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.

Publisher:
Sony
Developer:
Sucker Punch

Platform:
PS2

Rating: 9/10