Sly 3: Honor Among Thieves (PlayStation 2)

GameSpot editors' review

• CNET editors' rating: 4.0 stars Excellent
  Detailed editors' rating
  Overall score: 8.4 (4.0 stars)

• Reviewed by:
  Carrie Gouskos
• Reviewed on: 09/26/2005
• Updated on: 05/17/2006
• Released on: 09/26/2005
• Originally published on GameSpot: Sly 3: Honor Among Thieves (PlayStation 2) Review

Sly Cooper and the Thievius Raccoonus was released among a deluge of platformers for the PlayStation 2 in 2002, presumably vying for the title of the "Mario killer" for the budding system. The other two games, the Ratchet and Jak franchises, have gone on to change their focus in subsequent iterations, but Sly Cooper's unique presentation and charm has remained constant. Of course several things have changed for Sly in recent years--he's dropped the tricky-pronouncing manual from the title, incorporated a few more characters into the lineup, and now, in the third game, he's gone 3D...sort of. These small changes have either slightly accentuated or not affected the gameplay at all, and the resulting game is bigger, longer, and Slyer than the previous two in the franchise. Although Sly 3 still suffers from a relative ease that has always plagued the series, the gameplay is varied and clever enough to keep a player of any skill level's attention.

The events of the game begin right where Sly 2: Band of Thieves left off. Although it helps to be familiar with the previous two games in the series, you can still pick up Sly 3 and jump right into gameplay--just don't expect to get all the inside jokes. When last we saw Sly and the gang, things were somewhat shaky among the central three characters. The brain of the trio, the turtle Bentley, had suffered a crippling accident and was now confined to a wheelchair. The muscle, the hippo Murray, blamed himself for the incident and ran off to seek a more peaceful life of meditation. The game begins with the group fractured, and a new challenge facing Sly Cooper. At the onset, we learn that Sly's family, the notorious thieves named Cooper, had a vault where they kept all of their treasures. An evil genius named Dr. M is attempting to crack into the vault, and he has set up a fortress around it. Sly resolves that, in order to get his family fortune back, he must assemble a team of infiltration experts to get through the fortress and to the vault, which only Sly can open.

The game's levels occur in vastly different regions of the world, from the snowy mountains of China to the depths of pirate territory on the high seas. The point of each level is to aid and then recruit a new player for the Cooper family vault heist, like an anthropomorphic Ocean's Eleven, or something. Like Sly 2, the levels here consist of massive hubs, which not only facilitate getting between different objectives, but also often house the objectives themselves. This setup makes the game flow smoothly from objective to objective, and you'll find that every objective on the level contributes to your overall goal. Upon finishing an objective, you may return to the safe house, which serves two purposes. The first is to purchase gadgets and upgrades via the handy "Thiefnet" with the coins that you've been collecting around town, which can be found in barrels and from dead enemies. But the best way to get money quickly is to pickpocket guards who are still alive by sneaking up behind them and relieving them of their wallets.

Of course, you don't need to upgrade your attacks, especially if you prefer to focus on the stealth aspect of the game. However, from time to time, certain upgrades will be mandatory in order to progress through the main storyline, so it's best to collect money whenever you can. The other reason for the safe house is to switch between the three main characters. On all of the levels, the characters have different roles, so you'll need to use each of them and their unique abilities to complete the whole game. As you travel around the hub, you can press a button to bring up the location markers of the available missions. These markers rise above the building levels, so you can look up into the sky and head in the general direction of the next objective. The markers are also color coded depending on which character is needed to complete the objective, which makes the process of switching characters easier. This process might have been tedious otherwise.

The story is fairly linear, although you're given several objectives at the start and can do them in any order that you see fit. Upon arriving to a new country or level, Bentley outlines the plans in typical Sly Cooper fashion, via a slide show. The slide show previews the upcoming objectives, and they are narrated by Bentley's overly nerdy but adorable commentary. On each level, the team is working against a boss who is as flamboyant as he is nefarious. Although there are quite a few new faces in this game, fans of the franchise will be treated to some guest appearances, including reliving a previous sequence from Thievius Raccoonus inside the memory of one of the bosses. Sly humorously comments that he's done this all before and that the boss should really snap out of it.

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