I won’t place all of the blame on the latest Sly Cooper’s lackluster 3D effort on the dev team. This is more of a general issue. The implementation of the tech is solid with no notable performance drop. Resolution is sharp and even under the heaviest of visual circumstances, the frame rate does not move.
Thieves in Time is absolutely gorgeous though, and it’s a crying shame the full sense depth isn’t there. Reaching a peak in a level and scanning the horizon does not deliver the expansive sense of space that it should. The whole thing comes across as adequate. All of the high-end material comes during brief flourishes like when Sly finds an object and screen shifts to an overhead view. That object becomes an in-your-face piece.
The next issue? Color loss. In 2D, the saturation is heavy, with outstanding primaries. Place 3D glasses on your face and the color density disappears, along with Cooper’s entire style. This is not such an issue with the already dim Killzone or brightly lit Halo Anniversary. For Sly’s nighttime raids, the loss of brightness is a dramatic shift in style.
Oh, and the cinematics? They are entirely flat. There is no 3D integrated at all, an additional shaming levied since the broadly drawn 2D animation could have stood out beautifully.
Thieves in Time is totally recommended as a game despite some repetition, but a thumbs up for the 3D is impossible.
