I’ve insisted for two years that the Sly Cooper franchise is sufficient reason to buy a PlayStation 2. This fall, as Sony’s console enters its twilight months, Sucker Punch is preparing to once again validate that statement with Sly 3: Honor Among Thieves.
At first blush, Sly 3 seems none too different from its two predecessors. The graphics have retained their Saturday-perfect cel-shaded style. The dialogue has retained its razor-sharp wit. The characters have retained their personality and distinct arsenal of moves. In essence, Honor Among Thieves seems like a Sly 2 expansion. But peel back the main character’s mask and you’ll see new characters, new gameplay mechanics, new multiplayer options and perhaps the coolest kitsch we’ve seen in years: an actual 3D presentation.
The story in Sly 3 takes place immediately after Sly 2: Band of Thieves. The main character and his gang narrowly avoided defeat, with Bentley the turtle left to scoot about in a wheelchair, and Murray, who feels responsible, having abandoned the team and chosen a path of non-violence and solace. With Murray out of the picture, at least temporarily, Sly 3 introduces a handful of new playable characters to help (or hinder) Sly’s mission to foil another gang’s attempt to steal the Cooper family fortune.
That’s right: help or hinder. Sly 3 supports split-screen multiplayer options, both in a competitive and cooperative sense. As such, players will be able to step into the shoes of Bentley or Murray and slink their way to success with a friend, or they can instead step into the shoes of Inspector Carmelita Fox, Lounge Lizard Dimitri several other villains yet to be announced and dash Sly’s hopes of fame and fortune. And like in Sly 2, which let gamers play as Bentley and Murray for the first time, Sly 3’s introduction of even more new characters brings a whole host of new moves to players’ arsenal.
Still, it’s to be expected that Sly has remained the star of the Honor Among Thieves show. But that doesn’t mean he doesn’t have a few of his own new moves up his sleeve. If you thought Sly’s mask was the best disguise he could conjure up, you’ll be pleased to know that Sucker Punch has taken a page out of the Metal Gear playbook and introduced new disguises enabling Sly to sneak past guards. The disguises also affect Sly’s set of moves, meaning that as players platform their way through Venice, Holland, the Outback and China, they’ll encounter several handfuls of gameplay changes.
In terms of replayability, players can access new vehicles, new gadgets and a new “time machine” that lets gamers replay any of the minigames and missions once they’ve been completed. By replaying the levels, players can test out new moves, new abilities and Sly’s new disguises. Honor Among thieves also includes power-up objectives and a scoring system, providing added incentive for do-it-all gamers to play levels “just one more time.”
But the coolest feature in terms of replayability has to be the use of full 3D. True, console platformers have had 3D environments and characters since Mario 64. But Sly 3 takes the concept of 3D and turns it on its head. This time, the term “3D” provides just that: gameplay and graphics in three full dimensions. Using the traditional blue and red lines and special glasses (included with the game), Sly 3 features several levels where the game camera splits, in essence, and creates an image that, when viewed through the glasses, looks like any 3D movie you’ve seen in the theater or at Disneyland.
Move Sly through a rotating corkscrew, and the metal will seem to spin off the screen. Dodge a 3D flame, and you can actually tell just how close you were to incinerating Sly’s tail. Once a level has been completed, its 3D counterpart is immediately unlocked, meaning that once players beat the game in “normal mode,” they can replay it again either to meet the objectives they missed the first time around or to see each level in full 3D, or both. For a detailed interview about how Sucker Punch pulled off the appearance of 3D in Sly 3, read DailyGame’s exclusive interview here.
Sly Cooper has proven to be one of the PS2’s sleeper hits with each successive release, and Sly 3: Honor Among Thieves is shaping up to continue that tradition. With new multiplayer support, new playable characters and the surprising addition of a 3D camera, Sly 3 has vaulted into position as one of my most-anticipated PS2 games of the year. Sucker Punch and Sony are at it again, and this time, they might just find Sly stealing platformer-lovers hearts as well as their time.
— Jonas Allen
