Driving, Sly Cooper and the Thievius Raccoonus

By the time the Sly Cooper sequels came out, I was more than happy to play as a character beyond the titular kleptomaniac raccoon.

But in that first PS2 platformer, switching over to Murray—the Cooper Gang’s big oaf of a driver—to do kart racing was one of the worst segments in the game. The Cooper Van was floaty and had no traction and using the boosters you could pick up on the track was more likely to send you flying and off course than get you ahead in the race.

It was bad enough that they did it once—but they did it twice, making you slog through a kart racing section again later on in the game. I’ve replayed Sly Cooper and the Thievius Raccoonus multiple times over the past 20 years (thank you to my Vita for keeping those games close as Sony makes playing old games difficult and costly on PS5), and every time I get to these segments it’s a momentum killer. I’m glad Murray got out from behind the wheel and started swinging at baddies on the field in the sequels, because this shit sucks. – Kenneth Shepard, staff writer