Hands On with Sly Cooper 2: Band of Thieves
Platforming stealth returns, and we sneak a peek at the E3 demo
Tags: Sly Cooper 2: Band of Thieves Categories: PS2 Previews, Previews
Posted by Jake McNeill on Jun 21st, 2004
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Sly Cooper and the Thievius Raccoonus quietly crept onto PS2s in 2002, and even though the big seller that holiday season, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, drew all the attention in the PS2 lineup, Sly Cooper still made a name for itself as a decent mascot platformer with stealth elements.
Sly took a break in 2003 while the other two big PS2 platforming franchises (Jak and Daxter and Ratchet and Clank) both received sequels, but this year all three series will be getting new installments, and between Jak 3’s free-exploring gameplay, Ratchet and Clank: Up Your Arsenal’s massive array of weapons and new online multiplayer mode, and Sly 2: Band of Thieves’ stealth elements, it seems PS2 owners with a hankerin’ for some platformin’ will have a plethora of options this holiday season.
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In Sly 2: Band of Thieves, the story begins with the creeping raccoon sneaking into a museum to try and steal the parts of his former nemesis, Clockwerck. Fearing that these parts might fall into the wrong hands and that Humpty Dumpty might be put back together again, Sly busts into the museum with the help of his pals Bentley the turtle and Murray the hippo. Bentley, a technology whiz with high-strung nerves, is the brains of the outfit, while Murray, who’s dressed himself like a comic book character and talks as though narrating his own epic tale, is the brawn.
Working his way into the museum, Sly comes to find that someone’s beaten him to the punch, and the parts have already been stolen. At this point, he’s ambushed by the foxy (pun intended) Inspector Carmelita, and her new protégé Constable Neela. After a quick exchange of words (and gunshots), Sly and his crew high-tail it out of there and begin to track down the Clockwerck parts, which appear to have been stolen by the mysterious Klaww gang.
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Going after members of the gang, Sly, Bentley and Murray cooperate to perform a series of heists. In particular, the demo shown at E3 had a level focusing on a nightclub owner and lounge lizard (of the literal kind… you know, with a tail and all) named Dimitri. In the first part, Sly tails him from his boat on the docks to his nightclub (with smart players taking to the rooftops to avoid gun-happy sentries patrolling the city). After this, players take control of Bentley, who must cripple the infrastructure of the nightclub to release a disco ball from its moorings (although just why isn’t exactly clear).
Bentley plays similarly to Sly, but isn’t nearly as versatile. To make up for this, he has a nice arsenal of weapons, including time grenades and a knockout dart gun. It’s also worth noting that Bentley’s animations are particularly hilarious, with him feebly swinging his dart gun to fend off enemies and generally looking kind of pathetic.
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After this, players go through a segment controlling Murray, who has to go around the city disabling alarms that could give our heroes away when pulling off the heist they’re setting up. Murray doesn’t have Sly’s versatile moveset or Bentley’s weaponry, but he does have a tough skin, the ability to pick up and throw objects, and much better fighting ability, and he’ll need it too, as in the process of destroying the alarms, he’ll be attracting a considerable amount of attention to himself.
This portion of the demo showed off one of the problems that will hopefully be cleared up by the time Sly 2 is released later this year. Sly 2’s combat system is designed so you automatically face the nearest enemy attacking you, making it easier to land a hit. Unfortunately, the demo Sony provided doesn’t let you break this lock-on, and as some enemies seem a bit overwhelming even for the likes of Murray (and especially for Bentley and Sly), the inability to effectively flee a battle feels like a large oversight.
The game will have different sections to make use of each character’s innate abilities, sometimes having you switch off between them throughout a level. Sly himself has a few new abilities as well, like the ability to pickpocket unwary enemies (something necessary to get into some areas undetected).
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Sly 2’s graphics don’t seem too different than those of the first game, featuring the same cel-shaded style and fluid animation. The game’s cutscenes have a kind of “Flash animation” look to them, and the game as a whole does a decent job of conveying the same “cartoony” theme of the first title.
Assuming developer Sucker Punch fixes some of the small problems the E3 demo has, Sly 2 is shaping up to be even better than its predecessor. We’ll know for sure when the game is released later this year.
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Tags: Sly Cooper 2: Band of Thieves
Posted by Jake McNeill on Jun 21st, 2004 and is filed under PS2 Previews, Previews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can post a comment, or trackback from your own site.
