by
Ted Kritsonis
Faze
Video Game Editor
Sly
Cooper and Thievius Raccoonus came out of nowhere in 2002
and turned out to be one of the best games on the PS2 that
year. With that kind of unexpected success, the anticipated
sequel had a big act to follow.
Sly
2: Band of Thieves follows Sly, the slippery raccoon thief
and his partners in crime: Bentley, the genius turtle behind
the planning, and Murray, the hippo with a big punch. The
goal for the three is to capture the various parts of Clockwerk,
the villainous owl from the previous game, because the dreaded
Klaww Gang plans to put him back together. Although Bentley
plans everything out, the fun comes in executing those plans.
The
big heist takes you to interesting locales like Paris, India,
Prague and even Canada, and will also see Bentley and Murray
play very active roles. Each character has different skills
and strengths, which come in handy for setting things up for
each mission. Thanks to unscripted gameplay, there are also
a variety of ways for each character to accomplish their objectives.
Enemy
AI has seen a great improvement, especially now that reinforcements
can be called in to swarm you. You can sneak up to an enemy
from behind and take them out quietly without attracting attention,
which really showcases the stealth aspect to this game.
But
with all the stealth comes plenty of action, and the simplicity
of the controls ensures that you won’t ever get confused
during a fight. In fact, the controls are great in every aspect
of Band of Thieves. All the platform-jumping and gymnastics
are easily pulled off, so it’s unlikely you’ll
get frustrated with that part of the gameplay.
The
visuals and sounds, meanwhile, only add to the excellent gameplay.
The immersive worlds Sucker Punch designed for Band of Thieves
are a huge step up from the linear levels seen in Sly Cooper.
The cel-shaded graphics and cinematics look seamless and very
stylish. Cartoon interpretations of cities like Paris and
Calcutta have never looked better.
The cutscenes are well done and the chapter intros are totally
reminiscent of Saturday morning cartoons. It’s obvious
from little things like that that the developers had plenty
of fun putting this game together. Worlds where animals talk
and live like humans have always been fun and interesting,
and Band of Thieves is no different.
Band
of Thieves’ appeal is mainly on how fun the game is
to play. It isn’t short (it’ll take as much as
10 hours to finish it), and it isn’t frustrating to
go through. Sucker Punch designed an absolutely solid game
here, and one that is well worth the time to go through.
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