Sly 2 - Band of Thieves - Review

Sly 2 - Band of Thieves was released in 2004 for Sony’s PlayStation 2 Computer Entertainment System. A follow-up to its similarly praised predecessor from two years prior, it shows leaps forward in graphics, sound, and gameplay unmatched by most second installments. The Sly series was a large part of my childhood, and this is widely considered the best out of the original trilogy. But how did this multi-million-selling series become a footnote of gaming history?

With the release of the PlayStation 2 that 3D Platformers absolutely exploded. Suddenly, they were everywhere - even more than on the Nintendo 64 (which had been home to Sucker Punch’s first game, Rocket - Robot on Wheels). With the influence of the past as well as games that were still new at the time (such as Jak and Daxter), Sucker Punch went to the drawing board and came up with Sly Cooper: a concept that borrowed not only from the evolution of platformers, but from the revolution of the stealth genre in Metal Gear Solid. They went from one-off Ubisoft developers to a second-party developer for the best selling console of all time.

For Sly 2, Sucker Punch ramped up the openness and freedom of movement along with the stealthiness. In accordance with trends of the time, stemming from the Grand Theft Auto series, Sly 2 took a semi-open world approach just as Jak II did about a year prior. Some Episodes (miniature open worlds) lack a final boss at all - and to me, as a kid, that was mind blowing. You already won, so why bother fighting? Now, you didn’t have to.

Sly 2 is a rather unique game in the platformer genre, as is the rest of the Sly series. The core component to its gameplay (looking past the given tropes of platforming such as jumping, running, and platforms) is its stealth mechanics. The player - whether controlling Sly, Bentley, or Murray - is encouraged to avoid dangerous enemy guards by navigating via rooftop, ledge, or even tightrope. Each movement feels precise and satisfying when playing as Sly, appropriately floaty when playing as lightweight Bentley, and heavier when playing as Murray (a literal hippo).

The route to take is often up to the player - which means there are better routes than others. For example, a job in the third overworld level requires Sly to transport a bug to the antagonist’s office to spy on him. The catch: it’s a literal bug - and it doesn’t like to be out of water. The game directs the player to quickly transport the insect from pool to pool along a path to keep it from making loud noises and attracting the attention of the guards, but there’s another way: a network of vines runs across the treetops. Following them, the player can avoid guards entirely and finish without ever touching most of the pools of water.

What immediately jumps out on the first play is the stunning visual design. Sly 2 is lightly cel-shaded, giving every character an appearance reminiscent of a comic book - black outlines and a subtle stippled appearance to the textures make every screenshot appear as though it comes right out of a comic book. Well, to an extent, anyway - the original release’s 480i resolution holds back visuals considerably, and the character animations in cutscenes seem somewhat stilted by today’s standards.

Despite this, colors are bright when they want to be and dark when they need to be, providing an atmosphere appropriate to the narrative and its twists and turns. Sly 2 uses the low-poly capabilities of its platform to its benefit with an angular aesthetic, and it runs at a smooth 60 frames per second on PlayStation 2 hardware, meaning that every move feels smooth as butter (Note: For this review, I am playing the PlayStation Vita port of the game, which has performance issues and runs at only 30 FPS at best).

In addition, the entire soundtrack is masterfully executed by Peter McConnell. Sneaking up on an enemy drops the volume of the music and plays a sneaky bass note for every step; being sighted by an enemy raises the tempo and adds instruments to the mix to convey violent chaos. Cutscenes between levels are done in a modestly animated but very stylized way, bridging the gap between comics, cartoons, and games all at once. Sly’s narration mimics the style of those in comics, which the series is no stranger to - after all, there are two Sly comic books that were released between the first and second game and the second and third game, respectively.

Without spoiling it, the Cooper Gang goes on a string of heists to steal the Clockwerk Parts - robotic components of Sly’s despicable rival who was defeated in the previous game. Sly 2 shows direct influence from films like Ocean’s Eleven; one example occurs in the first level: after prep work over the course of various missions (including reconnaissance and disabling a security system), Bentley can initiate Operation: Thunder Beak. Instantly, the serene ambiance of Paris is replaced by bombastic heist music as the Cooper Gang plays out the pre-orchestrated plan of attack, to pull down the large sign on the front of the target nightclub and make a hole in a fountain that leads to the printing press room from whence the desired Clockwerk Tail Feathers can be snatched.

This game is often considered the best of the series for a reason. It isn’t necessarily for the graphics and music - Sly 3 is debatably better in that regard. It isn’t for the gameplay - although when the gameplay is good it’s very good, recon missions and pickpocketing can get repetitive. No, the plot really is the main appeal here: it’s well written with interesting twists and fleshed out characters. Being less than interactive doesn’t really lessen this narrative: sometimes, you don’t want to make difficult moral decisions when playing a game - sometimes, you just want to get to rob a train. At the same time though, the gameplay really is weak at times, and there’s only about 16 hours of gameplay to experience. You can mess around with the mega jump cheat code for a couple hours after that, but replayability isn’t really there. It’s about as replayable as a movie is rewatchable.

So why is the Sly series so obscure now? Why do so few people remember it? Simple: the marketing was weak. I certainly never saw any of the commercials back in the day, and if I hadn’t come across Sly 3 in Best Buy, I could have gone ages without knowing it even existed. The people who remember Sly are the people who played it, and while that was a sizeable chunk of gamers in 2004, it isn’t in 2018 - a year of mobile games, MOBAs, Fortnite - all things with so much more appeal to the masses, so much more peer pressure to play with friends online. In terms of quality, though? I think Sucker Punch has those games beat with anything from their catalog.

Score: 8.5/10