The Cooper Gang steals the show! One of the finer additions to the Sony PlayStation 2 library. In short? A great game.
The Cooper Gang is back, my friends.
And they're here to steal the show on the PlayStation 2.
First of all, Sly 3: Honor Among Thieves isn't your typical platforming game. It combines stealth elements with fast-paced action, puzzles, and wicked platforming elements. And it's got a great story that is laced with humor and drama. This is what makes Sly 3 so great. It's like having a melting pot of really good games - churn it just right and you get a great game that combines what was so good about other titles. Sly 3 is just that - a cross between Metal Gear Solid and Tomb Raider.
Let me say this about the Sly series just in case you don't know what I'm talking about or if you haven't played this game - it's not about preventing a nuclear strike within 24 hours or climbing obstacles to get some artifacts and some relics. The Sly Cooper series is all about stealing stuff without getting caught and foiling tyrant plans to screw up the environment. It's all about being a freedom fighter. And that is Sly Cooper.
Sly 3: Honor Among Thieves starts its engines and boom. You're sucked in. The storyline is just perfectly paced and is well thought-out. And it's one of the best story lines I've ever seen in a video game. It's truly amazing, really - how the emotions seen in this game manage to captivate the player and move the story on.
Lightning flashes. Thunder rolls. Wind blows. And you've in front of you one heck of a way to start a video game. Basically, you're Sly Cooper - a raccoon who is a seasoned thief and is determined to find out what had happened to his ancestors' belongings. You know - the stuff they stole. Sly then finds out that all of the stolen goods that his ancestors stole through time is being kept in a vault. The Cooper Vault. For Coopers only.
Sounds pretty straightforward, right? But it's more complicated than you think. The Cooper Vault, once on a deserted island, untouched for decades, is then at the heart of an island-turned-fortress by the criminal mastermind Dr. M - some kind of sabre-tooth tiger thing with a plug on top of his head. Dr. M, determined to steal back what the Coopers stole to use for his own greedy purposes, decided to build a fortress around the island to prevent any trespassers.
And it's claimed to have security tougher than Fort Knox.
I'm afraid I'm going to have to stop here - the story is just too great (and complicated) to type. It's just too good. So good, you'll probably cry at the end. It's just that amazing.
The game play is really diverse. Once you've finished the first part of the game, Sly suddenly has flashbacks of all of the places he and his friends went to just to gain access to the
Cooper Vault. You get to go to places like Venice, Australia, and many other areas of the world to seek for better options instead of waltzing into the Cooper Vault surrounded by guns and whatnot.
Yes - Sly's not alone. The Cooper Gang's out and about. Sly. Bentley. And Murray. Three friends since they met at the orphanage when they were little kids. Friends for life? Definitely.
Since Sly's not alone, the game play switches between Sly, Murray, and Bentley. Each of them have different properties, however the stealth mechanics are consistent.
Sly's quick and agile, but he doesn't fight well in crowds. However, he's really sneaky and can do almost anything with the signature cane of his. Sly's cane allows him to swing across hooks in the ceiling, climb flagpoles, and all other kinds of moves. Sly can also pull off great acrobatic ability - he can do all kinds of flips and jumps whilst keeping balance. Sly can balance on top of light fixtures, poles, and he can run across ropes with ease. Sly can also sidle on walls (for those of you that don't know, it's when you press your back against a wall like Solid Snake does) to sneak his way through gaps where he might fall. Sly, unfortunately, is pretty small, so he can't take many hits before succumbing to fatigue.
Murray - a pink hippo - is the brawn of the gang. He does the fighting and he's pretty tough - but he's the least sneaky of them all. Murray's sluggish, but his brute strength more than makes up for it. Murray can take out crowds with ease with his macho fists and his fighting prowess. However, the negative thing about Murray is that he's a large target, so he's easy to spot and doesn't fight well from a distance - since he's only limited to his fists. Murray, however, can pick up objects to throw at opponents, so that balances it out a bit.
Bentley - a turtle - on the other hand, is a mixed bag of Sly and Murray. If you've played Sly 2, then you know that Bentley's confined to a wheelchair in this game. Bentley, however, is the smart guy. The mastermind behind all of the plots to get the gang closer to the vault. Bentley may not be strong when he's spinning around in his wheelchair as a defensive attack, but his gadgets make up for it. And he's half-sneaky - so he's a little different than Sly and Murray. Bentley's not nearly as tough as Murray and isn't as tough as Sly, so Bentley has even worse defensive capabilities than Sly since he's confined to a wheelchair.
So it's pretty nice being able to play as Sly, Murray, and Bentley - the Cooper Gang. However, later in the game, you'll realize that a gang of three isn't enough. That's when the recruits come in. Eventually, the gang will have to recruit more members - kind of like Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood. You get to play as all of the recruits, however the main game play focus is on Sly, Bentley, and Murray.
The game is pretty much free-roam. You will start at the safe house - the main hideout for the gang depending on the area you're in. You select a character and you scan the environment for objectives to pull off jobs and heists - marked as glowing lights with the character icon in the center. Once you head to these glowing points, the job will begin. Each main area in the game you go to is manned by a criminal mastermind. The main objective to each main area in the game is to foil the mastermind plots and to search for recruits. However, not everything will always go well - the cops are around and about as well - adding to the nice realism of the game. In short: everything works nicely.
Sly, Bentley, and Murray can also upgrade their moves via "ThiefNet" - an internet database that somehow grants the characters new abilities and moves to help them progress through the game. All in exchange for some loot, of course. Once you gain these abilities, you can assign them to the shoulder buttons to your liking. Pretty neat, if you ask me.
Let me say this again - the majority of the game is set in past events, so the game is mostly about the gang traveling around in search for more recruits, since the three can't take on Dr. M by themselves.
The controls in this game are spot-on. It's responsive and it's pretty easy to get used to. The new abilities and gadgets obtained via "ThiefNet" being able to be assigned to the shoulder buttons is pretty innovative. Everything works well in the controls department.
The sound and music in this game is astonishing. The sound effects are realistic with a touch of cartoon in them, making for a unique sound experience. The voice acting is surprisingly good - and hilarious during the game's many funny moments. The music is an orchestrated slice of heaven - the background music is very diverse and fitting for the area you're in. All in all, this game is half real-life and half cartoon show. It's awesome.
The character development is Metal Gear Solid-worthy. And that's a massive achievement. Each character is very fleshed out and seem alive in their own unique ways. Sly's the cool and confident guy - always looking for a way to help. Bentley's the brains behind the heists - he's a nervous one always stuck in his shell like a real turtle. Bentley's always thinking of something when things go wrong, and he's always trying to keep the gang together. Murray's the tough one. He's not as smart as Bentley or Sly, and he's always thinking of destruction to solve problems. Murray's really funny too - a joke machine at times. At one point in the game, he says that when you're stuck and you don't know what to do, you follow the golden rule. And no, it's not "treat others the way you want to be treated" - it's break stuff. It's what makes Murray so laughable. The characters in this series are like no other - everyone is unique - even the criminal masterminds.
The replay value in this game is incredible. There's a split-screen mode, the unlock able abilities for the Cooper Gang, the concept art, master thief challenges, and tons of other stuff. It's enough to match Super Smash Bros. Sly 3 will take you about 40 hours to complete if you try to search for everything. Add all the collectible stuff and it's probably going to top 50 to 60 hours. But if there's one thing I like to exploit about a game, it's glitches. And this game is chock-full of them. I usually think of finding glitches as a mini-game, so if you try to find glitches it'll probably boost up to 80 or 90 hours. It's completely amazing how Sucker Punch added all this content into this game.
Alright, you've heard enough good. But what about the things that make this game seem unpolished and disappointing? Here's one: the glitches. Yes - the glitches is kind of a good and bad thing. It's kind of like a double-edged Master Sword. In Sly 3, there are so many glitches you can do in this game that it really makes it seem like Sucker Punch didn't spend enough time to polish this game up.
My acid test? Since the game's cut scenes (besides the cartoon ones) are all in-game, it is possible that things could go wrong. In one cut scene, the criminal mastermind was speaking with one of the goons in one of the in-game cut scenes, and then the mastermind was accidentally pushed off of the edge of a cliff and he died the same way if you take out a guard. Then the cut scene couldn't continue because the mastermind died in between one of his lines, so I was forced to reset the console and do that whole job again. It was ridiculous.
Another thing is how ridiculously easy or frustratingly hard the artificial intelligence is for the guards. Since the guards can hear noise like the screaming of guards or the smashing of a barrel, the guards will run to the area where they heard it - naturally, right? One time, I accidentally smashed an explosive barrel as Murray with my fist and it blew up. One of the guards - really, really far away - somehow heard it, and then started running all the way to the area where I had blown up the explosive barrel. Just how did that happen?
But that's enough criticism. Those two are the only issues I have for this game. Except for the fact that you can't skip in-game cut scenes or long-winded dialogue either. So that's three things, right? Everything else is well done - pretty much flawless in every other department.
Sly 3: Honor Among Thieves, despite its programming issues and long-winded cut scenes, emerges as a success in my eyes, and I think it's one of the greatest games for the Sony PlayStation 2. The story's beyond compare, the controls are responsive, the sound, music, and voice acting are solid, the character development is flawless, and the replay value is spot-on. Sly 3 is definitely a game you need to add to your Sony PlayStation 2 library.
The defense rests.