Case Study for Video Games

1. Sly Cooper 2: Band
Of Thieves
BY LEAH ELLIS

2. About the game
Sly Cooper 2: Band of Thieves is a game where
you play as one of the 3 friends known as Sly –
the fox, Murray – the hippo, or Bentley – the
turtle.
It is a stealth platformer video game developed
by Sucker Punch, who has later developed the
Infamous series.
It was released in 2004 by Sony Computers
Entertainment for the Play Station 2.

3. Art Style
The art style of Sly Cooper is
cell shading and
exaggeration.
This is seen in the fact it is
anthropomorphic animals
that are slightly shaded. This
works in this example as it
makes it look 3D and creates
the isometric 3D
interpretation style that
appeals to so many.
This is a common art style in some of the similar games that came out around the
same time, being 2004. This was before full 3D was really common.

4. Gameplay content - Avatar
The avatars in this game are all some form of creature, with no humans in
the world.
The first 3 characters here are the playable characters available in this
game, a fox, hippo, and a turtle.
There are the artistic creations from the cut scenes that are shown below
and there are also the more isometric designs that are seen throughout
play through (as seen in the screenshot next to it).

5. Single/Multiplayer
This game is a single player.
This means that it is for one person to play at a time, with no
means for plugging in another controller or accessing an
online community.
This is helped in being this way as it is from 2004 on PS2
before online multiplayers were possible on consoles.

6. Narrative
The narrative of this game is very linear.
There are elements of free roam across the “worlds” that you
travel between once you have finished all the missions in an
area.
There are some essential quests that you must complete
before you can go on to the next level.
This makes it linear as through the 4 games in the series,
there is one continuous story that you can experience.

7. Goals/Rewards
The goal in this game is to complete the missions and collect all the pieces
of ‘Clockwerk’; who is a bird that gets rebuilt by the end of the game as your
final boss, as you find the pieces through missions.
One of the main goals of missions is to collect valuable artefacts to then sell
on ‘thiefnet’ in order to get money to buy upgrades and skills for your
characters to use.
This leads to your only real goal during the
game to be the skills that you buy within the
levels. These are made more accessible by
collecting clue bottles throughout the levels,
which when all collected leads you to a clue to
where an exclusive skill is.

8. Game Mechanics
The mechanics of the game are the same as a simple platformer. This
is although the 3 different playable characters have slightly different
abilities. This adjusts the mechanics slightly as the main character –
Sly – has the skills to walk across ropes onto rooftops, although
Murray and Bentley cannot.

9. Genre
The genre of this game is a stealth platformer.
This includes being able to climb and access multiple layers of the terrain.
It also requires you to keep a low profile in game, and avoid enemies
seeing and chasing you to attack.
This shares many characteristics with other stealth platformers, for
example Assassins Creed, where you must platform around the different
terrains and sneak up on your enemies. This can be seen as they both
have missions of complete stealth. This is where you must complete it,
often following someone, without letting a single person see you.

10. Strengths & Weaknesses
The elements of gameplay that
are good are that it uses a
proximity based volume control
over certain aspects. Namely, the
clue bottles ticking. This is a nice
part as it uses the proximity of
your character to increase and
decrease the volume so that you
may find the secret. Although,
this may also been seen as bad
through the fact that it requires
the player to act different and can
distract them from their missions.
The elements of gameplay
that are not as good are
where it presents the
characters in slightly different
ways. I feel like this may not
be quite as good as it has 2
different art styles throughout
the game, which although
presents it uniquely, raises it’s
own problems with the fact of
the characters looking
different.

11. FMV
This is an example of an FMV from the beginning of the
game. This is when Sly first meets Murray and they are
discussing what is happening next so that you can learn the
controls of the game.

12. Graphics Comparison
A game that came out within the same year as Sly Cooper 2 is Grand Theft
Auto San Andreas. This game has quite similar graphics, which seem to be
around the best quality that was available at the time. There is a slightly
obvious difference between them as one is designed to be much more
cartoon than the other. You can see though, even with this difference. They
are both very similar in appearances. They are both very detailed and
polygonal, that was the time’s best appearances.

13. Game Engines
I cannot find information on the game engine or system
requirements to play the game. I do know that it is at least
that of a PlayStation 2.
This is an overall pixel fillrate of 16×147 = 2.352 gigapixel/s.
Along with a pixel configuration of RGB: Alpha:Z Buffer.

14. Box Art
The console it is
to be played on. The console’s
logo.
An age rating of the
game.
The publisher’s
logo,
A logo for the
game as a whole.
The main
characters of the
game.
An interpretation of a
possible action in the
game.

15. Gameplay
Stealth
meter.
Coins/clue
bottles GUI.
Keys
display.
Game waypoint.
Character in
central screen.

16. Addiction
This addiction can present itself as compulsive gaming, social isolation,
mood swings and obsessions with in-game achievements.
There is still research to go into whether or not Internet Gaming Disorder is
it’s own disorder or a side effect of other mental disorders.
Many games rely on a compulsion loop to entrance the player and make
them keep coming back to play. This is by having achievements and
rewards that give the player dopamine as they play and so they want to
come back for more. It is proposed that this is a possible cause for this
addiction.
There have been multiple deaths across time because of this disorder.