When I sat down to play the newly announced Sly Collection for the PlayStation 3, I was hesitant. It's always a bit of a hassle to put clunky 3D glasses over my regular ones, but I'll admit that the game looks pretty solid in 3D. It includes remastered HD versions of all three past games, and adds a few new features like making the third Sly game in 3D. And not just any 3D -- it uses the latest, as opposed to the older stuff. Additionally, the Sly Collection will feature a bunch of PlayStation Move-enabled mini-games that can be launched outside of the three Sly titles. I wasn't able to try any of them for myself, but extra content is always a good thing, right?
For those of you wondering, Sly Collection is not being handled by original developer Sucker Punch (as the team is probably entrenched in Infamous 2 right now). Instead, studio Sanzaru is taking up the task, though the two studios are obviously in close touch.
If you never followed the Sly series on the PS2, the games follow a cunning raccoon named Sly and his band of thieves. The games are traditional 3D platformers, but the charm of the Sly franchise comes from the game's slick controls and smooth gameplay.
I was only able to play the third Sly game, and only very briefly at that. But what I saw looked great, as the first part of the demo featured a boss fight in a bamboo forest. As Sly hopped from tree to tree, I was surprised at how nice the 3D effects looked -- though it should be noted that the game runs at a lower framerate when running in 3D. That's not to say it doesn't look smooth -- far from it. Sly is locked at 30 FPS when running in 3D, though the game rockets to 60 FPS when played in 2D. This, of course, isn't set in stone. Sanzaru still has time to get the game running even faster.
The second part of the demo featured an aerial battle where Sly is piloting a biplane through enemy-infested skies. This was really cool to play in 3D, as the bullets flying through the air pop out of the screen and flying under a bridge was surprisingly intense.
We still have a few months to wait for the Sly Collection (it's scheduled for a fall 2010 launch), but with HD visuals, Trophy support, Move mini-games and three of the most well-remembered platformers from the later PS2 era, I'm excited to play Sly Collection from start to finish.
