Lawrence.com

Lock your doors! Bar your windows! Hide the good China! Master thief Sly Cooper and the notorious Cooper Gang are back for one last heist on the Playstation 2 in Sly 3: Honor Among Thieves.

This time the boys are out to uncover the location of the Cooper family vault. Solving this mystery requires that Sly and his two main partners in crime, Bentley the turtle and Murray the hippo travel near and far in search of clues that reveal the vault's location and more importantly, how to open it.

As capable as Sly and his team are this job requires all the help they can get. So the team sets out across the globe to recruit team members that fit the specific skills they'll need to break into the impenetrable vault of Sly's namesake. Unlike its contemporaries (the Jak and Ratchet series) the Sly series avoids a vast, free-roaming world in favor hub areas in which a series of objectives are completed before Sly and the gang head to their next location.

This has always served the series well. Within a glance it's obvious what developers Sucker Punch had in mind in terms of the series' presentation. Sly 3 unfolds like a television show. The movement to a new locale starts a new episode in the adventure complete with introductory segments and title sequences. Further driving the point home are major details like the cel-shaded graphics and cartoony style as well as minor touches like the use of staccato music played during stealth moments.

Complimenting the game's visual style and presentation is well written, not to mention well-voiced dialog and a keen eye for facial expressions and unique mannerisms and the result is a cast of characters that are not only multi-dimensional (no pun intended) and memorable (I'm not sure which character steals more scenes Murray or Bentley).

Also memorable are many of Sly 3's missions. Building in complexity, at the outset of the game you switch between Sly for sneaking, fighting and reconnaissance and Bentley for hacking and code breaking. As the game progresses and additional characters join your team the missions incorporate more and more gameplay types. A mission in China finds Murray defending the Cooper Gang van from a wave of attackers. After you've held your ground on the first wave the game switches to Penelope, who uses her remote control helicopter to protect Murray from above as he drags the van to safety. When Penelope's RC copter has run out of power the Panda King steps in and mows down the final wave with a machine gun as Murray finishes dragging his precious van to safety.

Rarely do you ever play a mission straight through without any kind of change in gameplay whether it be through character swapping or a shift in gameplay mechanic. In one mission you take control of each of the three central characters during a bar fight with a bunch of Australian dingos. Another has you battling a ruthless Emperor Pigeon, Tsao, atop bamboo trees like something out of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Other missions incorporate vehicles like planes, dump trucks, and pirate ships. The result is a game with missions that almost never recycle and are, for the most part, fresh and engaging.

So what's the deal? Cool story, memorable characters and a great deal of mission variety. What's not to like, right? Well for starters everything positive about Sly 3 was in the last game. There's very little improvement. The improvements come in the form of the additional characters that lend themselves to more mission variety, but many of the missions become either hit or miss based on the inclusion of specific members of the cast.

Penelope's sections are a good example of this. Her specialty is RC toys so any time you have to use her it means either piloting a helicopter or driving the car and that's it. There's not many ways to incorporate those two skills into the game and when they are it derails much of the action or pacing the mission has established.

The Guru is another good example. His only ability is possession. So every time he is used it involves possessing enemies and running them head long into things like a downed blimp or the backdoor of a armored truck. Again, not very many ways to incorporate that feat into the game.

That said, Sucker Punch does add a couple of new items to Sly 3. The first is the introduction of two-player mode that is comprised of four mini-games found in Story Mode. Cops and Robbers has one player control Sly while the other controls Carmelita Fox, a police officer determined to catch him in the act. In this mode Sly has an objective to complete and it's Carmelita's job to kill him before he does so. Hackathon is based on Bentley's hacking mini-game. In it you battle inside the computer system in something reminiscent of Tron.

The final two minigames are Plane Duel and Galleon Duel. In these you face another player either in the skies or on the high seas. The game also includes a few missions that make use of 3D glasses that come packaged with the game. A good idea in theory, but I was never able to get the effects to work. Luckily you're given the choice of whether or not to use them before each mission.They're nice additions and anyone who's played the single-player will feel right at home, but the games feel more like bonuses than an actual mode. They're fun and they're a nice distraction after you've finished the Story, but that's about it.

Aside from that there are some minor camera issues and some framerate hiccups that occur every so often when there are multiple characters on screen or a large amount of particle effects. It's a minor fault, but a noticeable one. The game also includes a few missions that make use of 3D glasses that come packaged with the game. Luckily you're given the choice of whether or not to use them before each mission since the effect seems a little wonky.

While Sly 3 may not improve much over the previous titles it's a good thing the others were both strong since the linear approach may not create that much replay value. But when a game's characters and story are this good you'll likely find yourself replaying Sly 3 just for certain one-liners or any of the game's many fun missions.

Graphics: A-

Sound: A-

First Play: A

Last Play: B+

Gameplay: A

Overall: 93 A