Oh, raccoons- the scourge of suburbia. They’ll sneak up to your house under the cover of darkness and ransack your refuse, but they are also notoriously meticulous. With these qualities, it is no surprise that Sucker Punch chose a raccoon to be the protagonist of its Sly Cooper franchise. Sly Cooper is a thief, who comes from an austere lineage of raccoon thieves, and naturally, Sly does all his thievin’ in the most suave and debonair manner possible.
Sly Cooper: Honor Among Thieves is the third entry in the series. Our titular ring-tailed protagonist has discovered that the nefarious Dr. M has taken possession of the Cooper family vault and is trying to break into it to access the untold riches that have been squirreled (raccooned?) away in it for generations. Of course, the only way to open the vault is to use Sly’s cane (which is his weapon of choice) as a key. Sly confronts Dr. M, things don’t go so well for Sly, and his life begins to flash before his eyes.
This leads to the beginning of the game- all the steps that Sly took to get to that confrontation with Dr. M. As the game begins properly, we find that Sly and Bentley have teamed up together. Murray has left the gang because he feels responsible for the accident that put Bentley in a wheelchair.
The basic gameplay in Sly 3 is very similar to that of its predecessor, Sly 2: Band of Thieves. Each level consists of a large overworld with a variety of missions and a boss who is causing trouble and has to be stopped. Sly (or Bentley) starts out at the safe house for that level and they must travel from the safe house to the mission. At any point in the overworld, players can press L3 to see the location of the mission. To make things complicated, the overworld is inhabited by numerous guards, but they are not too difficult to defeat, unless a mob forms when they hear you fighting one of their brethren. Even when this happens, it is not too difficult to defeat a crowd, unless you were low on health to begin with. It ought to be noted that even though you can go in, cane a’swingin’, and take out a bunch of enemies, it is much more effective to pick their pockets, and then take them out as silently as possible. It should also be noted that it is much easier to move Sly around the overworld because he can climb lampposts and run across wires. Bentley was a pain in the last game, and he is still one of the more difficult characters to move around the overworld, but with his bombs and rocket boosters, he quickly becomes a lot more manageable. One of my biggest complaints about the overworlds in Sly 2 was that they were way too big and overwhelming. They really seem to have improved upon this in Sly 3; there is still plenty of room to explore, but the environments do not seem nearly as large as they did in Sly 2.
When you begin a mission, you may find yourself doing just about anything and everything. Each mission has a goal, and by completing a mission, you help set the plan for that overworld in action. When enough havoc has been wreaked, and the plan has been carried out, you must defeat the boss. At this point, the level is complete and you move onto the next overworld and start the process over.
This system of gameplay might seem repetitive, but the wide variety of missions really helps to keep things fresh. Sly knows that he is going to need some mad skillz in order to defeat Dr. M, so he is actively recruiting new members. These new members use their unique skills during the missions. While this does add a lot to the variety, the new members are one-trick-ponies. For example, if new gang member Penelope is involved with a mission, chances are you’re probably going to have to do something with her remote control car. But then again, it’s not like the original gang members are paragons of versatility.
During the course of the game, you will find yourself racing through the canals of Venice, going to an dogfight contest and sabotaging Team Belgium and framing Team Iceland (and vice versa), following a treasure map, fighting a battle with Crouching Tiger-style gravity (or lack thereof), engaged in a drinking contest and melee at the lemonade bar and much, much more.
So, the gameplay is engaging, and there are many types of challenges that are new to the franchise, but things are entirely too easy. I recall that the original game was reminiscent of an old-school platformer; if you got hit twice, you lost a life. In this game, Sly has a huge health meter; furthermore, if Sly does happen to lose a life, the player doesn’t always have to start the mission over. Sly will pop up, fully refreshed, and you can resume the challenge, which is so much easier given the huge advantage that you now have. While this is somewhat problematic for a player looking for challenging gameplay, the lack of difficulty is great for small children. So I can’t really complain. And since I’m not that wunderkind from The Wizard, I have to admit that sometimes, an unfair advantage (that goes my way) is a pleasant surprise.
My one real complaint is the length of the missions. The missions might be broken up into a series of multiple challenges. The game will only save when a mission is completed and you can’t save after having completed a challenge within the mission. This is annoying. There were many times that I found myself unable to put the controller down because I didn’t want to have to do the entire mission over again. Of course, there’s always the option of leaving the PS2 on, but it’s more the principle of the matter than anything else.
Graphically, Sly 3 is bright and cartoony. The artistic style is reminiscent of a comic book or perhaps a B-movie; this is especially evident in the cinematics that introduced each new environment. Each staging area also has a “slideshow” presentation, as Bentley unveils the plan for taking out the boss. These presentations are livened up by visual cues, like arrows and X’s indicating where characters will need to rendezvous. The environments are whimsical and fun to wander through. The graphics are by no means pushing technological boundaries, but that doesn’t stop them from being enjoyable. There are neither glaring graphical glitches, nor minor graphical glitches.
Of course, while the game relies heavily on visuals to stimulate its audience, sound is also an integral part of the Sly Cooper package. The voice acting is a wonderful complement to the in-game movies and there were many times when I was laughing out loud at the onscreen antics. The background music and sound effects also contribute to the overall good time.
The main game clocks in at approximately twenty hours, but then you have the option to go back and visit previous environments to compete in additional challenges. There is also a multiplayer mode in which two people can compete in head-to-head challenges. There is a dogfight game, a pirate ship game, two-player hacking, and the requisite version of Goldeneye with a Sucker Punch twist. All in all, they don’t add very much to the gameplay experience, aside from simply being there.
Sly Cooper: Honor Among Thieves is a delightful game. Sucker Punch has managed to create a series of overworlds that are fun to explore, as opposed to wandering around aimlessly in, which was the case in the last Sly Cooper game. While the challenges are not extremely challenging, they are fun. And in the end, that’s the most important thing, right?
