PS2 Game Recommendations | mariteaux

[#] Sly 2: Band of Thieves (Sony, PlayStation 2, 2004)

Up the stakes, up the excitement, come out with a mighty fine thief game.

What do you do when you've already pulled off some master thievery? Go bigger! Sly 2: Band of Thieves is frankly the best of the trilogy, and that's a commonly held opinion, and it's not hard to see why. Sucker Punch cast off a lot of the "gamey" aspects that they were holding onto with the first game, the limited number of lives and the ultra-linear platformer levels, brought Murray and Bentley into the playable mix with their own unique playstyles. Add to that some seriously memorable hub worlds and music that'll get you in the master thief mood any day, and yeah, it's damn near perfect.

Having defeated the big bird that killed his father, Sly and the gang break into a museum in Cairo to steal the soulless, immortal machinery that Clockwerk had been replacing his body parts with in hopes of destroying them for good—only to discover the Klaww Gang had already stolen the parts! You now jet across the world, from France to India to Prague to Canada, to pull off large-scale heists against another batch of colorful criminals to steal Clockwerk back piecemeal. You go on stakeouts, you steal keys from guards, you interrogate generals, play Robotron to hack computers, trade shots with realass military tanks—all pretty standard thief stuff.

The writing is much improved and matured (though still very family-friendly) from the first game. Murray goes from a hapless dope to a badass raging hippo who can and will beat the everloving fuck out of a tiger spice lord, and Bentley, still cowardly, make things go boom with his genius array of gadgets. Each of the hub worlds are hugely memorable (if a little confusingly laid out sometimes), especially as you tear through the streets of Paris, pickpocketing patrolling mooks and stealing priceless works of art. A very fun adventure with tons of replayability, Sly 2 is a high watermark of PS2 platforming. Show your bling and let it shine you.