Sly 2: Band of Thieves

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Sly 2 Band of Thieves
Developer(s)	Sucker Punch Productions
Publisher(s)	SCEA
Series	Sly Cooper
Engine	significantly modified Sly Cooper and the Thievius Raccoonus engine
Platform(s)	PlayStation 2
Release date(s)	NA September 14, 2004 EU October 29, 2004 JP June 16, 2005
Genre(s)	Platformer Stealth
Mode(s)	Single player
Rating(s)	ESRB: E (Everyone) PEGI: 3+ OFLC: G
Media	DVD

Sly 2 Band of Thieves is a PlayStation 2 video game by Sucker Punch and SCEA released in 2004. This title is a sequel to the game Sly Cooper and the Thievius Raccoonus and part of the Sly Cooper video game series.

The sequel has a variety of changes, particularly in level design, in which the ultimate goal, a "vault," occurs not per level, but per "world". Also, it takes more than one hit to kill both the Sly and the opponent. Other changes include the ability to control not only Sly, but also Bentley and Murray, who are given more skills as compensation, able to do much more than their more limited persons in the previous game. However, Sly remains the central focus and character despite these changes to character roles. Finally, new skills can be bought at a 'safehouse', as well as being unlocked by opening safes hidden in each world.

Music for the game was composed by Peter McConnell.

Story

Set two years after the events of Sly Cooper and the Thievius Raccoonus, the game begins as Sly and the gang attempt to infiltrate the Natural History Museum in Cairo, Egypt. The gang intends to recover and destroy the Clockwerk parts, which were salvaged from Russia and placed in the museum. However, the parts have been already stolen, and Carmelita Fox along with her new partner Constable Neyla turn up at the scene instead. Constable Neyla purposefully hints that the parts could have been stolen by a group of outlaws known as the Klaww gang, each member using a Clockwerk body part to aid his or her own personal conquest. After evading capture, Sly and the gang set out to find the missing parts, and destroy them.

Using the clue hinted by Neyla the gang travels to several different locations such as Paris and India to hunt down the Clockwerk parts, each part being used by a member of the Klaww gang to achieve his or her own ends. Sly is aided several times by Constable Neyla, who appears to have a personal stake in the Clockwerk parts' fate. Sly manages to retrieve the Clockwerk Tail Feathers from Dimitri 'head of operations' in the Klaww Gang and gets him arrested he also manages to get the Clockwerk Wings from Rajan an illegal spice trader also in the Klaww Gang however during a heist to recover the Clockwerk heart in India from Rajan, Neyla betrays the Cooper Gang and Rajan to the Contessa (a member of Interpol), leading to the capture of Sly, Murray, and Carmelita (who Neyla frames for conspiring with the Cooper Gang). Bentley was out of sight at the time and on his own was able to pull off a jailbreak for his partners and find out the Contessa was a secret member of the Klaww Gang.

Reunited, the gang sets about collecting the last of the Clockwerk parts resulting in the capture of the Contessa. However during the final operation at a canadian lumber camp the parts are stolen by the Klaww Gangs spice Transporter Jean Bison and stashed in the air fleet controlled by the Klaww Gang chief mechanic Arpeggio. The gang manages to infiltrate the fleet, though they are forced to sacrifice the team van, much to Murray's dismay. Once aboard the ship, Sly moves in to destroy the now reconstructed Clockwerk model. However, Neyla (who had been working as a plant at Interpol) betrays the Arpeggio and takes control of the Clockwerk body for herself, calling herself "Clock-La" and then crushes Arpeggio.

Clock-La plans to unleash a large shipment of the Klaww Gang's illegal spice above Paris (Arpeggio's plan originally). The spice, which causes the victim to become angry and bitter, will cover the entire city and power the Hate Chip, the central component of the Clockwerk body; if successful, this will cause Clock-La to become immortal, much like the original Clockwerk. After weakening Clock-La's power source onboard the air fleet Sly teams up with Carmelita to take her down, Sly and the gang manage to destroy the air fleet and Clock-La, though the struggle leaves the team exhausted and Bentley mortally wounded (it is later revealed that he is paralyzed from the waist down).

Rather than put up a fight, Sly surrenders himself to Interpol in exchange for letting Murray and Bentley go free. Sly is captured by Carmelita, who escorts him in a helicopter ride to jail. En route, the two chat for hours, finally free from the tension of playing "cops-and-robbers". Carmalita reveals a bottle of champagne that she had been saving for when she catches Sly. When they become suspicious because of the ride's length, they realize that the helicopter has been rigged to fly in circles for hours, a "parting gift" from Bentley and Murray. Sly takes this opportunity to escape, paragliding off into the night with the bottle, hearing Carmelita saying, "I'll find you Cooper" and "I'll be seeing you soon... Ringtail."

At the end of the credits, it shows Carmalita walk into her office, only to find the champagne bottle half empty, with Sly's calling card attached to it. It also showed what happened to each member of the Klaww Gang after they got out of prison. Dmitri became a very popular dance instructor on a cruiseline, Rajan started selling carpets, the Contessa became a very good realtor (because she hypnotized her customers) and Jean Bison became an agent for a rescue team....and got frozen in ice when he tried to rescue a group of baby penguins,

The hero of the game, Sly Cooper in a confrontation with an enemy

New Features

Sly 2: Band of Thieves brings several new gameplay elements into the fold. In addition to Sly, you can play as Bentley the Turtle and Murray the Hippo. Bentley follows a more cloak and dagger approach to stealth. He can't climb poles or jump very far but he is equipped with a sleeper dart crossbow and countdown bombs to subdue and defeat enemies one by one or sabotage enemy equipment. He can use his computer skills to hack villain's computers, bringing the player to a top down shooter-like mini-game. Murray is much more direct. His brute strength allows him to take on groups of strong enemies by himself with powerful hooks and upper cuts. He can pick up objects and enemies to throw around and his thunder flop can stun and destroy enemies. His strength allows him to help the gang with heavy duty tasks.

Each character now has a health bar and a special bar. Health is diminished every time the character gets attacked or hits a hazard etc. If it is depleted you must restart any mission you are on and respawn at another location. The orange mana bar depletes whenever a character uses a gadget move (some gadgets don't require mana use). If it hits zero, manual gadgets moves can not be used (things like the paraglider, trigger bomb and feral pounce etc. don't require mana and can be used even after the mana bar runs out). Some gadgets must be purchased in order to complete certian missions.

Missions are now connected to a main hub of the location Sly and the Gang are operating. A safehouse located in the hub is where the player can choose what character to use and get away from pursuing guards. This hub can range from a city to a lumber camp in the wilderness. Enemies prowl around this area although its usually a secluded spot, and there are no objectives until a character arrives at a mission beacon.

Another new feature is pickpocketing. When Sly sneaks up behind an enemy, he can reach out with his cane and grab coins out of their money pouch. The coins come in clusters, and they go directly to Sly's coin count. He does not need to pick them up. If there is an aura around an enemy's coin pouch, they are carrying an item. Once Sly gets all of their coins, he can grab the enemy's item and sell it later back at the safe house. Murray and Bentley can't pickpocket in this game, although the ability is available to them in Sly 3.

Most powerups and extra moves are now bought from the Safe House instead of safes. Using collected coins, Sly can buy powerups from an in-game online store for each character. Sly's powerups focus on stealth, Murray's on power and Bentley's on gadgets. Most powerups need to be assigned to a button, but some give a constant effect. Items stolen from guards can be sold for money in the safehouse to help fund for upgrades. Special upgrades and moves can be found after a number of clue bottles are found in the main hub and a hidden safe is unlocked with the code. Certian valuables can be found around the field and can be stolen then sold at the safe house for a large amount of money, this can range from portraits to vases etc.

The game also makes use of the Playstation 2's optional USB Microphone allowing the player to use the sound of his or her own voice to distract and attract in-game enemies. This in turn adds a new twist to the stealth elements, as the player has to refrain from noises such as talking or coughing or risk creating in-game noise. This feature first appeared in the game Manhunt, which was released a year earlier.

Reception

The game received generally positive reviews from numerous publications. Its varied gameplay, intricate story and unique graphics were praised, but criticised for its lack of difficulty and length when compared to other platformers.

• 9.2 out of 10 from IGN
• A from 1Up.com
• 8.4 out of 10 from Gamespot

It was awarded IGN's editor's choice award and GameSpy placed the game as #23 on their list of best Playstation 2 games of all time.