Platform: Playstation 2
Genre: Platformer
Publisher: SCEA
Developer: Sucker Punch
ETA: Fall 2004

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Sly Cooper 2: Band of Thieves

Hands-On

Just before E3, Sony announced that a sequel to Sly Cooper: The Thievius Raccoonus was in the works. The sequel called Sly Cooper 2: Band of Thieves (SC2BT) expands upon the series incorporating better and slicker visuals, new storyline as well as many new gameplay elements too. I recently got the chance to spend some time with a demo and it seems like the development of the game is coming along quite nicely.

The first thing you’ll notice about SC2BT is how similar it plays to its predecessor. The controls are generally the same as the first game (there are in-game hints to refresh your memory). Like the original, the game emphasizes the use of stealth over all out attacks. The developers have built the levels in a manner so you can easily stick to the shadows and sneak around.

Many of the same characters from the original game are back in the sequel. The evil Klaww gang is back and so is their leader Clockwerk.

At the end of the original game, Sly defeated Clockwerk who was then separated into pieces. The Klaww gang’s goal is to find the pieces and bring Clockwerk back. Many of Sly’s buddies including Bentley and Murray return in the sequel.

For those who aren’t familiar with the first game, Bentley is a turtle who is basically the brains of the group. Murray is a pig who lacks intelligence, but is known as the

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iron man of the group. SC2BT will be emphasizing greater cooperation and teamwork between Sly and his friends. In the original game you were only able to control Sly and on rare occasion you would fight alongside Murray. In the sequel you’ll be able to control Bentley with Murray stopping by to help you on occasion.

Bentley handles and plays quite differently from Sly. Bentley carries two weapons which include bombs and a dart gun. The bombs that Bentley carries are used to destroy laser barriers while the dart gun can put enemies to sleep. Bentley is also able to carry out melee attacks against enemies. Playing as Bentley is a nice change of pace, but I still prefer controlling Sly.

The enemies you’ll be squaring off against are much smarter and stronger. In the original game you could take out most enemies with one hit, but now enemies have a much larger health meter. So it’s not a really good idea to try to kill all the enemies. One welcome change in the demo was the inclusion of a health meter for your characters. In the original game Sly could easily die after one hit, but now your character can withstand more damage.

The character models have been improved with the environments feeling similar to the original game. Sly Cooper won praise for its use of cell animation and the sequel is no different. The game’s presentation is slick and is similar to that of a Saturday morning cartoon. However there is one noticeable problem. There some moments where the frame rate will decrease or slow down. This problem will probably be addressed before the game goes gold.

It’s certainly going to be interesting for platformer/action this fall with Jak III and Ratchet and Clank 3 being released alongside Sly Cooper 2: Band of Thieves. From what we have seen so far, SC2BT is shaping up to be a great game as it should certainly please fans of the original game. Look for SC2BT this fall.

- Siddharth Masand

(August 1, 2004)