Sly 3: Honour Among Thieves review

Truly cinematic is the way this game begins: you start playing at a point very close to the story's end, and are dumped straight into the action with no tutorial. After button-mashing your way through to an apparent dead end, the titular Sly (who narrates all the cut-scenes) has a flashback to when the game's story started, and from there you continue playing in order to get back to the finale. The player's globetrotting journey traverses Venice, the Australian outback, the Netherlands, China and a pirate-infested archipelago in the Caribbean, picking up new allies on the way.Once again, Sly 3 is a cartoony (but by no means 'kiddy') stealth-cum-platformer fronted by talking animals. Though not as prolific as the PS2's other major platform offerings (Jak and Ratchet), it's a competent and humourous series with much to offer. The player's tasks will include pickpocketing guards, using the left analogue stick as the dial of a safe, examining things with a magnifying glass to find secret codes, and infiltrating enemy bases. The game's also more jam-packed than a pack of jam with - among other things - combat, vehicle chases, rock climbing and a Monkey Island-style insult contest.Fun as this title is (and less frustrating than Sly 2), for the most part it's all on the same old familiar ground. You are supplied with a hazard room full of training courses, but you'll only need this if you are a newcomer to the Sly series. Anyone who's played Sly 2 will know exactly what to do, as the control layout and even the HUD are absolutely identical (down to that stupid menu font, worse luck). However, gone from Sly 3 are the leisurely clue-collecting side quests - now it's action all the way through. Being able to replay any mission you've previously completed, and do bonus challenges to earn extras, sometimes makes the game seem like a string of minigames rather than an overall story, but it could be argued that this is no bad thing (see Incredible Crisis on the PSone).In the gang's quest to break into a heavily-guarded vault, Sly (gentleman thief), Bentley (jittery technohead) and Murray (happy-go-lucky muscleman) realise they must recruit more manpower for the heist. In total, there are an impressive five new playable characters, although you'll control them far less frequently than the main trio. The first addition to the team is Murray's mentor: an enigmatic purple koala known only as the Guru. Though too weak to fight by himself, he has the powers to disguise himself as part of the scenery in order to throw guards off his scent, and to possess enemies and ram them into walls (much fun!). The team also pick up Penelope the mouse (who seems to bear a fair resemblance to Coco Bandicoot), whom you won't actually control directly, but she does supply an impressive array of R/C gadgets. Former baddies Dimitri the narcissistic jive-talking iguana and the firework-toting Panda King see the light and lend their skills to the team, though neither of them are particularly fun to control (Dimitri's first-person underwater sections are mediocre, and the enjoyment of controlling a panda with a bucket full of explosives is marred by his bizarre controls). Though she's not part of the criminal crew, there are also a couple of sections when you control Sly's nemesis Inspector Carmelita Fox, who boasts a super-jump and a shock pistol.This game's a rarity within the console world in that it has sections displayed in full 3D, which require the supplied Dame Edna spectacles in order to be viewed properly. Sadly, if you're expecting an experience as exhilirating as an iMAX film, you'll be acutely disappointed (places like the iMAX use twin polarised-light projectors, with each lens of the glasses also polarised to correspond with one projector. Since television screens don't use projectors, the separation must be achieved with colour instead - see, Gamestyle is educational as well as fun). Sly's 3D certainly works, but everything is sepia-coloured, and the experience is nowhere near as immersive as that in a 3D cinema (unless you do have a screen umpteen metres wide), nor does it actually make gameplay any easier. Thankfully for some, every 3D section can also be played in normal mode, should you decide that the monochrome and subsequent eyestrain isn't worth it.Another rare thing about this game is that one of the lead characters is in a wheelchair - namely, Bentley the tortoise, who was crippled by the mecha-owl Clockwerk at the end of the last game. He's none the worse off for it, though - his iron chair of justice is souped up with rocket boosters and tranquiliser darts, and thanks to the addition of a magnet on a stick (really) he now shares Sly's pickpocketing abilities. Many of his sections will have you hacking computers via a frantic and very enjoyable top-down shooter with packets of code instead of bullets. Bentley is also the wielder of the fantastic grapple-cam, with which you can explore areas at no personal risk and distract and destroy enemies. This and Murray's new cannonball move really help to make these two characters stand out in their own right instead of just being watered-down versions of Sly.Some impressive set-pieces are on display in Sly 3: one particular standout is the glorious full 3D fight between Sly and General Tsao - which spoofs Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and House of Flying Daggers - as you and Tsao leap from treetop to treetop trying to attack each other in passing. Pure gaming that made Gamestyle smile with glee, as did the aerial dogfights in a biplane, taking on a fire-breathing Chinese dragon, and the sea battles against pirates (you can either sink their ships or plunder them for extra loot). This is easily the best incarnation of the Sly series. The main storyline is far too short, but it's fun, challenging and stylish, and there's so much variety it's amazing. The ending is rather poor but does hint at the possibility of a spin-off title for Bentley, so here's hoping Sucker Punch can regale us with their unique blend of gameplay once again.