Sly 2: Band of Thieves

"Sly should have spent a little more time on the drawing board"

Sly 2: Band of Thieves is the much-anticipated sequel to the blockbuster platformer Sly Cooper and the Thievius Raccoonus, released in 2002. That was around the same time that the other two franchise giants of PS2 platformers, Jak & Daxter and Ratchet & Clank, debuted. Both of these games were phenomenal successes too, though in different ways: Jak was about acrobatic puzzle solving and Ratchet was all about blowing stuff up with a myriad of cool guns. Sly was about stealth and speed, attacking only when necessary, with a much less forgiving hit point system: one hit and you're out.

The Jak & Daxter and the Ratchet & Clank teams both managed to put out a second game only a year after the first of each respective series was released, and managed to make the games bigger, better, and more visually stunning. The guys at Sucker Punch took two years to get Sly 2 out, though, and the rate of return turns out to be less than expected. The game's much larger and longer, fixing one of the few faults of the first one, and instead of being based on traditional level structures, it uses a "mission" system with occasional visits to small levels based around a large central area where most of the action takes place, similar to Grand Theft Auto III or Jak II. You can also take multiple hits without dying, though this was a necessary change because of the more difficult nature of the enemies. Overall, though, game doesn't live up to the expectations of a top-level platformer.

The biggest problem I have with the game is the homogeneity of some of the levels. The game consists of 8 grand episodes, each with its own location, plot structure and set of missions. This episodical structure is a great opportunity for game designers to create a full, diverse world (see the Ratchet & Clank series for the ideal execution of this concept). In Sly 2, for reasons I can't begin to understand, episodes 2/3, 4/5, and 6/7 are in only slightly varied locations (i.e. an Indian palace near a jungle in 2, and an Indian palace inside the jungle in 3). This obviously let them reuse a lot of the resources like textures and enemies, but this kind of frugality makes the game feel cheap. If I get 8 episodes, I expect 8 distinct locales... like the 5 completely distinct ones in the first Sly game. I was rather tired of jungles by the end of episode 3, really tired of gothic Prague by the end of episode 5, and completely sick of snowy tundra at the end of episode 7.

The second major flaw in the game are the earned/purchased skills. Only 2 or 3 of all the skills Sly and his buddies can acquire are actually useful (like the glider); the rest are battle skills I just never used. I got them, but they just kind of sat there. You certainly don't need any of them to fight any of the battles, with only one or two rare exceptions. Also, you can only have 3 active and usable at a time, meaning the impetus to never use the others is very strong. There's a few really nice moves from Sly 1 that weren't brought over, too, like the power roll. The makers of Jak II understood that a character in a sequel should be able to gain new moves while retaining the ones from the previous game.

The third and most major flaw borders on a sin: there's no replayability. None. Once you get 100%, you're done. And you get 100% just by completing the missions, not by doing any side quests or secret item collection. Why in god's name they couldn't have spent an extra week or two putting in some simple but entertaining second-time-through features, or at least some secondary goals like the timed runs in Sly 1, is beyond me. You rent games with no replayability, you don't buy them.

Other, more minor flaws involved things like the voice acting, which were sub-par on some of the secondary characters, most notably Carmelita Fox. Especially at the beginning of the game. Also, some of the controls were a bit irritating, like Sly's penchant for perching on the edge of things even when you don't want him to. Finally, I was incredibly disappointed to get the freaking coolest move in the game (a hyper-jump that makes him jump 4-5 times higher) near the end of the last episode, only to have it taken away immediately after that mission ended. You just lose it, no explanation given, and you never get it back.

Despite all these flaws, there's a few things about this game that I really enjoyed. First of all was the retention of the cell-shaded animation style used in the first game, along the comic-book cut scenes and campy action sound effects. The second was the whole scope of the game: while Sly 1 was noticeably short, Sly 2 is a fully-featured game with large, sprawling levels and numerous clever missions. Getting to play Murray (the strong, stupid hippo) and Bentley (the weak, super-intelligent turtle) separately from Sly is a nice touch too, though I really wish they'd have made it so that you could choose which character to use on some missions, rather than forcing it on you all the time.

So, yeah, a decent game with some pretty large flaws. In the end, I just can't recommend buying this game, especially since Ratchet 3 and Jak 3 are coming out within the next 2 months. My advice is, rent this game, and save your $40 for one of those other two games.

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