focused on espionage, and improves greatly on its predecessor. Sly 3 doesn’t rewrite the formula as much but is still a joy to play.

A few small problems can ruin the experience from time to time, with the extra Move games feeling very underdeveloped, however for the most part, The Sly Trilogy is a thoroughly enjoyable game – so those that missed out on the experience on PS2 should pick this up right away. If you want to lose yourself in 30+ hours of fun platforming and sneaking, then this collection of games certainly won’t disappoint.