Sly 2: Band of Thieves

"Sly 2: Band of Useless gadgets, but still fun overall"

Story(6.5):
2 years have passed since Sly defeated Clockwerk, and now for whatever reason he wants the parts back, but when he goes to get them from the Museum in Egypt they have already been taken by the Klaww Gang. A band of criminals not unlike the Fiendish Five from Sly1, though a bit less cartoonish in their goals. This gets a low score because there are several gaping holes and the plot twists are just too predictable.

Game Play(8.5):
Now here is where the Sly1 has really shined before, and this game continues that tradition that we can only hope will be kept up if they make a Sly3. The controls are intuitive and easy to learn, the power-ups are easy to sort through and can be set to a desired button which is an improvement over the first game. The camera sets behind you most of the time and keeps up with the character pretty well, but you can change he angle easily without upsetting anything majorly.
Now unlike in the first Sly this game has it set so that each job set leads into the next and that causes the came to be a bit more linear than its predecessor, though in my opinion that is in no way a bad thing. During the first Sly it felt more like you were an stealth agent, bringing down the bad guys because it was the right thing to do, nut in this one, with all the missions geared to a particular item(The Clockwerk Parts), it feels more like you are a thief stealing things that don't belong to you .
My big problem with this particular stat is that Sly forgot most of the moves we worked so hard to find during game 1, and in fact several of the moves he learns later in the game are improvements or other versions of those moves. Another bad thing is that most of these gadgets are just not that useful(I have yet to use one of Murray's aside from the two take are constant)

Graphics(8):
I have always enjoyed the kind of cartoonish feel you get from the cel-shaded graphics that Sucker-Punch employs here. When done correctly it can give the game a cartoon quality to a game without taking anything away from it otherwise. This game defiantly does it right, creating an at least partially serious story while still maintaining the feel of a cartoon style.

Characters(7):
Inspector Fox
Most people say that every character except Carmillita was improved from the first game. Their major complaint with Inspector Fox is that she seems to have forgotten some of the things she learned about Cooper from game 1, namely that he isn't a really bad guy at heart, and doesn't deserve raw hatred, though he still needs to be brought to justice. Now I will allow this to be explained away as a change caused by the mean thing he did to her at the end of game one. A lot of people also complain that her Voice Actor changed and the new one seems to have no emotions, but I don't feel that that's true. She does have emotions, they just mostly involve anger towards Sly.

Neyla
A good girl who's willing to bend the law to catch a thief. Or is it a bad girl who's willing to work with the law to bring down an enemy? Anyway she is a cliched character who offers a few surprises but not as many as I would have liked. A small note according to the book she's supposed to be a cat. She might be a tiger but I think she is supposed to just be a house cat.

Sly
The star of this little adventure, he's your basic thief with honor, meaning he steals only from thieves, even if the rest of the world says they aren't. Now I really never cared for this kind of character because they have a bendable sense of ethics that can be used against them often as not, and they usually get hits from both sides of the law.

Bentley
As the intro says, this turtle is the brains behind the Cooper gang, though in this episode he takes a more direct hand in things. In the first Sly he only got to play in one mission and that was simply a mini game, where as many other characters appeared multiple times even though in truth they were less important to the story. Armed with his dart gun in this game however you will continually uses his hacking skills to bust the mainframes of enemies wide open and even take down a building or 2 with his bombs.

"The Murray"
Ah another character who keeps referring to himself in the third person. I thought he was an interesting side character in the first game and enjoyed the racing mini games where he drove the van against some of the F5's thugs to win keys. In this instalment though he seems to have forgotten that he has a tank for a van and he takes to the street on foot, though he still seems to be very powerful. Able to knock a foe out with one blow and then pick them up and use them against other foes, Murray defiantly represents the pinnacle of power for your group, though he can't go as many places as Sly or Bentley thanks to that hulking frame of his.

The Klaww Gang
The evil guys in this game thy have each taken part of the evil robot Clockwerk, and are using them in various schemes all around the world, though most have at least something to do with the spice trade. Each one of these guys has a unique background and each poses a different challenge to the player when you face off against them. I personally like that they didn't do any real puzzle bosses this time around, cause while they are fun to fight the first time, most boss fights like that get old fast. However the actually boss fights with them trying to hit you and you dodging and going in for a hit of your own can almost always be unique and challenging.

Replayability(0):
Unlike Sly1 in this game you cannot simply go back and redo a mission from the beginning. In order to replay a mission you must do one of two things:
A)Save right before it and don't let the Autosave happen when you finish it.
B) Go back to the beginning and play the whole game over again.
Now other than that I think this game provides several ways through each mission and can give a unique challenge if you limit yourself(Like don't use any gadgets).
The clue bottles are also a replayable item seeing as how you can really mess your self up thinking you already got one the second time around, though in reality you didn't. But that particular challenge gets old real fast and leaves many people just bored with the game.

Final Analysis:
Sly 2 is a fun game overall even if most of the extra's are useless and getting a perfect does nothing for you, unlike the first game where it unlock a making of and commercials videos.
Buy/Rent?
I rented this from my local blockbuster because I enjoyed the first one(Also rented there) so I don't really know the price, but in my opinion I would wait until this reaches the $30 mark until buying it.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 09/23/04