Raccoons have become world-renowned as the chief-thief of the animal kingdom. From goldfish to the contents of your "trash can" they will nick anything that is not nailed down, as long as it is at least slightly edible. It is no surprise, then, that this fantastic cross between Thief, Tenchu and your typical Zoo has selected a Raccoon, aptly named Sly, as its chief protagonist.

This is Sly's second appearance so it has the name of the good solid platformer Sly Raccoon to live up to, I have not played Sly Raccoon myself but if Sly 2 is anything to go by it must have been a fantastic game - that said sequels can be a thousand times better, a thousand times worse or just the same old thing recycled. Suffice to say that after experiencing Sly 2 any player of the original, and any new player alike will be hopelessly addicted in no time.

It goes without saying that the whole game is orientated around nicking things, but Sly is not your average thief, rather a thief with a goal and a heroic one at that. Sly and his friends, Murry the Hippopotamus (The Brawn) and Bentley the Turtle (The Brains) form the Cooper gang who have taken it upon themselves to rid the world of the component parts of Clockwerk, a peculiar villain in the sense that he/it might well be the first great enemy in a game not actually capable of doing any fighting - not least of all because he is in pieces spread around the world, all of which seem to have been acquired by some unsavoury characters and used in sinister plots and undertakings. Of course none of these unsavoury characters are going to give up their Clockwork parts without a fight, so the Cooper gang must plot and plan to steal them.

The game is divided into bite size chapters each of which focus on the acquisition of a particular Clockwork part. These chapters see you exploring very large free-roaming environments and undertaking various missions as one of the three playable characters. Suffice to say Sly 2 is one of the most well put-together games I have seen in a long time, your missions vary from espionage to sabotage with the ultimate goal of setting up the big heist to capture a Clockwerk part. Stealing isn't the only thing on the minds of the Cooper gang, however, the involving plot has plenty of twists which blossom into additional mission goals, l will not go into any more detail for fear of making this a spoiler, suffice to say there is never a dull moment in Sly 2.

The developers clearly know that a good story is not worth its salt unless it is well told. Every effort has been made to make Sly 2 the apex of the Comic-book Crime thriller; from excellent voice acting and animation to dramatic music and flowing gameplay Sly 2 is masterfully constructed.  The characters are all cartoon-styled and brought to life with very simple but effective facial expressions. They are all animated well, from Sly's careful sneaking walk and flowing bushy tail to Murray's lumbering gait and Bentleys awkward waddle the little things make the characters unique, interesting and believable. Sly 2 would, in fact, translate very well into a cartoon, but as a game is much more rewarding.

In fights you will notice a little helping of “classic Batman” with “pow”, “blam”, “thwack”, and other words appearing above your enemies heads whilst you are dealing out the pain. This is an extremely nice touch and contributes well to the overall comic book theme. The introductions to each chapter are told in a slide-by-slide comic book presentation forgoing the commonly used FMV sequences that we are used to today, events within the game simply use the game engine as is almost standard these days, character and environment graphics have advanced to such a point as to make it unnecessary to cut to video so that people can understand what is going on and see emotional reactions and detailed animations.

The cartoony graphics of the game are the classic approach for this genre, the huge levels are well detailed and Sly can make use of many pieces of scenery to sneak his way from A to B. Amongst other things you can hide under tables, run along ropes, scale drainpipes and sidle across ledges, making Sly one of the most dexterous and fun platformer characters  to play since Pitfall. Everything you can interact with in a level is indicated clearly, which is very useful but does highlight the fact you are only playing a game and do not really have the freedom to use your imagination when interacting with the environment.

The strengths of each character come into play in different missions, as the brawn Murray is not as nimble as Sly, but there are plenty of uses for his brute strength and superior fighting ability. As the brains Bentley is hopeless in close combat, and not particularly stealthy, but his skills are essential for hacking, disabling security systems and surveillance. Bentley also has a nifty crossbow with which he can put enemies to sleep at long range before running up and blowing them away with a deftly placed bomb.

The range of characters further enhance the range of missions, from Sly's sneaking to Murray's heavy lifting to the mini-games you get to play as Bentley, the game has something for everyone and is multiplayer in the sense you will soon be passing your controller to a friend so that they can “have a go” at the hacking or RC chopper mini-games. You heard me, “hacking” and “RC chopper”. Every time Bentley needs to hack his way into something you are presented with an interesting little game where you must pilot a small ship/tank in a 2d top-down arena. Your goal is to make it to a lock contraption which you move into to activate, in order to do so you must blast away barriers whilst fending off enemy ships which both charge at you and shoot at you. You use the analogue sticks to do this, one to move and one to shoot, by pressing in the direction you want to move or shoot. You will encounter the RC Chopper mini-game quite a few times, providing air-support and taking out specific ground targets, using the analogue stick to move around you can then drop bombs or fire missiles to achieve your goal.

From the moment you first pick up Sly you will almost certainly become solidly addicted. With “free roaming” being the biggest buzzword in the gaming industry since “3d graphics” it is no surprise that the game is reasonably open ended from an exploration point of view. There are often different routes to your goal although the actual sequence of missions remains linear. It would have been nice to see some alternative solutions to each chapter, giving you the choice to select a different strategy or perhaps even puzzle out the solutions by yourself instead of having the super-smart Bentley dictate them to you. Of course, this would make the game a lot more difficult and a lot less open to all age groups but at the same time a little more freedom of choice is always appealing. The mission-by-mission structure of Sly is good enough, however, and you will not find yourself pining too much for freedom of choice, the games replay value is severely limited although there are one or two secrets to uncover in the form of Safes which can only be opened if you collect a certain number of clues from bottles scattered throughout each area. The missions themselves are not always straight forward and require plenty of your skill, dexterity and intelligence to beat – you will find yourself doing everything from avoiding traps in catacombs, to using those traps against your enemy, to sneaking around in barrels full of dynamite and using them to blow up security fences. Throughout each area there are usually plenty of things to smash up and steal from, you can also pickpocket enemies and grab special items. When you go back to your hideout loot can be sold on Thief-Net and you can buy upgrades for your characters in the form of new special moves and gadgets. Being able to buy things seems to be pretty standard in platformers these days. However like Ratchet & Clank 3, Sly 2 makes collecting all that money worthwhile and, in some cases, necessary.

At the end of each chapter you will find yourself fighting the crime lord you are stealing the Clockwerk part from, the bosses are extremely varied and you will find yourself playing different characters in the final battles of each chapter. A fine, but extremely frustrating, example is where you must jump from post-to-post with sly whilst a half-crazed tiger uses a supercharged clockwerk-part staff to send bolts of lighting streaming down the post tips toward you. I was not counting at the time, but it took a fair few tries to get Sly up to him at which point there was a brief turn of events which ends up placing Murray in an arena with the same boss for a serious heavy-weight showdown.

Overall Sly 2 is an extremely varied game, like the classic Thief with a dash of Tenchu and a fair bit of Metal Gear Solid thrown in for flavour only translated beautifully into a stylised cartoon theme. If you are a fan of platformers and a fan of sneak-em-ups then you have no reason not to pick up Sly 2 immediately. If you cannot forego cartoon graphics to enjoy great games then shame on you.